Resting

By Pastor R

I asked Debbie to give me a picture of herself about thirty years ago. She was a school teacher then and the picture was a standard 2x3 size. Looking at that picture day after day was probably the closest I have ever come to idolatry. I would look at that picture in the morning and in the evening and think about her. I looked at the picture because I wasn’t with the real person.

The day came when Debbie became my wife. Since then I haven’t spent that much time with the picture. When I am away, I may glance at the picture. She hasn’t changed very much at all. She is still beautiful to me. I find that picture incomplete and unsatisfying. Why? Because when the reality came, I had no more use for the picture.

When Jesus Christ came, our Sabbath Rest, we believed and entered into Sabbath Rest. God, from the very beginning, showed us how to finish His work and then rest. When we believe, we rest from our works, just as God rested from His works, and enter into His rest. The Sabbath is merely a picture that looks back to the beginning and forward to the future. We rest in the finished work of Christ.

Colossians 2:16,17 says …Do not let anybody judge you by… a Sabbath. These are a mere shadow of the things that were to come: the reality, however, is found in Christ.

With that being said, we need as individuals, couples, families, a community, to Sabbath. I have been trying over the last two months to stop doing what I normally do, to rest, to delight and contemplate on the Sabbath. My Sabbath begins at 6 p.m. on Sunday and lasts until 6 p.m. on Monday. Since I am normally with people, on the Sabbath, that is Monday morning, I will normally ride my bike in the Middletown countryside for about two hours. I think I feel closest to God when I am outside enjoying a gentle stream, riding underneath a tree canopy or seeing a great blue heron stirred.