Text for the Week: Prepared to Rest

Scripture: Hebrews 4:1-13

Therefore, since the promise that we can enter into rest is still open, let’s be careful so that none of you will appear to miss it. ² We also had the good news preached to us, just as the Israelites did. However, the message they heard didn’t help them because they weren’t united in faith with the ones who listened to it. ³ We who have faith are entering the rest. As God said,

And because of my anger I swore:
        “They will never enter into my rest!”

And yet God’s works were completed at the foundation of the world. ⁴ Then somewhere he said this about the seventh day of creation: God rested on the seventh day from all his works. ⁵ But again, in the passage above, God said, They will never enter my rest! ⁶ Therefore, it’s left open for some to enter it, and the ones who had the good news preached to them before didn’t enter because of disobedience. ⁷ Just as it says in the passage above, God designates a certain day as “today,” when he says through David much later,

Today, if you hear his voice,
        don’t have stubborn hearts.

⁸ If Joshua gave the Israelites rest, God wouldn’t have spoken about another day later on. ⁹ So you see that a sabbath rest is left open for God’s people. ¹⁰ The one who entered God’s rest also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own.

¹¹ Therefore, let’s make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience, ¹² because God’s word is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the point that it separates the soul from the spirit and the joints from the marrow. It’s able to judge the heart’s thoughts and intentions. ¹³ No creature is hidden from it, but rather everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we have to give an answer.

Questions

1. What does “rest” mean in this passage and how is it open to us?
2. What is the connection between faith and rest that the passage is trying to highlight?
3. What is God’s word in verse 12 and how does it relate to the theme of rest in the rest of the passage?

Background

Related Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 23, 92, 95; Isaiah 56:1-8; Mark 2:23-28

“Be careful” is a more dynamic translation of the verb “be afraid” and accurately reflects the use here where the author wants us to focus on the goal of the Christian life, rest, in a way that leads us to concern for our life’s walk but not a fear of God or consequences.

The rest that is in view in the passage is a sabbath rest and so it is not a place or a time only but a way of resting in God.

The sense of the passage is that God’s place of rest was established at creation, it is the Garden, and it is open to us and waiting for us to walk in and claim it as our home.

Reflection

I love Abraham Heschel’s definition of Sabbath as “an island in time”, an isolated event meant to provide grounding in the sea of an otherwise chaotic life. You might think by that definition that I am simply speaking of the fast paced nature of the modern world and the need to take a second to catch one’s breath. While it is certainly true that the frenetic pace of the modern world does impact us and we all need an escape from time to time, that is not exactly what it means to enter Sabbath rest. In Exodus 20 God tells Israel to maintain a weekly Sabbath in honor of God and as a way of following God’s example. The Sabbath was meant to ground the lives of ancient Israelites in a weekly routine that culminated in rest and rejuvenation. Sabbath was not about giving Israel a day off it was about giving humanity a purpose, which is why Jesus says, “the sabbath was made for people not people for the sabbath.”

The problem is that as people we have the consistent temptation to place walls up on our lives for what does and does not constitute work and so force people to live for the Sabbath instead of making it what it is, a celebration of our love for God and God’s love for us. This is what Jesus faced when he uttered those words in Mark 2:27 and what communities did when they enacted Blue laws that limited work on Sundays. The reason such attempts are wrong and ultimately fail is because those enforcing the rules what to define Sabbath by what you cannot do instead of teaching people the purpose and meaning of Sabbath. Sabbath is about resting, not simply physically taking a break but taking ourselves out of the position of control. Sabbath is about saying that I will trust God enough that one day a week I am going to rest with God and expect that God will be my provision. Sabbath is not about doing nothing, it is about entering into God’s time. Sabbath is intentionally leaving the watery chaos of the world for the dry land of God’s island and participating with God in island living. Sabbath is not about ceasing activity but about entering a new type of life that operates by different rules. This way of life is in line with how God designed the world to function in Eden rather than the demands of modern human society. And entering into this rest is what Jesus came to offer. This is the point Hebrews is making, that in the way of life offered by Jesus we have access to this rest, both here and now and in eternity. We as believers are learning to revolve our lives around the provision and protection of Jesus.

Now this is where the importance of keeping Sabbath comes in, because it is not merely enough to wake up one day and say one is dedicating it as a Sabbath. Sabbath is about keeping a routine and preparing for and maintaining a lifestyle. And a lifestyle of Sabbath is one that prepares to enter the rest of Sabbath, Sabbath is about structuring one’s week so that when you arrive on the island of time that is Sabbath you are prepared to trust God. Sabbath keeping begins in the preparation for keeping the Sabbath. When we love people we prepare our lives to be with those people, and the more we love people the more our schedules are structured around their presence. Keeping Sabbath is about demonstrating our love for God in that we are preparing our week so that we can enter God’s time of rest un-distracted by the concerns of the remainder of life. We plan our meals, our work, our chores, so that these things do not interrupt us from God’s presence during our rest. This does not mean that our time on Sabbath is unoccupied or dull, but that our Sabbath is dedicated to the kinds of things that give us life and joy while leading us into God’s presence.

The ancient Israelites failed to appreciate this element of Sabbath and it became a time of strict guidelines that led people away from God. What Hebrews wants us to understand is that when we dedicate ourselves to Jesus we can begin to better appreciate the idea of God’s rest and so enter Sabbath more easily because we understand it is an anticipation of the eternal rest to come. As we prepare for and maintain Sabbath we are demonstrating our love for God and our desire to prioritize life with and in God and so making ourselves ready for eternity.