Last night, as if on cue, the cicadas began their summer
serenade. I love their mechanical, monotonous, lullaby-like whirring, welling
up at dusk on a heat-laden summer evening. From my childhood it has been a
sound bound tightly to all that is summer – a chorus signifying the return of stillness,
an invocation to rest, rest, rest.
After nine months of school, activities and friends, the four
Wilkin kids are once again fully present in our home. Our summer will be marked
by some travel (cousins who need to enjoy our company), some learning (good
books to be read, good recipes to try), and some household chores that never
seem to get done during the school year (it cannot be an accident that the
number of dirty windows in my home divides neatly by four). But the highest
item on our summer agenda, and the one we all look forward to the most, is
rest. There will be time to listen to the cicadas.
Here is a remarkable thing about the Christian faith: we
have a God who commands us to rest. Our God commands us to hold still, to cease
from labor, to actively enter into repose – not merely as a means to regain our
strength, but as an act of worship.
The gods of other religions and the god of self, these demand
ceaseless toil. To please these gods, worshippers work incessantly at the
business of self-denial, approval-seeking, pilgrimage - repeated rites that
strive to prove the worth of the supplicant and earn the favor of the deity.
Those who seek the approval of lesser gods commit themselves
to a course of utter exhaustion.
But not the Christian. In our obedient observance of rest,
the work of our Savior is understood most clearly. We rest not as an attempt to
earn his approval, but as an assent
that his approval has already been earned in the sun-going-down, Sabbath-initiating
work of Christ on the cross. Christ worked that we may rest. He, in a gathering dusk, exhaling the first note of a blood-bought chorus of infinite rest.
The God who grants us soul-repose commands our worship in
the form of bodily rest. As with all worship, the worshipper is blessed in his
obedience. He finds himself restored and ready to resume the effort of tilling
his corner of the garden once again. More importantly, he finds himself
reminded that both the garden and the one who tills are contingent and derived,
depending every moment on the sustaining breath of the Creator. He is thereby mercifully
relieved of his idolatrous, exhaustion-breeding belief that the work of his
hands upholds the universe in part or in whole.
This is a good and timely reminder for our family.
Nothing obstructs our ability to fulfill the Great Command like
exhaustion. In the daily busyness of
life-as-usual, the love of many grows cold. But the rest the Lord ordains for
His people is a communal rest, a rest that places them in company with one
another, hands emptied of labor, minds emptied of cares. Because emptied hands
can deal the next round of spades, or make a dandelion chain, or pass around
the popsicles. And emptied minds can join in the conversation bubbling up from
the back of the minivan.
Love grows warm once again in the emptied spaces of rest. We
remember our love for the One who sustains us, we recall our love for the ones
who surround us. Worshipful rest is that which renews our love for God and for
others. It is the rest that restores our souls.
Summer is, for our family, a time when the worship of work
gives way to the worship of rest. We will not fill these precious days with
more ways to be distracted, exhausted and pulled in a thousand directions. The evensong
of the cicadas invites us to join in the worship of loving God and each other
with renewed intent, awash with gratitude that our souls find rest in the
finished work of Christ.
Well did Shakespeare observe that “summer’s lease hath all
too short a date.” Before we know it, the season of work will return to claim
its laborers. So we will heed the invocation of the cicadas to rest, rest, rest – knowing that our rest
here is as vital as it is brief, longing for that future rest when our Sabbath-song
of worship, once raised, will redouble and reverberate across eternity.
I finally had a chance to sit down and read this today...as laundry piles up, beds are unmade and dishes accumulate in the sink. But I think sitting out in God's creation and resting might be on the schedule now. =) Thanks for this encouraging and thought-provoking reminder!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love your sharing. Thank you for helping busy working moms like me to learn to rest...
ReplyDeleteReally enjoy your blog as a whole, Jen! This post was especially challenging for me as I struggle to accept the rest of summertime. I need this reminder that God created rest and that He does not want me to hurry up and fill all my free time with more tasks. He wants me to sit and be with him and take time to really pay attention to and care for the people He's placed around me. Thank you!
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