Parents, have you lost your rhythm of rest? My life rhythms are way off, like songs of unrelieved dys-syncopation. I envy those with natural rhythm… I have just enough to embarrass myself when I step out of my baptist roots and try to dance. I get really excited, like bass drummer, Lou Russ in Mr. Holland’s Opus, when he actually finds the beat. With schedules all topsy turvy, life rhythms are not right, I’m having trouble remembering what day of the week it is and when I look at the clock, I’m often surprised when my guess is off by hours. At noon, I realize I’m still unshowered, unshaven, and in my pajamas and at night I’m still awake at Midnight.
Someone reminded me recently, that the Hebrew day begins and ends at sundown, so the day actually starts with rest. Rest is as important as activity. Rest can also feel like a reward for the sufficiency of our daily efforts. But, rest comes hard when we don’t believe our efforts are sufficient. It may be one of the reasons we exhaust ourselves and our children in so many activities. Hoping that, somehow, all that we have engaged in makes us okay. Our sufficiency comes from how much our all sufficient God loves us, not from our own efforts.
God gives us resting rhythms not only each day but each week. His efforts in creation were perfectly sufficient. Genesis 2:1-3 (CSBBible) says, “So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.”
These words from the creation story foreshadow God’s sufficient work of redemption. Today is the 7th Day of Holy Week, when we remember that the body of Christ is in the Tomb. On the 6th day, Jesus proclaimed from the cross “it is finished” or “paid in full.” His work of death on the cross was sufficient to pay the price for the sins of the World. On the 7th day Christ rested from His work of redemption. He had accomplished God’s forgiveness and validation for all who would believe. He had paid the price for sin. Sunday was coming, the 8th Day or 1st day of the week, the Resurrection was coming, making all things new… Bringing new life to the whole world, but today, the 7th Day there was rest, a reward from Christ’s all sufficient work to save us.
We will all have to fight against the life-dysrhythmia that this pandemic brings… but it's a good opportunity for us to find a healthy rhythm of rest when life gets back to a new normal. We need to remember that God’s work in us is sufficient and we can rest when it is time to rest, so we can emerge from rest with new energy, joy, and life for the new days ahead.
Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for you all.
