Mark 9:2-9 "Meekness & Majesty"

My high school had a practice of sending each freshman class off for a week every fall for a hiking trip through the Cascade Mountains. It was an opportunity for us to bond as a class and get to know each other better. I had one classmate in particular whom I did not get along with at all in seventh and eighth grade. We were always at each other’s throats, usually figuratively. Yet during this hiking trip we became friends and, though we never made a big deal out of spending time together, we got along in a way that would have seemed impossible when we were in junior high.

The terrain of our hiking trip was such that we went up two mountains on the five-day trip. The first and second day found us always going up… up up up. On the third day we found ourselves on a mountaintop, we spent a bit of time there and then descended to a valley and a lake which is where we spent our third night. On the fourth day we went up another mountain, and then descended it that same day and hiked out on the fifth day. So the terrain of our trip was mountaintop, valley, mountaintop, end. It was a lot of work getting up those mountains. We were out of shape and not used to carrying everything with us and the second day in particular was pretty miserable. But then we got to the top of the mountain and the misery disappeared. As I looked out at the world around me and saw the beauty of God’s creation, I was ready to set up camp and spend the night there. I was having a mountaintop experience and I didn’t want to leave it. But, alas, that is precisely what we had to do. When Thursday came and we began to move upwards again, I could hear my body begin to complain about what I was going to put it through. But because I knew what was in store for me at the top of the climb, the climb became much easier.

And again, when we reached the top of the mountain, we were blown away by the beauty of the terrain in front of and behind us. Again, I would have loved to have stayed there, and perhaps would be there to this day if I had had any say about it. But again, as our journey moved us onward, we descended that mountain and went on to the next stage of our journey.
In today’s scripture, Peter wanted to stay at a mountaintop experience. He was experiencing something that was very special and holy to him and he wasn’t ready to let it go. But he discovered that we cannot always live in those moments of sheer grace. We need to move forward in our lives and see where next God is leading us.

I. Transfigured

The scripture we read this morning truly is a mountaintop experience. It is a place where Jesus is seen in all his glory. It is an opportunity for Peter, James and John to see Jesus in full majesty instead of just seeing him in meekness. It is actually quite amazing, and different than most of the rest of Jesus’ ministry. Throughout his ministry Jesus is showing his power in different ways. He calms the sea, he heals the sick, he casts out demons. Throughout his ministry we see Jesus use his power as the Son of God to help those around him. We realize that there is a deeper purpose to what he does as well, though. For he often makes a point of saying that the reason he is healing and helping those around him is so that they will listen to his message.

But here, like with Jesus’ baptism, we see something special in Jesus and his relationship with the Father. Here his power isn’t used to help others, here it is about him and God. Here a voice comes from heaven proclaiming Jesus as God’s Son. And then there is the fact that Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus. This is of extreme importance to the Christians in the early church and helps them to realize what to do with their understanding of the Old Testament. You see, Moses and Elijah were the greatest of the Law and the Prophets. Tradition had it that the first five books of the Bible, what we often refer to as the Pentateuch, what Jewish tradition refers to as Torah, was all written by Moses. Moses is the one who wrote down the Torah, the Books of the Law. And here was Jesus, talking with Moses, having a conversation, on equal footing.

And Elijah was regarded as the greatest of the prophets. Elijah was regarded so highly that it was believed that Elijah would return to prepare the people for the Messiah. And here was Jesus, talking with Elijah, having a conversation, on equal footing. These three disciples saw that Jesus was talking with the Law and the Prophets. The disciples saw that Jesus was something special. At another point in the gospels, Jesus says he didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to complete them. This seems a bit egotistical and over the top. It makes sense to us today for we know the whole story, we know who Jesus really is. But to his disciples of the day it would be hard to take this word from Jesus seriously. But for these three disciples who went to the mountaintop with Jesus, it perhaps made a bit of sense.

And so, here we see that Jesus is in good company. The disciples are shown how important Jesus really is. It gets even better, for there is a voice that comes down out of heaven telling the disciples that Jesus is God’s Son, whom he loves. And the voice also gives Peter and the disciples a command, “Listen to him.” For God it is not enough that the disciples have experienced this great wonder, they are given a responsibility because of what they experienced. Their responsibility is to listen to Jesus. It has been confirmed to them that Jesus is special. He is at least on par with the Law and Prophets, he is God’s son… listen to him.

And so, with all this going on, Peter gets this great idea: Let us put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.

II. Stay

Peter has seen something special and he wants to remain in the moment, he wants to stay. I am built a bit like that myself. At my college we would have a worship service each Thursday night that we could go to. It was voluntary, and it was a very contemporary style service, just an opportunity to sing praises to God. There wasn’t a sermon, though there was often scripture read. There was also a time of prayer during the service. The service also quite often became very deep. In college everything seems so much more serious than it really is and people would often show up for the service with heavy hearts. We would gather together and worship and sing and pray and you could watch people move out of their problems and difficulties and enter into God’s presence. It truly felt that we were in God’s presence quite regularly at this service. And then the service would be over. I would be making my way out of the room we were in and start working my way back to my dorm. I would often be quite contemplative, savoring the experience that we had just had. I was shocked that others could go right from that deep worship experience to goofing around and chatting. It didn’t make sense to me at all. I was wanting to remain in the moment and they were already far from the worship we had just had. It still doesn’t totally make sense to me when I think about it.

I realize, though, that I was being a bit like Peter. I was wanting to remain in the moment. I wasn’t ready to move on and integrate that moment with the rest of my life. Now, honestly, I believe many of the other students who would horse around after the worship service were dropping out of the moment too fast, and not allowing it to have any impact on the rest of their lives, but there has to be some sort of middle ground.

Peter wanted to remain on the mountain. He wanted to live in the splendor and glory. He wanted to bask in Jesus’ majesty and allow himself to be overwhelmed by it. He wanted to enjoy the fact that his Rabbi, his teacher was talking with Moses of the Law and Elijah of the prophets. He didn’t want to go back to the real world. Like I said, I understand this desire. It’s partially what makes me look forward to heaven, for that will be a place where I can bask in the majesty of Jesus to my heart’s content.

But that moment on the mountain was not something that could continue for Jesus, or for Peter. It was something that needed to come to an end so that Jesus could continue with everything else he had left. Jesus had to let go of the majesty that was present there so he could give into the meekness that was shown at the cross. And Peter could not stay here with the shelters to commemorate this moment, he needed to follow Jesus back down the mountain and do the very thing that God had called him to do, listen to Jesus.

We all have moments in our lives where the things of God seem so very clear. We all also have times where everything is so very murky. We long to stay in those moments where Jesus and his truth are so plain before us, but this is not the world we live in. Instead we are called to journey through the valleys. We are called to move from one mountain peak to another, having highs in our lives and having lows. But those highs, those mountaintops, give us the strength we need to make it through the valleys. When we begin to question where it is that God is leading us we can remember the time that it was so very clear before us. I am sure that there were times leading to the cross where Peter began to doubt whether he was doing the right thing in following Jesus. We think the disciples believed that Jesus was going to physically save Israel from their Roman masters. They were expecting a political messiah and not a spiritual one. When things seemed to turn on them as Jesus was taken prisoner and crucified, I wonder whether Peter doubted who Jesus was. I’m sure he did. But I am also sure that he was able to go back to that time on the mountaintop, with Moses and Elijah, with the voice from the cloud saying “This is my son” and he remembered that Jesus was God’s Son, the Messiah.

Remembering the time on the mountain did not make life easier during that difficult time. It did not answer the question of what was really happening with Jesus. We know that none of the disciples really got what the crucifixion and resurrection were really about until Jesus himself explained it to them, showing them the holes in his hands and in his side. When Jesus died, they all thought that was the end. But they stayed together. They spent time in prayer. And I believe that this is in part due to that time they had on the mountaintop with Jesus, seeing him full of majesty.

When we go through difficult times, what do we hold on to? Are we able to remember back to times when Jesus was just so very real in our lives? Are we able to accept the valleys because of the great mountaintops that we have been on? Our journeys are all different, they each have their own road. God leads us each through our own mountains and valleys. But we can all trust that our journey is leading us to him and we can trust that even when we are walking through the valley of shadow, God is with us. We may not see or feel him. He may not seem as strong as the things around us. But he is. He is the Lord and maker of all. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the First and Last. He is the one who appeared as a tiny baby to a couple far from their home. He is the one who did not rely on earthly possessions to make it in this world but traveled throughout the land teaching and healing. He is the one whose greatest victory seemed at the time to be his biggest defeat. And he is the one who appeared on the mountain, transfigured, with dazzling white clothes and talking with Moses and Elijah. Jesus was a man of contradictions. And he is our God. Let us follow the command that God gave the disciples. Let us listen to him. Amen.

Mark 2:1-12 "Bringing them In"

I have always wondered why it is that Jesus wandered all around Galilee and down to Jerusalem to spread the word. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have stayed in one place and shared his message with one group of people? Well, here we have the answer to that question laid out before us. Jesus had come back to his hometown and had been in his house teaching and sharing. And his roof is destroyed by some people who want to get close to him. No wonder he went someplace else, when he came home his house was destroyed.

Now, of course, we know that this isn’t the real reason Jesus traveled around to spread his teaching and healing. Rather, he had a message to share and he wanted to get it out to as many people as possible. But it is quite amazing that people were so excited about what it was that Jesus had to offer that they would work so hard to get close to him. It seems that this is such a far cry from the world today where Jesus and his teaching seem to many to be irrelevant to their lives and what they do. But we will learn today, like the paralyzed man and his friends, that Jesus offers something more relevant to our lives than we even realize.

I. Paralyzed

Today’s scripture again gives us a view of what it means to share Jesus with those around you. We are introduced to a man who needs Jesus. We are told that he is paralyzed and therefore unable to make it to Jesus on his own. So a group of his friends make it their business to bring him to Jesus. I wonder if they knew what they were getting themselves into. I imagine that at first they were just thinking that they were going to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus and that would be it. I imagine that they initially figured that they would be doing a small favor for their friend and left it at that. Their initial sacrifice for their friend was just to spend some time with him, taking him to Jesus. They probably would have gone to listen to Jesus anyway, so all they were really doing was bringing along a friend. But even if they didn’t originally plan to come hear Jesus, they were just giving up some time from their day. No big deal.

But then, perhaps, as they came closer to the house where Jesus was teaching, they realized that their job was going to be a bit more than they expected. For there was a crowd around the place where Jesus was. The crowd was so great that they could not get in close enough to see Jesus. Now, if it had been me, I probably would have given up at this point. I would have said to my paralyzed friend, “Sorry, it looks kind of crowded; maybe we could try again later. This is his home, after all. He’s sure to be back here sometime in the future.” Bringing this paralyzed man to Jesus would perhaps be a bit too much work for me. Or perhaps I would have stood at the edge of the crowd with my paralyzed friend and listened to what Jesus had to say from a distance. At least this way my paralyzed friend could have heard Jesus.

But the friends in the Bible didn’t give up the way I probably would have. They felt that there was more that they could do. They found a way to lift their fried up to the roof of the place where Jesus was preaching and they dug a hole in the roof of the place and then they lowered their friend on a mat down to Jesus.

These friends were gung-ho about getting their friend to see Jesus. They carried him up to the roof and then they broke a hole in the house, just so they could get their friend to Jesus. I hate to admit it but their fervor puts us today to shame. The energy they put into sharing Jesus was much more than we are often willing to share. A few weeks ago we looked at the story of Philip and Nathanael being called by Jesus. If you remember, we saw that it wasn’t enough for Philip that he himself had found the Messiah; he felt the need to share Jesus with his friend. So when Jesus told him to follow him, Philip ran off to find Nathanael and bring him along. And when Nathanael questioned the truth of Philip’s experience with Jesus, Philip responded by telling Nathanael to come and see Jesus for himself. Philip showed us the idea of “come and see” evangelism where we give people the chance to have their own experience of Jesus.

In today’s scripture we are seeing these friends also exhibit “come and see” evangelism. They have experienced something special in Jesus, though we aren’t told exactly what that is, and now they are bringing their paralyzed friend to experience the miracle that they believe Jesus can bring him. They know that their friend needs to experience Jesus and they are going to make sure that they do everything they can to give their friend the opportunity to do so.

One reason this church has a history of supporting missions, one reason that the Covenant has a history of supporting missions, is that we see something in missions like the sacrifice that these friends made. Missionaries leave their homes, their countries, the comforts that they are used to, and head to a foreign land, learn a foreign language so that the people they are going to will have the opportunity to come and see Jesus in their own language, in their own culture. We find value in this and therefore make a point of doing what we can to support missions as we can. And we realize that not everybody is called to evangelize in the same way. In today’s scripture we see that some men brought a paralyzed man to Jesus, with four of them carrying him on his mat. There were more than four of them, but four of them went to the effort of carrying him, the others found other ways to be involved, probably by being the ones who destroyed the roof of Jesus’ home.

The question I have for us today is how are we involved in bringing people to Jesus. Yes, we support and pray for missions across the world, but what about those in our own lives who need to know Christ? How are we reaching out to them and encouraging them to come and see Jesus? How are we bringing them in?

II. Sins Forgiven

When this group of men brings their paralyzed friend to Jesus, he is welcomed by Jesus and Jesus proclaims his sins forgiven. What an odd thing for Jesus to do, forgive this man’s sins. Doesn’t he have more pressing needs? Doesn’t he have something that is much more important to him than problems with his spiritual life? You wonder if this is what this man’s friends expected when they brought him? Yes, they were bringing him to experience Jesus, but I’m sure they had in their head a certain thought on what that experience of Jesus would be. I’m sure they were bringing him to Jesus so that he could be healed. But instead Jesus chooses to do something else with this man. Instead Jesus chooses to forgive his sins.

Now the odd thing about this story in the Bible is that it never really does much with the paralyzed man. We never get his thoughts about any of what is going on. We don’t know whether he asked his friends to bring him to Jesus. We don’t know what he thinks of having his sins forgiven. We are even told that when Jesus forgives his sins, he is doing so because of the faith of those who brought the man to him. I like to believe that this is because this man’s experience with Jesus is a personal experience, one that we don’t necessarily need to know about. I choose to believe that this man is touched very powerfully by having Jesus tell him that his sins are forgiven. There is no real scriptural basis for this. But I don’t believe that Jesus would have dealt with this man in such a way if it wasn’t something the man needed in the center of his being.

Maybe he lived in guilt. Maybe there was some sin that plagued his conscience. Maybe it was just the fact that everybody in the culture around him assumed that he was paralyzed because of some sin in his life and therefore he was used to being treated as a sinner by everyone he came in contact with. If this is the case, shame on those around him for making him feel so worthless. But whatever the cause for it, Jesus chose to interact with this man by forgiving him of his sins. And what a powerful gift Jesus was giving this man.

It’s a gift that Jesus offers each of us as well. We can turn our sins, our trials, our temptations, our pains and our problems over to him and know that he will take them away from us. Jesus can see what it is that we really need and Jesus can give us that very thing. This man needed to know that he was forgiven, and Jesus did this for him.

III. Healed

This story of Jesus and the friends and the paralyzed man would be a great story if it just ended there. The friends bring the paralyzed man to Jesus and Jesus reaches out to him and forgives his sins. He has had a special experience with the Messiah. He now knows Jesus in a special and personal way. But this is not the end of the story, not by a long shot. You see, people think that Jesus is taking the easy way out by forgiving the man’s sins. They think he is blaspheming by claiming to do something that only God can do. They think that what he says really has no meaning to it. So Jesus does something else for this man. He tells him to get up and roll up his mat and walk. The man does this very thing.

Jesus brings healing to the man who is in need of it. Not only did Jesus deal with the man’s spiritual needs by forgiving his sins, he also dealt with the man’s physical needs. He reached out to the man in the midst of his problems and gave him a solution.

But the Pharisees and teachers of the law got it backwards. They thought that the walking was the important thing while the forgiveness of the sins was just words. But Jesus knew what was really important. And I imagine that the man who had been healed, no longer the paralyzed man, but the healed, forgiven man, also knew what was important. For he had experienced the grace and the love that only Jesus can bring. And the reason he was able to do so was that his friends, this group of men, went to the effort of bringing him to Christ.

Again, I ask whether we are willing to go to that same effort. Again I wonder if we are willing to make the same sacrifices that these men made. Are we willing to put our energy and our time into bringing those around us into contact with Jesus? Are we willing to focus our lives on sharing the wonderful God that has lavished us with grace and love? Let us find new ways to reach out to those around us who haven’t had that experience with Jesus. Let us find new ways to bring them into his presence so that he can touch their lives with his. This is what we are called to be about as his church. This is what we are called to be as his disciples, his followers. We are told that God loved the whole world so much that he sent his Son to it. You know how that scripture ends… so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God wants to reach out to the whole world, and God has given us the opportunity to share him with everyone around us. Let us find new ways to do this very thing, let us find ways to bring those who need him into his presence so he can have that relationship with them. Let us continue to find ways to say to those around us, “come and see your Savior.” Amen.

A Week Off

We had a guest speaker this week talking about domestic violence and how it is present in every community and touches every church. It's an important topic and one that is often ignored in the church as we put on our masks and pretend that everything is fine.
Because of our guest speaker I did not have a sermon this week, so there will be no sermon posted this week. See you again next week.

Mark 1:29-39 "A Solitary Place"

I have this theory that time is speeding up. Now it’s a crazy theory and it’s not based in any science, but bear with me for a moment. How many times have you heard someone say that things seem to happen so much faster now than they used to? Everybody talks about how amazed they are that it’s already February. Didn’t this year just start? As Christmas approached this last year I was amazed, for it seemed like Christmas of the previous year had just ended. And yet, when I was a child, I remember time moving much slower, I remember waiting and waiting for school to end in the spring and it would never come. I remember how exhaustingly slow the month of December would be as I waited for Christmas morning to come. The only explanation I have for this is that time is speeding up.

Okay, I know for a fact that my theory is wrong. There is actually a much better one. The better theory is that we are much more busy today than we used to be. I remember reading things that were written in the fifties about how technology would give us more opportunities for rest and relaxation, for we wouldn’t need to be spending as much time at work as we used to. This makes sense, look what technology did to farming. Now one person on a combine does the work of many people in a much shorter time. And this is true in manufacturing and many other industries as well. But, oddly enough, instead of making us less busy, we are now busier. A farmer could do more work and so began to farm a much larger area of land. As transportation got easier, we began to travel more. I remember when my family first got an answering machine. I thought it was ridiculous that we were going to have a machine which meant that when someone called us and we weren’t home, they could leave us a message and basically force us to have to respond to them. I found the concept of an answering machine to be fairly rude. And now we are at a point where leaving a message on an answering machine seems to be the slow way to do things. You’d much rather talk to someone on their cell phone. Life is getting busier. And because life is getting busier it seems to be going faster. Because life is getting faster and busier it is important for us to make an effort to slow down, it is important for us to learn how to care for ourselves in the midst of a busy life. And we can see that Jesus had to do this very same thing. And we can see that Jesus was very intentional in doing so. So lets slow down time a bit today and see what it is that God has to say to us in scripture.

I. An Active Ministry

In today’s scripture we see a snapshot of what Jesus’ life and ministry was like. It specifically shows that he was quite busy in what he did. In verse 39 it tells us that he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in the synagogues and driving out demons. Most of what comes before 39 in what we read this morning is giving examples of this very thing.

Jesus spent his ministry out among the people. He spent his early ministry preaching in synagogues, later on he doesn’t do the synagogue thing as much, probably because the leaders in the synagogues are uncomfortable with him and his message, and therefore won’t let him preach during worship. But early in his ministry, this is where he was and this is where he taught. As we saw last week, Jesus taught and spoke with authority. His words had power to them and people were affected by what they heard.

But Jesus didn’t just preach and teach, he also healed the sick and cast out demons. And this passage is also the place where we discover that Simon Peter, the first pope, no less, was married. We are never told about Peter’s wife, she is never mentioned or talked about, but her mother is. You see, Peter’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever and when Jesus hears about this he goes to her and heals her. And she isn’t the only one that Jesus healed. We are told that people brought the sick and demon possessed to Jesus when they heard about what he was able to do. We are told that the whole town gathered at the door of Peter’s mother-in-law’s house to see this great teacher who could heal the sick and cast out demons. And we are told that Jesus reached out to those who had come to him and he brought healing to them. It sounds like Jesus was off to a good life of ministry. He was active, he was reaching out to those who needed him in the way that only he could. He was sharing truth and love with those who came to him. He was teaching in the synagogues and healing. But we see something else in today’s scripture, something else that Jesus does with his time, something that almost seems selfish.

II. Taking Time Away

For the next morning, Jesus got up and left before dawn. He went out to a solitary place, where he prayed. He snuck off to get away from the crowds that were interested in him. He broke away from the busy work he had been doing the day before and he made a point of taking time to pray and taking time to be by himself. Now there is something a little selfish about this. Jesus could be out healing the sick. He could be out doing God’s work in this world. He has a limited time in ministry and here he is, wasting it off on his own, praying.

Jesus knew that he had a rough three years ahead of him. He knew that he was going to be pulled in every direction, and he knew that he needed to take care of himself, he knew that he needed to protect himself by getting away and spending solitary time with God.

Jesus, in this, is modeling a way of life for us. He is showing us how to live healthy and strong lives. I don’t think he did it just to show us how to live, I do believe he actually had needs for solitude and silent prayer, but I also believe we can definitely learn from him in our own lives, especially when we realize how utterly busy this world is today.

Jesus lived a busy life. His life was controlled very much by the things going on around him. People would come to him and expect things of him. At the same time, you get the idea that Jesus would have hated to have a cell phone or a pager. He was sneaking off to be by himself too often. He would probably have turned these off if he had the opportunity. Yes, he made a point of living in a way where he was available to those who needed him. But he also knew that he needed to take time away, he knew he needed to take time to rest.

In many ways, in today’s culture we have given up on this concept. We don’t allow ourselves to rest; we don’t give our bodies and our minds the break they need. God knows we are not built to handle this. He built it into creation that we would have a time for rest.

If you go back to Genesis 1, you see the story of creation, where God spent six days creating the world, and then he spent the seventh day, the Sabbath day, resting. It’s the same pattern we see in Jesus’ life, though not in the seven-day format. Jesus spent the day teaching and healing and then he went off to be alone and rest, he went off to pray.

This idea of rest is so important to God that it is a part of the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. It is commandment number four: Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Did you realize that this commandment is about rest? Normally when we think of the Ten Commandments, we think in terms of work that we need to do. Normally when we think of the Ten Commandments we think of things that we aren’t supposed to do. But this commandment is an important one, and one that we need to pay more attention to: Make sure you take time to rest.

Now there’s a focus on keeping the Sabbath holy with this commandment. This means that our rest is supposed to be holy. It means that our rest is supposed to incorporate God in an important way. And throughout the history of God’s people keeping the Sabbath involved gathering for a part of the Sabbath to worship God with others. But God tied the Sabbath to rest in the very beginning and Jesus always tied his rest to God. He would wander off to be by himself and his disciples would go off and search for him. Eventually they would find him and he would be resting, he would be praying to his father.

Jesus also made it clear that we are not slaves of the Sabbath. He and his disciples did things on the Sabbath that you weren’t supposed to do. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. His disciples ate food off the vine on the Sabbath, though they weren’t supposed to. He traveled on the Sabbath. Jesus knew that the Sabbath was made for us and we weren’t made for the Sabbath. Jesus knew that God had given us a gift in the fourth commandment, and he wanted it to be treated like a gift again.

III. A Gift from God

Do we treat the Sabbath as a gift? Do we allow rest into our lives? Do we take time away from the things we should be doing so that we can relax? Not enough. As Christians, as followers of Christ, we need to become a Sabbath people again. We need to learn to say no to some of the activities that are before us. Our country is facing a crisis that we need to stand against. It is a crisis that pastors around the country are talking about and don’t know what to do. When I was at midwinter it was brought up again and again. This crisis is that people are too busy. They have too many things going on in their lives. This is so much that it is keeping them from knowing God in the way they should. We need to learn how to rest again. We need to take time where we are not focused on our work. We need to create space in our lives so that we can have time alone with ourselves and with God. A couple Wednesdays ago, we were talking about solitude as a part of the Christian life in our Bible Study, and there were a couple suggestions made about how to make solitude a part of your life. One is to find a place somewhere which can be a specific place to spend time with God in. Jesus didn’t have the opportunity to do this, because he was constantly traveling. But I imagine that part of the reason he felt the need to get away from people was so he could have some place to be with God alone. Find a place that is good for this in your life. Maybe it’s a room in your house. Maybe it’s a special chair that you only sit in for time with God. Maybe it’s a place at the church. Find that time to spend alone with God, and make a place where that can happen. You will find it to be rewarding, and the busy life that you lead will begin to slow down to a normal space.

Jesus had worked and worn himself out being surrounded by people and so he went off to find rest with his God. When his disciples did find him, he was ready to continue. He found the strength to help him through a three-year ministry that would wear anybody ragged. And what gave him that strength was the fact that he took time away from the world to be alone with God. He found a place in his life for Sabbath rest. We are called to that same life of Sabbath rest. Let us find ways in our own lives to move away from the busyness. Let us make time to be alone with our families. Let us make time to be alone with our God. In the end we will find that we will be more productive when we take care of ourselves. In the end we will find that we will be more joy-filled and more able to do the things we are called to do. Let us follow the model that Jesus put before us in his own ministry. Let us follow the example that God gave us in creation. Let us discover Sabbath rest. Amen.