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.
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