The word Sabbath means a deep rest, a deep peace.
It's a near synonym for shalom -- a state of wholeness and flourishing in every dimension of life
When Jesus says, "I am the Lord of the Sabbath," He means that He is the Sabbath.
He is the Source of the deep rest we need.
He has come to completely change the way we rest. The one-day-a-week we take is just a taste of the deep divine rest we need, and Jesus is its Source.
When Jesus says, in effect, "As the Lord of the Sabbath, I can give you rest," what does that mean?
When Jesus calls you to rest, He is calling you to take time off -- physical and mental time off from work on a regular basis.
But there's another level of rest, a deeper level.
At the end of Genesis chapter 1, the account of God's creation of the world, God is said to have rested from his work.
What does that mean? Does God get tired? No, God
doesn't get tired. So how could He rest?
A different reason to rest is to be so satisfied with your work, so utterly satisfied, that you can leave it alone.
Only when you can say about your work, "I'm so happy with it, so satisfied -- it is finished!" can you walk away. When God finished creating the world, He said, "It is good." He rested.
The movie Chariots of Fire was based on the true story of two Olympians in the Paris competition of 1924.
One of them, Eric Liddell, was a Christian, and he refused to run on the Sabbath. As a result he lost the chance for a gold medal in a race he was favored to win.
At one level, taking a day off for rest is what the movie is about.
But the movie added another level and contrasted Harold Abrahams with Liddell.
Abrahams and Liddell were both trying very hard to win gold medals.
But Abrahams was doing it out of a need to prove himself. At one point, speaking of the sprint event in which he was competing, he said, "I've got ten seconds to justify my existence."
Liddell, on the other hand, simply wanted to please God who had already accepted him.
That's why he told his sister, "God made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure."
Harold Abrahams was weary even when he rested, and Eric Liddell was rested even when he as exerting himself.
Why? Because there's a work underneath our work that we really need rest from. It's the work of self-justification.
Most of us work and work trying to prove ourselves, to convince God, others and ourselves that we are good people.
That work is never over unless we rest in the Gospel.
At the end of His great act of creation, the Lord said, "It is finished," and He could rest.
On the cross at the end of His great act of redemption, Jesus said, "It is finished!"
And now we can rest.
On the cross Jesus was saying of the work underneath your work -- the thing that makes you truly weary, this need to prove yourself because who you are and what you do are never good enough -- that it is finished!
He has lived the life you should have lived; He has died the death you should have died.
If you rely on Jesus' finished work, you know that God is satisfied with you.
You can be satisfied with life.
You can take all the vacations in the world, but if you don't have deep rest of the soul, resting in what Jesus did on the cross, you will not truly rest.
On the cross Jesus experienced the restlessness of separation from God so that we can have the deep rest of knowing that He loves us and our sins have been forgiven.
-- From King's Cross, Chapter 4, by Timothy Keller
~~~~~
Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28
When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,
He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done,
but because of His mercy.
He saved us through the washing of the rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom He poured out on us generously
through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Titus 3:5-6
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