Get some rest!

[AI translation] I would now like to start a new sermon series, and if not every Sunday in a row, but from time to time talk about: what a God we have! I would like to present a feature, a characteristic of our infinitely rich God in a sermon. And this is possible because God has shown Himself to us, He has shown us unmistakably what He is like: well, He is like Jesus! We have the God we see Jesus as. Because Jesus, this wonderful Someone: the image, the mirror of the invisible God, in Him, in Jesus, He has revealed His will, His feelings, His power, His love, His goodness, His heart to us! Now, on this occasion, I would like to talk about the fact that we have a God who even wants to take care of our rest! I do not know if you feel the sweet tenderness that caresses you in these words: "rest a little"!Isn't it wonderful that the same God who said to man, "With the sweat of thy face eat thy bread" (Gen 3:19), - the same Jesus who said, "My Father worketh all the days of my life, and I labor" (John 5:17), - who said, "The harvest is plenteous, but the laborer is few" (Matt 9:38), and this: "Go ye into this wide world, preach the gospel to every creature" (Mk 16,15), Who thus really gave just enough program to those who believe in Him, Who constantly mobilized His own to do something, to be active, the same Jesus, behold, now says: "Rest a little"! Jesus is calling his followers to rest, so rest is part of following Jesus, knowing how to rest is part of the Christian way of life.
And if we were to imagine this meaning in today's way of life and according to today's customs, I could imagine Jesus saying something like this: now stop everything, put aside your work, relax from everything you have been doing, put aside all your worries - now we are going on a trip, without a care in the world, just us. We'll go for a walk somewhere where no one will bother us, now come and go to the beach, have a nice swim in the cool water, or play volleyball, play happily, play with joy, enjoy the natural beauty of life, be happy, enjoy it! I would feel all this in Jesus' call to "Rest a little...!" Don't be offended, but I can imagine that if at that time it had been the custom to go to the beach, or to play tennis, or to go on holiday: Jesus would have been happy to go to the beach or to play with his disciples, tired from work!
For behold, we have a God who knows very well that we need rest. That's why He said in the Ten Commandments that after six days of work, there should be a day on which you do nothing! It is part of the rhythm of life as God created it that work and rest alternate. God knew how much man needed rest, for He created man. Man is His own creation, the work of His own hands. Even an ordinary machine, a complicated instrument, has to have instructions from the factory that built it, otherwise it will break down. Well, God has also given an instruction manual to his own creation, man, when he calls for rest after exhaustion in work. And if a man does not use himself according to the divine instructions, that is, if he does not live according to the rhythm of work and rest prescribed by God: he will break down before his time, his parts will wear out, the whole machine will become useless. The typical disease of our time, heart disease and its many variants, all stem from the fact that many people do not follow the divine instructions for themselves, cannot relax, cannot really rest, do not follow Jesus when He calls them to "Rest a little...". For a man's brain and muscles and hands and feet to function well, for a man to be able to fulfil his vocation profitably, rest well spent is as necessary as work well done.
If a man works even when he ought to rest, his work is not really blessed. He who can never rest, who can never relax, who does not know the restfulness of rest, does not know the greatness of work. These are the people who achieve a lot with their hard work, but never catch up with themselves. It is so wonderful that today, when the incredible speed of transport saves modern man so much time, he suffers from a growing lack of time: he has no time to rest, no time to relax, no time to play, no time to live! On the old Roman warships there was a man, the hortator, whose job was to beat a rhythm on a large drum, according to which the slaves chained to the benches had to pull the oars. He was a man without pretensions, who did nothing but dictate the tempo. Today's hortatora has the same name, just different, but it dictates the pace and drives its slaves. Today it is called a watch. Just look at it and you can't sit still any longer, because the hortatora doesn't allow you to rest or relax. Heart hospitals, hypertension wards, neurological clinics, mental hospitals are full of the fallen slaves of this unrelenting hortator! Isn't that what Jesus wants when he smiles so kindly at us and says: "Get some rest"!
So Jesus says before him, "Go yourselves to a desert place"! Jesus wants to take his people today to a place where there are no machines, no human noise, no bag-radio - where there is silence! For in true rest, man needs silence! What a great psychologist Jesus was! Today's psychologists are beginning to discover, with increasing horror, that one of the greatest miseries of modern life is the absence of silence! There is nothing that modern man needs more than a little silence, a lot more silence, from time to time. The call of Jesus is: to break away from the noise, the inner and outer din, the rush. Whoever takes the "noise" with him even into rest: is committing an assassination against himself. In silence one can meet oneself again, find oneself again. Have you ever seen a painter at work on a picture: he leans on the canvas, painting a detail, absorbed, concentrating on the work. Then, suddenly, with brush in hand, he takes a few steps back to see the whole painting from a certain perspective. Even the detail that he has just painted, so that he can now see the whole work in context, otherwise he would get lost in the details. Silence is also a kind of movement in our lives: it is when you look back at yourself, your work, the context of your life, from a little distance. Because often, because of the fussing and fussing with details, we do not see the whole, the purpose of the whole life's work, we get caught up in the details. Silence is for us to rise a little out of the everyday and try to see the whole from the point of view of God! A little from the perspective of eternity. And then, all at once, we begin to see things in more correct proportions: small things as small, big things as big, important things as important, insignificant details as insignificant. So follow Jesus when he says: "Go yourselves into a desert place and rest a little"!
Silence does not necessarily mean doing nothing, lazing around, sleeping... No! The silence of rest is when you do something different from what you normally do in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. For example, silence is not disturbed by play, but deepened by it. It is also such a great problem in our time that many grown-up people have forgotten to play, to play simply, joyfully, childlike before God! Because in the presence of God, one can not only pray, but also play. I have seen a mother who looked with great concern at her child who could not play - and rightly so! Because a child who cannot play is somehow not a child, but some kind of little old, decrepit person. But we are children too, no matter how many decades may weigh on our shoulders: children of God! Playing merrily, merrily, joyfully, laughing! So many times it has been said that joy and faith in Christ go together, and yet it is so rarely seen. There is an old story of a little girl who walked among the bathers on a summer beach. A little donkey that children were allowed to ride on. One of the children looked at the donkey and said to his mother: 'Is that a Christian donkey? Why?" asked the mother. 'Because he hangs his head so much,' replied the little boy. It is not good that many people still think that the believer's life is such a headlong, joyless, rule-bound, forbidden way of life. After all, God speaks of joy so often in the Bible! Of course, I know very well that the joy of which the Bible speaks is not the same as joy, happiness, pleasure. There is no man in the world who is cheerful when he has suffered a great loss. But there are many believers who, no matter what happens in life, know that deep inner joy that gives them the assurance that they are not alone in their troubles, that God is there, and that they know that every journey, however difficult, brings them closer to Him. And with Him is the fullness of joy.
And yet this joy has something to do with cheerfulness, with joy. If even the dark clouds are turned to silver by faith, how bright the days can be! So, cheerfulness, enjoying the pure pleasures of life, is not a forbidden thing for a believer! In fact, it is precisely the one who believes in Jesus who can truly enjoy something pure, because he does not need this pleasure as a drug, as an escape from some kind of pain. For him, joy is not for forgetting himself, but for being himself! Because for him, the enjoyment of all that is beautiful and good is a sign of the great joy that God has prepared for those who love him. So dare to relax, to go to rest, in the happy knowledge that you can leave your worries, your troubles, your problems - and even yourself - in God's hands! Don't think that things at home, in your family or at work depend on your convulsive efforts! For "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath compassion" (Rom 9:17) And this compassionate God calls. Come, rest a little"! "Look at the lilies of the field," says Jesus, "and learn a little carelessness! It is good to be merry! As long as God makes the sky so blue, the air so refreshing, the waves of Lake Balaton or the Danube so refreshing, the mountains so majestic, the birds so beautiful, the playing in the water so sweet, in it we can recognize His love, His goodness, His faithfulness! God Himself delights in His created all! Is it not written, "God saw that all that He had made was good" (Genesis 1:31)? How then can not His child delight in it?
Of course, the rest that Jesus calls us to - the fun, the merriment - is not for the sake of the rest, the fun, the merriment! All this is not an end, but a means. It is a means to renew, refresh and regenerate a tired body, body and soul. True rest is not simply a relaxation from everyday life, from the routine of life - it is, but it is subordinated to the purpose that God says in one of his words: 'He gives strength to the weary and increases the strength of the weak' (Is 40:29). It is not recreation that increases the strength of the weak, but God! Of course, it may be a nice trip, a pleasant holiday that gives God the strength, but it is God who gives it! So, the main question in a summer holiday or any holiday is not how and what to spend it, but with Whom?
Listen to the Word: Jesus does not say: go away and rest by yourselves, but: come and rest! So Jesus does not send His own away, but invites His own to rest. He invites him! Come with me! People who want to rest: you need me! Jesus! "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11,28) God has raised up in Jesus on earth the heavenly source of healing that truly heals, refreshes and gives strength! Being with Jesus gives the soul the rest it longs for. Whoever wants to rest well: go with Jesus! Don't forget to pack your Bibila with your travel bag! The purpose of rest is not to rest my prayer or my whole relationship with God, but to strengthen and renew my relationship with Jesus, which has been weakened in the chase of life.
You see: this is the God we have, who takes such serious care even of our rest! Would that we could see in ourselves, in the brightness of our eyes, in the smoothness of our faces, in the peace and serenity that radiate from us, that we have gone to rest at the call of Jesus, and that we have returned from such rest!
Blessed are the people who rejoice in you,
All their works, O Lord, are well done.
Before thy shining face they walk boldly,
And in thy name they rejoice without ceasing,
For you exalt them to great glory,
And multiply thy good deeds upon them.
(Psalm 89:7)
Amen
Date: 16 July 1967.