A Year of Sabbaths (Week 34): Up at Night

(Picture painted by Jennifer Snook, 4/13/2015)

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, 

who for the joy set before him endured the cross, 

scorning its shame,

 and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

(Hebrews 12:2)

I had a sleepy Sabbath this week.  It is hard to rest when someone you love is sick.  

He may have been suffering through allergies, or a cold, or both...but on Saturday night, our middle son was miserable with a bad cough.  It was keeping him up and he was upset. "I don't want to miss church tomorrow," he said. I didn't want him to miss church, either. He loves worship and adores his Sunday school teachers. They have class in the church tower. It is pretty awesome.

I wanted to make it better. I wanted to take his cough away. But there wasn't anything I could do.  So I just sat on his bed and held his hand.  We talked until he calmed down and was finally able to sleep.  And, finally, he did.  Before I went back to bed, I watched him a while longer.

I found myself thinking about God, sitting up with his sick children, watching them cough and suffer through life, unable to rest until He did something about it.  The difference between God and me, I mused (at least, one of many of the differences between God and me!) is that God could actually do something to relieve the suffering of His children. He could come and take away the cough. Jesus could come and make us completely healthy and remove all sickness so that we would never worry again about suffering through another sleepless night. While He was at it, Jesus could heal everyone, not only physically, but emotionally, and spiritually...and remove all selfish desire so that there would be peace and joy throughout the world.  Jesus could do it.

But He hasn't...not yet.

Instead, Jesus came as one of us. Certainly, there were those times that He performed miraculous deeds...but mostly, He just worked with wood.  Then, He began to tell stories in a northern accent to fishermen who had told a whopper or two themselves.  Jesus knew hunger and thirst and wept for the loss of a friend.  After a while, Jesus walked to Jerusalem where He surveyed His Kingdom from a cross, ascended into heaven, and "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."  Jesus did all of this, it seems, so that he could go to each and every one of His children who was miserable and suffering and hold their hand and talk until they found rest. That gave Him great joy.

All I could do for my own son was sit up and talk. I didn't make the news or get my star in Hollywood, but maybe it meant something to my son.  In the morning, Sabbath came sweetly and I entered the joy of my rest and our son was able to go to church and visit with Jesus.  

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.