Saturday, December 2, 2017

Hello, everyone.  Sorry for such a delay.  I've had some trouble with bronchitis this Fall.  Here's my latest thoughts on Scripture...

^{Luke 23-Right After the Death of Jesus on the Cross}

⁵⁰Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, ⁵¹who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵²Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. ⁵³Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. ⁵⁴It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

⁵⁵The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. ⁵⁶Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

  When I read this sad passage I was struck by the last sentence.  "But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment."  Even though the Lord Jesus told them that He would rise from the dead, they seemed to miss that point and they lacked our historical perspective.  For these disciples, I would imagine the death of Jesus was as if their whole lives came crashing down upon them.  Still, they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.  They were still willing to let God be God.

The verb translated, "to rest" is in four other verses of the Christian Scriptures.

Luke 14:4  But they kept silent, and He took him and healed him, and let him go.  (This done after Jesus silences critics who complain about healing on the Sabbath.)

When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life."  (This after they heard Peter testify about the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentile men.)

Acts 21:14  So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, "The will of the Lord be done."  (The response of people who fail to persuade Paul to avoid Jerusalem after a prophet predicted that he would be arrested there.)

1 Thessalonians 4:11  "...that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,...  (General advice to the Thessalonians.)

The word means "to rest from labor" but its use in the other four verses of the Christian Scriptures smacks of submission.  They relent, or submit or give up and leave the matter to God.  Even though the idea of submission does not rest lightly with us, I think there is a wisdom and strength in being able to trust God and leave matters in His hands.  It is hard to do when life is going well, but these people at the end of Luke have experienced, for them, the ultimate disaster.  Their whole world, I would imagine, had come falling down upon them.  How hard it must have been to see all that happened the Jesus Christ, watch His dead body be laid in a tomb, and then take a Sabbath's day of rest according the commandments.  I wonder how restful that day was?t Yet that was the best thing for those people to do.  They rested, in obedience to command, and acknowledged that God is still God. 

This sets a powerful example of us, who in the midst of the constant changes of life may find ourselves going through seasons in which some, or many, of the changes we experience are unwelcome.  The good news of life is that everything changes.  The bad news is that things we wish would never change, change as well.  I think a good prayer to pray is that we would have the wisdom and strength to rest, to let God be God, when changes come that are unwelcome and we cannot stop.  There are no life changes that stretch beyond the reach of Christ, whose promises and love cannot be cut off from us by no change, in life or in death.