Seeking Rest
Perhaps one of the most beautiful lines written in all of Christendom comes from the Confessions of Saint Augustine when he introduced his own life story with an acknowledgment of the greatness of God: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This is precisely what all human beings are seeking after, regardless of place or time, regardless of their religiosity or atheism, regardless of their power or weakness. Every single one of us wants to find rest and contentment from the weariness of life; as followers of Christ, we are blessed to be able to acknowledge the only source of this eternal rest we so desperately seek. Only God can ease our restlessness, and He will do so in such a way that we may never be agitated again. What does it take for us to rest in Him?
In today’s readings, we are given two distinct approaches to the question of the restlessness of our hearts. In the first reading, the Hebrews are reminded of their new life in the company of Christ, the way in which they can achieve rest in God in a way that their ancestors never could. The writer of the letter quotes Psalm 95, when God pleads with the reader not to test Him or to go astray from Him as His people did while wandering through the desert. His response to them was simple: they could not enter His rest if they listlessly wandered around agitated and restless. In the context of Christ, the rest that the Hebrews so desperately sought since their foundation was presented to them perfectly on the cross. All that was required was to acknowledge Christ as the fulfillment of all the scriptures. In a state of agitation and restlessness, there is no time for hope or faith in what is unseen or what is unexpected. It was the restlessness of those who rejected Christ that prevented them from seeing him for who he was, despite how desperate they were for salvation. The act of desperation was used properly, though, as we see in the Gospel, when the friends of a paralytic overcame the crowds around Jesus and broke into the roof of the house he was in just so that Christ could heal him. There is hardly a more touching expression of love for another in all of the Gospels. The death of Christ, to lay down one’s life for a friend, was the perfect expression, but the behavior of these four healthy men for their paralyzed friend is the next best thing. It was an act of desperation, an act of seeking out a certain kind of rest for their friend. They used their restlessness to get to Christ, which Christ acknowledged and which moved him to act for them. With a mere word, the man was healed.
Rest in God is not an end to one’s pursuit of God; rather, it is a radically new agitation of the heart. When one rests in God, they are no longer agitated by the world, but by their desire to love and serve their Creator. We see this in its most fundamental form in the action of the four men in today’s Gospel. They were restless on behalf of their friend, but they oriented that restlessness to the only person who could truly grant rest. Resting in God is to rest as He did on the seventh day after creation; this was not an end to His work, but just the beginning. The set up to Salvation was over, but the constant relationship He has formed with His creation since that seventh day has been active and lively. When we rest in God, it is just the same for us: the set up is over, but the real work is just beginning. We now know what has given us rest, and we can use the nourishment and peace He provides to begin sharing Him with the world so that they, too, may find the rest they so desperately seek.
Today's Readings: