It was a typical Sunday morning at the Willis household. My brother and I, 13 and 9 respectively, were getting dressed for church while my dad yelled encouragements from the front of the house. We were late again. Mom was putting on her make-up and dad looking for the lost bibles that were just found last Sunday night and the car running in the driveway. My Buster Brown suit was pressed and I looked dressed for the occasion. My brother in his “zip” tie if you remember those and me with my tied tie because I would settle for nothing less than what the adults wore, except for the Buster Brown suit, were once again running late. We rushed to the ’66 Ford Galaxy and sped out of the driveway on a mission to beat the Sunday school bell when something in my dad snapped. In front of the Burger Chief on Piedmont Avenue he did the coolest State Patrol slide you’ve ever seen. My brother and I slammed against the side panel of the back seat because seat belts weren’t all that popular in those days and dad sped off in the opposite direction from church exclaiming if we couldn’t be on time we just wouldn’t go at all.
All that morning we kept our Sunday clothes on until church was supposed to be over because we were afraid something bad would happen to us if we didn’t. There was this abiding feeling that God was mad at us for not being on time and not going to church. It’s a weird place to feel like the God that loved me enough to save me and forgive me somehow couldn’t get over us being late or even missing church. How odd?
Jesus made a profound statement in Mark 2:27 “Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made to benefit people, and not people to benefit the Sabbath.” I had the mistaken belief that somehow the Lord’s Day was about God’s benefit and not mine. I thought if I didn’t show up for church that it was like missing someone’s birthday party and they would be disappointed in me. The reason God rested on the Sabbath was not because He was tired but to give us an example of rest. We find rest no longer in a day or a commandment but in the person of rest, Jesus. “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NLT
So the weird place is the person of rest and not the place of rest. And let me encourage you as you see the times getting more and more difficult to take heed to Hebrews 10:25 which says, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.” Just because we don’t have to come to church to gain God’s favor doesn’t mean we don’t need too. Come and find comfort in the weird place, the rest of God.
