The Killer Cure

Happy New Year

For as long as I can remember, I haven’t been able to sleep. I have what is apparently a horribly deviated septum, that’s the thing in the middle of your nose. When I am just walking around doing my thing one side of my nose is 90% blocked and the other side 70% blocked. What that means is that if I have any swelling or blockage of any kind it is full stop, my nose is out of commission. I guess I have gotten through my waking life as a mouth breather, but you can’t really sleep that way. When I sleep I sound like I am dying, because I am, struggling desperately for air, what the doctors call ‘sleep apnea’, until I am snatched out of sleep when my oxygen levels get to a critically low level. Really the only position where I can sleep at all is laying on my left side, with my arms a certain way to make it as easy to breathe as possible. When I was little I told myself to never sleep on my back because that is how they lay corpses in coffins, but looking back I think I knew in a kid’s way that laying that way would suffocate me. The connection between sleep, between Rest, and Death is a profound part of our psychology. Going back at least to the Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind has a dread of sleep, associating it with death, in Gilgamesh sleep is even called the ‘little death’ and the hero is told that he must conquer his need of rest if he is to acheive his goal of conquering death. This is perhaps a very good framework to understand Ergolatry-our works worshipping way of thinking.

One of the things that I remember most about my grandfather is him telling me how lazy I was. Over and over. And I think that that is a common complaint that the older generations have about the younger. The oldsters keep trying to instill in the youngsters(not sure I qualify as that anymore but I’m not willing to identify as an Old Man yet), a work ethic, an appreciation for hard work. And it never seems to take. The younger generations seem to do less and less and think that the little bit that they do is so hard, I’m certainly old enough now to have that complaint about those younger than me. We even think that this laziness, this sloth, is a big contributor to the skyrocketing rates of obesity not only nationally and internationally but personally too. The conventional diagnosis is that we eat too much and don’t do enough physical activity and that there is no more to the problem than that. Just eat less and exercise more and it’ll all work out. But my calling isn’t to conventional wisdom, isn’t to the status quo, or common sense. It is to repent, to think New Thoughts, because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. So let’s consider that the world might have gotten the problem exactly backwards…

From Jeremiah 17: Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. Thus says the Lord: “Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. But they did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.

“And it shall be, if you heed Me carefully,” says the Lord, “to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work in it, then shall enter the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.

“But if you will not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”

Is there a logical connection between Sabbath Rest and national prosperity? How can taking a day off elevate the people? Is God requiring this rest on a whim, or is the world's Designer giving us some insight into how the world that He made really works?

Whatever wisdom and learning and insight and experience my grandfather and his generation had, they don’t seem to have known very much about men and manhood. That seems a funny thing to say since we are always told how much more manly they were, how much more testosterone they had, and how they endured what we buckle under. But my experience tells me, that men and boys, like to work. Sure a boy may not ‘keep at it’ like a man, but given a chance to do what men do almost all boys will jump at the chance and work hard in their boyish way. If they don’t there is usually a reason and yes some encouragement to stick with it and be more manly is appropriate but let’s dig a little deeper for the root causes. May I suggest, based on perhaps the manliest men to ever walk the earth, the Hebrew prophets, that the problem is that we aren’t resting.

Since my granddaddy went on to His Rest our societal Ergolatry-worship of work- has only grown worse. We worship work and demonize Rest. A room full of quiet men with heads bowed no longer means restful contemplation but rather that they are staring at their cell phones, either keeping up with news, or favorite recreations, or playing a game, or maybe outright ‘working’ checking email or some such. Our idle time must constantly be devoted to working out or some ‘activity’ whether physical or spiritual. Rest is considered wasting time. We feel we must always be doing something.

People mostly like to work. It feels good to be doing something and bad to be doing nothing. Almost every time I have ever been sick I have found that I feel better when I am on my feet than when I lay down. I am constantly looking for something to do, searching out schemes as Solomon would say, and will not rest unless forced. But when the Lord made us, He didn’t just make the part of our mind that we call our self. There are primal things, deep things inside of us. And when we have not rested, the neurochemistry, and the metabolic systems, and the I don’t know whats, drive us to rest, they slow us down, make us feel tired, sap our strength, this is decreed by God, it is very good. Our age will be remembered for devising ways for men to work when their bodies are still, devising employment for those who are exhausted or otherwise forced by God to be at rest, and it will be remembered as the most unhealthy, most unproductive age to date. So the actual efficient cause of the apparent laziness is a lack of rest. Our grandfathers pronounced many blessings on those who work hard, on those who stick with it. But the Lord by His Prophets pronounces His blessings on those who Rest on the Sabbath. The story of the Fall of Judah, as told by Isaiah and Jeremiah, is a story of a people who would not Rest, would not honor the Sabbath, and so were destroyed; and the story of its Restoration, as told by Nehemiah and Ezekiel, is of a people who are made to rest, largely against their will.

Lack of rest produces all of the symptoms that we are seeing. And when we look to the manlier generations for differences from our world, one we immediately come upon is that they were much better about keeping the Sabbath. They closed businesses, they refused to work, they treated one day in seven- personally I think that it should be the Seventh-Saturday because the Eighth Day, the Day of the Resurrection is a day for Beginning New Things, thinking New Thoughts, living in the New Creation- but they treated one day in Seven as Holy, as Different- and in Six Days they did more labor than we can possibly do in Seven.

We see the dreadful condition of the church in our country, it’s loss of relevance and inability to bring Good News to the lives of the people around us, loss of fortitude to stand against the assaults of a culture that we no longer even aim to reclaim for Christ, might I suggest that the root causes of our problems are not that we aren’t working hard enough, nor even that we aren’t working smart enough, not that we aren’t loving enough, serving enough, thinking of others enough. All of these are problems and there are improvements to be made in these areas but when we look for root causes we should consider the failure to rest, failure to abandon our works and our righteousness. The spiritual diagnosis for the church is something like sleep apnea, and it’s associated dread of sleep. Men like to work unless there is something wrong, we do not like to abandon our works, to give up, but not only do we need to rest, by the decree of God when He made our bodies, and spirits, and world, but the righteousness we are making is junk and should be given up on entirely, even more so if it doesn’t recognize the primacy of Rest.

Law and Grace, our works and Christ’s works, our righteousness and Christ’s righteousness, can never be used together to build a kingdom, or to save a nation. The two building materials can never be made to mix. As we saw earlier here:

To a People who Walk in Darkness

Law and Gospel must be quarantined from each other in the most complete way imaginable. If we are to do anything effectively, we must commit that our solutions, for ourselves or the Church or the Country will not be pointing out what has been done wrong and issuing demands to do right or face the consequences, and I realize that what I have said can be taken in that way. But must instead focus on the already acheived victory of Christ, that He is doing all of the work for us and that there is therefore nothing for us to add, save our Rest as a testimony to the perfection of His work.

It is a mystery that the Sabbath can be kept legally, all of the correct forms observed, and yet we never truly rest, indeed even the most legalistic Rabbi would have trouble explaining how checking email on your phone is Sabbath violating labor; while on the other hand we might never be idle but always be resting in Christ. So while the Spiritual Rest is different and Separate from and superior to the Physical Rest both are missing from our lives and each in its respective sphere is a good solution to the problems in that sphere.

When Moses instituted the Sabbath, he said:

‘‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Deuteronomy 5

The Sabbath Rest is a sign not of bondage but of freedom, those who do not rest are in bondage, whether their master is visible or invisible, external to them or internal. The great lie of this world is that ‘Work will make you free.’, as hung over the Gates to Slavery and Death at Auschwitz. No. It will not. Like all other creatures work can only reproduce after its own kind. Work begets work. But, men who are their own masters, own slavedrivers do not seem to us to be slaves.

From Nehemiah 13: In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, “What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

Then I warned them, and said to them, “Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you!” From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy!

Remember me, O my God says Nehemiah, that I have placed guards around Rest, that work-addicted men might be restrained from their own destruction. Our lust for our works and our righteousness is obsessive and addictive. It is a lust for slavery, and if any people is going to be free then their Rest must be secured against their own lusts.

The Glory of the New Covenant is that it is not like the Old Covenant which we and our fathers broke, it is unbreakable, unscrewupable. Rest in this world is a rare and blessed exception. The world drives us to work tempts and tricks us away from rest. But The Rest that He prepares for us is an enduring Rest.

So, as we begin to think about the New year, what we want for it, let's consider among our other plans a plan for more rest, rest from screentime, rest from labor, rest from our calendars and to do lists, rest from our righteousness, rest from the bookkeeping where we think God or our neighbors owe us and instead Hope that after our works are read into the record the Lamb that was slain will open Another Book which supersedes the handwriting of our lives, works and righteousness whether that handwriting is for us or against us. Let's rest from justifying ourselves, rest from having it all figured out, and instead Hope that Our Substitute has justified us and taken care of all things on our behalf.

Revelation 14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their works are behind them.”