Our Need to Rest Is No Joke

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

My friend Chris Maxwell is a writer—a fellow minister with a love of words—and a way with words.

He told me about rereading a chapter he was about to send off to his publisher, a chapter in which he had quoted Jesus’s invitation to rest, as in, “Come to me, all you are weary and heavy-laden.” Jesus goes on to say the burden he lays on us—the yoke— will be light.

Chris discovered, though, that he had misspelled one word—frequently.

“When I was explaining Christ's promise that His yoke would be easy,” he told me, “I saw that three times I used the word joke instead of yoke.”

An easy mistake to make. He had been typing in a hurry. The j and y keys sit close on a computer keyboard.

“Not a very funny joke,” he said, “for a perfectionist!”

But then it hit him: how what he wrote was truer than he knew. For we may see Jesus’ promise of rest, as, if not a joke, at least a promise not to take seriously.

A while ago the percentage of Americans who said they felt stressed was 66—two thirds. Americans who feel overwhelmed: almost half. This was before the pandemic upturned our worlds even more.

We struggle for a sense of tranquil unflappableness. So much so that we might be tempted to hear talk of a life of rest and calm as at best an illusory dream.

You don’t have to have a job at an office to feel that sometimes life has about it the feel of straining performance, or urgent deadlines, or mountains of need to scale. On top of that, sometimes the demands of simply trying to live a faithful life wear us down. Try try to be kind with an abrasive neighbor or annoying relative, or strive to do good amid cruel and crying injustices, and you get tired out. Depleted.

Can we take Jesus’ invitation seriously?

The tone of Jesus’s word is reassuring. Come, Jesus says—a strong, imperative verb. Jesus didn’t say, well, maybe wander on over and hope for the best. Nor did he give us a long list of things to get done.

No, he wouldn’t have asked us to come and experience his rest if he couldn’t provide it. He confidently offers another, better way than a hurried and flurried existence. Come! he says. He promises us a centeredness that can help us. Right in the middle of work and laboring and trying.

 Consider signing up for my soon-to-be released author newsletter, using the form on my web page.