Rest Assured: The Peril and the Plan

 February 22 2026

Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-13, Matthew 5:1-8

         When we experienced what was called, Snow-maggeden, you know that big dump of snow that buried all of us, the initial feeling was that of of being just totally overwhelmed. And then, as looked upon all of the snow drifts, I remembered the wisdom found in one of my favorite Bible verses. I hold on to this verse because it caught me by the surprise because it actually does snow in Israel something we discover at the end of the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. There the prophet writes: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but instead they water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.’ This verse stands as a reminder that even though we may not like having a foot of snow to deal with, it nonetheless is given to us so that when spring arrives the water table is sufficient to make seeds come to life and grow.

         Well, that verse from the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah wasn’t just giving us a lesson on the necessity of snow, far from it. You see, God was comparing the rain and the snow to the power of his spoken word. Just as the snow and the rain are sent from heaven to water the earth, so too when God speaks, and his word comes  down to us from heaven we know it has a life giving purpose. Just as the snow and the rain water the soil so that life can spring forth, so too the word spoke by God is given to us to cause life to spring forth in us. If we keep reading the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, God goes on to say, “So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth, it shall not return to me empty. My word shall accomplish the purpose that I have for it. My word shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’ These few verses in Isaiah clearly point us back, once again, to the creation story which happened only through the words spoke by God. As we have read through this story we have indeed found that when God speaks a word, that this word does indeed go forth and it accomplishes what the word speaks of, and the end result is always life. This is an important takeaway for us as we consider that the word of Jesus has promised us rest. We should expect that the truth of this promise will be found by us as we rest every seventh day all because this is what God did when he finished creation on the seventh day. 

         Now when we are told in our story that God rested, we are to understand that the place where he is sitting is there upon his throne. God reigns as a king who is certain that his reign and rule go forth into all of his creation. So the very reason that God rests is that on the sixth day, God first created us, his people. As the highest of all of his creatures, we have been created for a very special purpose which is that we are to be conformed to the image of God knowing that we have been made in his likeness. This means that we are to know ourselves as being the royal children of God who reign and rule like our Father, through our service to others. Once people have been created to have dominion over all the earth, God can then sit back, relax and enjoy the work of his good, and faithful servants.

         So because humanity has arrived on the scene, God can now know that his rule and reign has been established by and through the people he has brought into being. So, just as we learn from the Sabbath commandment, we are to find rest for our souls because we know that God is resting. Now, the good news is that we do not have to bring about a state of peace and rest in our life simply through sheer will and effort on our part. No, after God created people we are told that he blessed us. What Jesus teaches us is that the blessing God placed upon his newly created humans is given to us in a word, well, actually three words, a word of promise, a word of judgment, and a word of life, each word corresponding to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These words, just like the words God spoke creation into being, have the power to create order within all of us.

         So, just like when the snow and the rain come down from heaven to bring life-giving water to the earth, so too the word of God comes to us and that word will also bring forth life. This is what we find in the teaching Jesus gives to us about the blessing God speaks into our life. There in the fifth chapter of Matthew we find that the first three of these blessings are the word of promise give to us by our Heavenly Father. Our Father finds us, poor, and empty handed and he speaks to us the promise of a home for us where we can experience the life of heaven here on earth. Our Father finds us grieving our losses, and his eternal presence walking beside us brings us great comfort. Our Father then tells us that if we are willing to yield ourselves to his guidance then he promises us that we will indeed, inherit the world created for us. This word of promise spoken to us by our Father creates in us a faith, a certainty which provides us a foundation for our life to rest upon which will never be taken from us.

         Today, we come to the subject of judgment because God introduces us humans to a new tree, a tree which gives to us the knowledge of good and evil. Now, the truth is that there is nothing special about the tree or the fruit it produces. No, the only thing that sets this particular tree apart from all the rest is that God has told his people that they are to not eat of this particular fruit. But there is a crisis that arises because there is now a choice to be made. Good is found listening to God and not eating what is forbidden for us to eat. Evil is not listening to God and going ahead and making a fruit salad. The result of the choice we make will be that we will either grow in our knowledge of good or we will grow in our knowledge of what is less than good, what the Bible calls evil. When we listen to the word of God, trusting his judgment, and obeying his word, we will discover an ever deeper understanding of God’s goodness. As we grow in our certainty of the goodness of God, we will be more trusting of God, always ready to obey. But when we refuse to obey God, then we will begin to grow in our knowledge of evil for we will be on a path that leads to ever more evil in our life as we listen to this other voice which drowns out the still, small voice of God.

         So this introduction of this new tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causes us to wonder, just what is this voice that competes with the voice of God for our attention? Well, in the third chapter of Genesis, we learn about this other voice from a snake. To help understand what is going on here, I am indebted to Rabbi David Fohrman, who explains that the snake merely represents the rest of all God’s created animals. The snake is wondering why Adam and his bride, Eve, no longer listen to the voice God has placed in all the other animals, the voice that the other creatures listen to for their survival. You see, the animals know nothing of death. All they know is that listening to their inner voice keeps them alive one moment longer. It is this inner voice, the voice of the animal that we appear to be, which speaks to us. In the case of the fruit hanging there in the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, the woman, Eve, was first aware that this fruit was good for food. This fruit would be good to satisfy her appetite. The second observation the woman had was that this fruit was pleasant to look at, making this fruit an object to obsess over, the very definition of lust. Finally, the inner voice of Eve spoke to her of how being in possession of this fruit would cause her to look wise and honorable to her husband, Adam. So this fruit would become for Eve a great source of pride. So, when we listen to our appetites, and follow our lusts and allow pride to motivate us, this inner voice becomes so loud that the voice of God is no longer heard. So by following our appetites, and being controlled by our lusts, all the while allowing our pride to motivate us, then we have turned from God and his goodness, to walk the way of evil. Now, if we continually refuse to listen to the voice of God, then in the end we will become merely an animal, an animal that will die yet an animal who will be also horribly aware of what no other animal ever knows, this ending called death. It is this dread of death, this is what makes us a restless animal, continually concerned about the death that is waiting for us that we never really get around to actual living. And that is the real peril to not listening to God.

         Yet still, God continues to call his people to listen to his voice, for this is what separates us from the rest of all the creatures God has brought forth. The reason why God calls us to trust his judgment is that our own judgment is always being tempted to listen to our creaturely concerns. Instead of serving others as God desires of us, our appetites cause us to use people to get what is needed for our satisfaction. When we find others pleasant to our eyes they go from someone to serve and instead we make them into an object to obsess over. And instead of seeking the honor of God through our obedience to his word, we instead will do whatever it takes to make others give honor to us. The life which was to be conformed to the image of God, a life lived in the likeness of God, this is destroyed when we consider ourselves just another creature that God has made. 

         So God tells us that we dare not trust the inner voice that pulls us ever away from him. We must listen to the judgment of God, for he alone is good. Only God can know the good we were created to do. So, when God blesses us, he not only speaks to us a word of promise, that he can indeed take poor, empty handed people and through his eternal presence give us the world as our inheritance but he also speaks a word of judgment so that we know with certainty the path that leads us to the goodness of God. This word of judgment is the second part of the blessing God speaks over us so that through that blessing, the rest that God experiences might be found alive in us. 

         In the fifth chapter of Matthew, the sixth through the eighth verses, Jesus, the Son of God speaks to us a word of judgment. Through these three blessings we are able to put to death our appetites, our lusts and our pride. So, in response to our appetites, this inner search we all have to find satisfaction, Jesus tells us that we should have a hunger and thirst not just for our own satisfaction but rather we are to be craving a world where all people are at last satisfied. We are to ache for a world where all people can live as God created them to live, as equals under God. We are to find all people worthy of giving our life in service to them, having an appetite to help someone else who is hungering or thirsting for their life to at last be filled. When this becomes our priority, then God promises us we will have a deep, and abiding satisfaction with life.

         Jesus goes on to counter this temptation we have to fixate our eyes on what pleases by giving us to a new focus on which to set our sights. Listen to what Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Jesus is calling us to do as the Good Samaritan did, as recorded for us in the tenth chapter of Luke. How can we forget that it was the Samaritan who when he saw the man left half-dead in the ditch he had compassion on him.Jesus desires that we have eyes that look upon the hurting and the broken so that we become obsessed with offering life to them. God, once again gives to us a promises that assures us that if giving mercy is what our eyes are searching for then the judgment he has offers us will also be mercy.

         Lastly, when our need for honor in the watching eyes of the world begins to clamor in our ear, we instead are to find our status solely in the honor God gives to those who listen to him and obey him. You see, Jesus, in the twelfth chapter of John, tells us that those who are willing to serve Jesus by listening to him, these are the ones who will receive honor from our Heavenly Father. We should long to have as our highest ambition to one day step into the presence of our Master and hear those words, “Well, done, good and faithful servant.” You see, when we are tempted to chase after worldly riches in order that people in the world will hold us in high esteem, we are to pause and consider the joy we will one day have when we stand before the face of the God who rejoices over us. What keeps our heart pure is that we treasure the infinite riches of our relationship with God instead of desiring the fleeting charms of this world.

         So the judgment of God is that as his people, we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are to be people of mercy, and we are to have hearts that are pure in their devotion for God. Then, if we live according to this way of life, Jesus assures us that all throughout our life, God will be the source of our satisfaction. If we are merciful , then when we stand before Jesus our righteous Judge, we will receive mercy, not condemnation. And lastly, if our hearts have sought only the honor of God, we can know that our eternal days will be always lived before the face of God. So from these words of God we discover that this plan of God has created hope within us. This is much the same as when we heard the blessings which speak to the word of promise given to us by our Heavenly Father. In the first of the blessings that Jesus teaches us, we are promised that we will have a home where the life of heaven is experienced here on earth. We are also given the certainty of the eternal presence of the God who loves us which gives us great comfort in a world marked by loss. And we are told that if we are willing to be guided by our Father we will one day receive the world as an eternal inheritance. This word of promise from our Heavenly Father creates in us the faith to believe and trust his words. So, through the Father’s word of promise and through the Son’s word of judgment, we discover that within us is a vibrant faith and a living hope. This faith and hope are the very means by which we are given the gift of rest by Jesus. So we take the yoke of Jesus upon us we learn from him the way for us to have a faith in our Heavenly Father. And then Jesus goes on to teach us the way to make right judgments that will give us hope as we grow in an ever greater knowledge of the goodness of God.

         You see, the word of judgment that Jesus taught to us in his teaching about the blessing of God should seem oddly familiar. The reason for this is that this word of judgment is the very same word of the cross. There we see Jesus, who desired righteousness more than the preservation of his life. The judgment we deserved for rejecting Jesus, killing him to silence his voice, is death, yet the cross, instead, shouts, “Mercy”. Yet, we might rightly wonder, is this truly the way we were created to live, pursing righteousness and offering mercy? The way we justify this judgment of Jesus is that three days after the death of Jesus he stepped out of his grave very much live. And now Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, forever. There Jesus, fully human and fully God, now rests on the throne. As we listen to his voice, and hear the blessing which flows from his word of promise and the word of judgment, this same rest that Jesus experiences now can be the very rest experienced by us. So in faith and hope, let us now rest always in the certainty of his love! Amen!  

Rest Assured: The Promise and the Peace

 February 15 2026

Genesis 1:27-31, 2:1-3, Matthew 12:1-14

         One of the most common ideas that we as Christian’s have is that our influence in the world is getting less and less all the time. I think we can all agree that the church and what it stands for no longer seems to have much bearing on the lives of millions of people. Yet, as true as this is, perhaps the influence that the church has on our society is just more subtle, less noticeable than it should be. I mean, think of how our world is structured around a seven day week. Yes, as churches we can bemoan the fact that there are no longer any blue laws on the books that keep people at home on Sundays, and that there is too much going on, on what is supposed to be a day of rest. Yet, what we still have is a world where people have come to expect and enjoy the weekends, to have a little time for rest and relaxation. Yet, what many people do not realize is that this idea of taking one day out of every week to rest is one that can be traced back to the first chapter of every Bible. Isn’t it fascinating that the glorious end to the creation story, a day of rest, has now become an expected way of life. Perhaps we all sense that we were indeed created to rest once in awhile.

         Well, this need we all have to rest is what we have been looking at in the last several weeks in this series of messages entitled, “Rest Assured”. You see, the gift given to us at Christmas named Jesus, desires that we might receive from him the gift of rest. This is what he promises us in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, where hear Jesus tell us, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me for my burden is light, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” This is the very reason Jesus was given to us by the Father, so that we might be given rest for our souls. So we are right to ask ourselves, “Have I taken and opened up this gift of rest Jesus has given to me? Can I honestly say that I have found rest for my soul, as Jesus promises me that I should have? 

         When we encounter Jesus we must be willing to lay down the burdens that are just crushing us, and take Jesus up on his offer by taking up the yoke he offers us. This means that we will go wherever Jesus may lead us, and where we find that he is taking us is back to the beginning called Genesis. We know that the story of creation is where we need to be because on the seventh and final day of the creation story we find that God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. This may not seem to have much bearing on us, his people, until we remember the Ten Commandments, found in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. There, we find that God’s people were to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. God tells his people that six days shall you labor and do your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a resting day, to the Lord. On this day, you shall not work, you or your son, or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, nor your livestock nor any people of the nations who are with you. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Has it become somewhat obvious that the reason for the creation story is to provide the background and the reason for the keeping of the Sabbath? You see, for those who are not familiar to the story of creation, this idea that every seven days everybody stays home and takes a nap is rather peculiar. In the first place, why every seven days? Well, throughout the Bible, you will find that seven is a holy number that is used to represent wholeness, or completeness. Seven speaks to the ideas of peace and perfection. These meanings given to the number seven have their roots in the creation story where we are told God completed his work in seven days. As we hear in the creation story, the measurement of time usually follows the rhythms of nature. The hours we count and the days we number, merely keep track of the movement our earth around the sun. The months were originally based upon the waxing and waning of the moon. The years are structured by the various seasons and so on. So when we come to the marking off of how many days are in a week we find that this number seven is simply not found in the cycles created within the natural world. Seven, you see, is simply the number God has chosen to represent his work. 

         So our weeks follow the original format found in the beginning which was given to us by God. The pattern is that there is six days to work and then there is a seventh day to rest because this is the very rhythm of God. Now, as Christians we must be careful how we understand the keeping of the Sabbath because it will seem quite natural to believe in Jesus and, at the same time, feel the need to keep the Ten Commandments. You see, Jesus himself told us that he came to fulfill the Law. This means that Jesus brings about the life that the Law was always pointing us to. So it is important that we know just what is the purpose of this day of rest, I mean, why did God believe that this res was so necessary? The answer as to why there is this need for a day of rest is not as easy to find as we might expect. You see, even in Jesus day, the most upright, devout Law follower, did not apparently even know why God had set up this seven day schedule. This is discovered one Sabbath day, when Jesus and his disciples began to pluck heads of grain as they walked through a wheat field. Now, when these Pharisees saw Jesus being all ok with the behavior of his students, they were appalled. Didn’t Jesus know the law? Did he not know that when it says, ‘No work”, it means, “No Work”? So Jesus reminds these Pharisees of a story about David, and how David had once offered his famished soldiers the sacred bread of the Tabernacle. Even though the bread was holy there was indeed something more holy than what is found in the tabernacle and that sacred item to be revered was the very life of the men who were in intense hunger. Jesus continues this line of thought by asking the Pharisees if they were not aware that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?” Then Jesus reminds them that the disciples eating a bite of breakfast was something that was greater than the Temple here! Now to the Pharisees this had to be an outstanding statement for the Temple was as great as it gets. Yet Jesus speaks as an authority on the Sabbath because he is the very Son of Man; he is the Lord of the Sabbath. Right here, Jesus is taking us back to the original seventh day of rest in the story of creation. There, when we are told that God rested, we are to picture God seated upon his throne. This image of one resting there on that seventh day is none other than Jesus .

         Jesus, then is not just our Lord, but he is the one who reigns over the seventh day. You see, the Sabbath day is given to us to remind us that the very reason why God rests, and the reason why we rest is solely because of this: our God reigns. And further, the Sabbath also tells us that our God reigns through his people, the ones God created to reign and rule over his creation. You see, this reigning as God’s representative in the world through the serving of our neighbor, this is the true work for which we have all been created to do. So as we pause and rest from our labors, this is what we are called to remember. You see, this serving of others by giving them what is needed for life, as in the case of Jesus who meets a man whose hand is deformed, this is not the work that the commandment is calling us to cease from doing. Jesus clearly tells us that it is indeed lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Now, when we hear the words, “…to do good…”, we should know that this is the mark of the creation story. Every time God created another piece of his masterpiece he declared that it was, “Good”. The culmination of all this goodness is a creation that is overflowing with life. So when Jesus tells us that we are to do good, we can be assured that this means that we are to always be working at the giving of life. There is never to be a day when we are to rest from doing this good work.Whenever and wherever we see a need to serve someone else, doing whatever is necessary for someone else to be set free from their anxiety or worry about life, God tells us to go ahead and get busy. You see, the fulfillment of this commandment to keep the Sabbath is given to us so that we might begin to see every day as a Sabbath day. Yes, we do have to work in order to live but we can remember that such work is not the work we were created for. Yes, we do have to go to work but that work does not have to consume our life to the point that we have no time, or strength left to do the work God created us to do, ruling and reigning through the service of others. Yes, we do have to work but God will provide just as he did in the beginning. We need not be concerned about all that we need because above all we should know that our God reigns, a truth that is made more certain every time we reign and rule through our service to others.

         We have to understand that now because Christ has come to fulfill the law, keeping the Sabbath for us is to be an every day way of life. Each new day is a day we are to rise, living a life at rest yet ready to do the good work God has for us. Already when we consider what we were created to do we sense that we are not up to the task, and we are to right in doing so. You see, before we can rest there on the seventh day, God first does something on the sixth day to make this life at rest a real possibility. We are told in the twenty-eighth verse of the first chapter of Genesis that God blessed the people that he had made.  Now when we wonder just what does it mean for God to bless us, we discover that Jesus has revealed this to us. We first are to know that the word, “blessing”, in the Hebrew language, simply means to kneel before another in order to fear them a gift. When it tells us that God blessed humanity in the beginning, we are to have this image of God kneeling before us offering us a gift, so once again we see the posture of a servant. Now the gift God gives to us is his word. As we remember, creation began with God speaking, and when God spoke a word, light appeared, the light, as we learn in the first chapter of John, which is the life of all humanity. Then, as the creation of the world concludes, God speaks not one last word but this time three words to bring forth the highest creation called Adam, humanity. 

Yet, surprisingly, God is not done speaking because before God sends his people forth, he once again speaks a word, called blessing. Through this blessing of God our life is to produce good fruit. This good fruit is found listed for us in the fifth chapter of Galatians.There Paul teaches us that the fruit God brings forth in us, is not merely more life, as was the case in the rest of creation, but rather, the fruit in us is instead a life with certain qualities. These characteristics are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and the very life of heaven living in us.You see, this fruit God speaks into being within us is the very eternal life of God. This life springs up in us in much the same way as the rest of creation, through God speaking it into being. 

You see, the blessing of God is the gift given to us by the word of God. As God speaks his word, it brings forth in us earth-bound creatures the very life of heaven which is the very source of the fruit of the Spirit. We hear the words God blesses us with in what Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew. These nine blessings found there can be divided into what might be called a word of promise, a word of judgment and a word of life, which correspond to the voice of God the Father, the voice of God the Son and the voice of God the Holy Spirit. 

The first of these blessings, found in the fifth chapter of Matthew, the third through the fifth verses, is what we might call a word of promise given to us by our Heavenly Father. This promise is for those who know that they are the poor, the empty handed ones,  these are who our Heavenly Father welcomes home so they might experience the very life of heaven. Blessed, Jesus again tells us, but this time it is those who mourn, those whose life is marked by loss. This sense of grief is something we all know so instinctively, and it is the root cause of all our anxiety and worry. The blessing that is given to those who grieve, is that they are found by their eternal Father. What comfort it is to know the one who can never be lost to us is the very one who finds us when all seems lost. The Father who comforts us speaks to us, telling us that if we are willing to learn, to take the yoke of Jesus upon ourselves, then God promises us the earth will be our inheritance. 

So, let’s step back and look at how we are blessed through this word of promise spoken to us by our Heavenly Father. God speaks to the empty handed people that to them will be given a home where heaven can be experienced here on earth. In a world marked by loss, we are found by our eternal Father, the one and only who can never be lost from us. And our eternal Father promises us that if  we are willing to learn his ways, then we who were once empty handed, ravaged by the losses of this world, we are promised that the entire creation will one day be our inheritance. 

When we hear what our Heavenly Father promises to us we are to realize that this gift can only be received by faith. Can you believe that in this world marked by so much evil that there can be a place where the goodness of God can be found? I mean, can you really believe that the comfort given to us by our eternal Father is really the answer to the tragedies we experience through all that we have lost here on earth? Are we willing to yield our life over to the guidance and direction of this Heavenly Father who promises us that if we do so the whole creation will one day be given to us as a father gives their child an inheritance? You see, the blessing spoke to us by our Heavenly Father is to call forth certainty in us because now at last we have found, or perhaps better, we have been found, by our eternal Father. You see, all we have to do is to wonder just why it is that the one who is not only eternal but also invisible, would even decide to be known by us? The answer is that the God who too knows the pain of loss, desires that we know that there is indeed a goodness beyond the evil of this world. Such is the message of the cross, the painful loss, and the resurrection, where the goodness of God overcame the evil of this world. You see, it is God offering to us his goodness, this is what demonstrates his great love for us. Out of this great love we find in us a willingness to trust in his promises, above everything else. And here in this trust, we find that we are no longer restless, for we have found a certainty in the God who loves us. Amen!

         

         

         

 

Rest Assured:People as Partners

 January 25 2026

Genesis 1:26-27,Mark 10:43-45

         One of the interesting aspects of I find about being a Dad is watching my kids be involved in activities that I never had any interest in. In High School, they were busy with Orchestra and Band, two things that I never had any interest in. Yet, I still enjoyed watching them perform at concerts and football games. As they have gotten older, they now all help out with The Little Theater, which again, is an activity that is totally foreign to me. Nonetheless, for Sarah loves to sing and perform on stage, and she has since gotten Matt involved with the building of the sets and lighting for different performances. And then she also pulled in Elizabeth to help with feeding the casts during their practices. So needless to say, I now know more about theater and acting than I would have ever thought possible which is really surprising.

         Now, by going to all of the various shows that my daughter has been involved with, I have at least become aware of how the scenes in a play are set up to get the maximum dramatic effect. Perhaps this is why as I have read through the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis, I have begun to sense that God too has a flair for the dramatic.In this account of how God made us, I imagine that there in the beginning, it is like we are sitting before a dark stage, where nothing can be seen and the only sound is that of fluttering wings. Then, suddenly, a voice shouts, “Light”, and suddenly, there on the dark stage appears a solitary light. Then we watch as invisible hands move onto the stage the various set-pieces. First, comes the rhythm of the light of day being separated from the night. Then the heavens are separated out, pressed upward while the waters are pushed back to reveal the earth. Quietly, there is a stirring as seeds set forth shoots, shoots giving way to stalks and the stage is quickly overrun with plants and trees of every sort and kind. Then there is a pause and as we watch we become aware that these first set pieces are homes for what God is going to create.The heavens become the residence for the sun, moon and stars. The waters are now known as the seas which swarm with all aquatic life; the skies are covered with flocks of birds. Then the earth is filled with all manner of animals, and beasts and livestock in a breath-taking array. As utterly incredible all of this is, what is more astounding is that this paradise is merely the setting for what is about to happen next for at last the voice which has exclaimed that all that has been created is indeed, “Good”, now announces that time has at at last come for God’s crowning achievement. Just as all of creation has brought forth its own kind, now God calls forth one after his own kind, in his image and substance.Can you feel the excitement as this critical moment is at last upon us? 

         Well, we need to have a proper understanding of just what a big deal we all are to God in order for us to be able to be able to rest in this world. In this season called Epiphany, we are looking at what Jesus reveals to us which is that he is been given to us by our Heavenly Father in order that we might receive from him this gift of rest. In the eleventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that we are to take his yoke upon ourselves, and allow Jesus to lead us and teach us, how we might have rest for our souls. When we take that yoke upon ourselves we discover that where Jesus is leading us is back to the beginning because on the seventh day of the creation story found in Genesis, we are told that God rested. As God is resting, so too we are also to rest.The key for us to be able to rest, then, is to discover in the first six days of creation the reason why we can say that God has indeed created an unshakeable kingdom for us to live in.

         Last week, we learned that the way that we can face an uncertain future is not to be superstitious but instead we are to pray to God knowing that he has created a world that will meet all of our needs. As the twenty-third Psalm tells us, if the Lord is our shepherd then we shall not want. So we pray knowing that God is well aware of our needs now just as he was aware of what is necessary for us to have life when he first created the world. Instead of fussing over the future, we instead can bear fruit that will change the future when we let ourselves be a life which brings forth more life, for life is indeed good fruit. You see, the order that God set up, there in the beginning, always ends with the life God creates being able to create more life, and God’s creation is able to sustain this ever increasing river of life. Just as God alone can create a world out of nothing he also can give and sustain life in ever increasing measure.We can rest assured that this is the truth we can be certain about.

         At last then, we come to the moment we have all been waiting for, drumroll please, the creation of humanity. God says, “Let us bring forth mankind” which in the Hebrew is Adam, which signifies, red and earth. This definition reminds us that we all come out of the soil with red blood within us. This moment when humanity is created, though, does not happen by God merely speaking a word, as he has done many times before. No, God first announces his purpose for this, his last and highest creation. God says, “Let us make Adam in our image and likeness.” Now, those who first listened to this creation story would have been shocked when they heard this statement for in the ancient world, it was only the kings who were said to be created in the image of whatever god they represented. So imagine the surprise when God says that all people have been created to represent him so that wherever people might be found, there the rule or kingdom of God could be said to exist. Instead of the other creation stories told throughout the world where it was believed that the gods ruled through the few, we find instead, that the one, true, living God has a kingdom which is to be ruled by all people. You see, in the other creation stories people told back then, humanity had been created to serve the kings as slaves. This is the very origins of the belief in the necessity of a class system where some fortunate people get to rule and the rest of the grunts get to work. Yet, surprisingly God has a very different approach, one where all people have dignity and respect for all are equally created. The foundation for God’s call that all people be treated with equity and righteousness is right here in the beginning. This is why Paul could say, in the seventeenth chapter of Acts, that our God has, “…made from one person every nation of mankind to live upon the face of the earth…”. And also why Paul could also say at the end of the third chapter of Galatians that there is neither, “…Jew nor Greek, there is slave nor free there is no male nor female for all are one in Christ Jesus…”. You see, when Jesus calls for righteousness he is merely taking us back to the beginning where we were created to live a life where all are equals.

         So the reason that no one can consider themselves to be greater than anyone else is that we all can say God has created each one of us and has he has given each person the very same purpose. It is us humans who have this great distinction of being the ones who have been created to be the image of God throughout his creation. So wherever people might be found, there is where the kingdom of God can be said to be located. Yet, even as great as this is for all of us, there is still more to our story for we have also been told that we are created in the likeness of God. Now, I have long been curious about just why this term has been added here because as most commentators will tell you, the idea of likeness is very similar to image. A clue to figuring out what it means for us to bear the likeness of God is found, strangely enough right at the beginning of this creation story, where we are told that creation was without form, and it was empty. Here again, we seem to find an unnecessary duplication until it dawns on you that the answer to why there is this form and what is meant to fill that form will be found at at some point in the creation story. So, at last we come to the part of our story where we hear about an image, the outward form of God which is to be what people are to be conformed to.  This image, then is filled with what can be considered the likeness of God, as in, just what is God’s inner quality? Just what sort of king or queen are we supposed to be, in other words? How we understand the rule of of God, is I believe, one of the essential pieces that gets missed here in the creation story.

You see, not even the people of God who had told and retold this creation story for thousands of years seemed to understand just what it meant to be like God in the way they that they ruled others.  The disciples, those who had read the creation story countless times, thought that by hanging around with Jesus, the Messiah, they were on the fast track to living the high life, sitting on the throne on either side of Jesus, I mean, what could be better than that? When Jesus heard his students squabbling over who was the greatest of among them he realized they did not know just who their God was, and therefore, they did not know what it meant for them to be created in his likeness. Sure, every nation rules from the top down through the fear of the sword yet they only do so because they believe in a false version of the way the world was created. For those who believe in the one, true, living God though, we find that we were created for greatness which is found through our willingness to serve all people. Can you imagine the look on the disciples face when they heard Jesus tell them that if they want to win first prize then they had to be willing to serve even those found way down there at the end of the line. You see, God created those who bear his likeness to serve others by fulfilling the needs that our neighbor might have. God simply did not create us so we could be king of the hill we are living on. No, to be created in the the likeness of God means that we are to be like Jesus. What Jesus tells us is that he came from his Father’s throne, and he entered into our human story and he did so as a servant. I mean, didn’t you hear Jesus clearly say that as the Son of Man he came from the throne of God to serve his brothers and sisters by giving his very life as a ransom for many? This is what it means to have a life shaped in the image of God, one that represents God as king, whose reign is found by serving others through the offering of life to all. This idea is confirmed for us by Paul who wrote in the second chapter of Philippians that we are to, “…have this same mind among us as Jesus had who even though he originally had the same form of God he did not try and make himself equal with God, but he instead he became nothing. He took the form of a servant when he came in the likeness of humanity. He humbled himself and was obedient even unto death, even death on the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Jesus. God has bestowed upon him, the name that is above every other name so that at the name of Jesus every knew will bow in heaven, on the earth and under the earth.” You see, when Jesus took on flesh, he became for us the New Adam, so that even though he was king, the very Son of Man, he nonetheless, came as one of us in order to serve all of us. Jesus served us all by dying upon a cross so that we might at last get the picture, the real picture of the God we were created to represent. Now we might all agree that the way God expects us as people to rule and represent him, seems too strange to be accepted. Yet, when Jesus revealed that our God reigns through serving others he was merely stating the truth found there in the beginning. Can we not see that in the first five days of creation that God is there serving as a stage hand setting every thing up, making sure everything is in good, working, order, so that we as human beings might have all we need. What God did not do is place humans in a vast wilderness, hand them a bag of seeds and them tell them go forth and make their own own paradise. No, from the moment of our creation, God has done what God has always done, he comes to us as a servant. We hear this in what Jesus teaches us in the sixth chapter of Matthew, where he says that our Heavenly Father is like a great servant, one who will see to it that we have enough to eat and something to wear, the very basics of life. God serves us in this way in order that we will be set free to seek the kingdom of God. And just what does it mean for us to seek first the kingdom of God? Well, if we return to the beginning when we were first created we will realize that this means our life will be conformed to the image of God, and we will extend his rule by doing so in the likeness of God which means we will serve others. Putting this all together then, our life has all it needs because our God serves us, so that we are set free to go and seek out someone who stands in need of our service.

Here we might remember that when God creates life he does so in the hope that the life he creates will bear fruit, being a life from which springs more life. We as humans, are no different, yet now, because of our role as being God’s representative in his creation, this bearing of fruit goes beyond us bearing children. You see, what it means to bear fruit also means that we serve others through taking this life God gives to us and turn and serve someone else, sharing the life God has given to us with them so that there might be more life than before.This is what Jesus means when he tells us that we are to seek first the kingdom of God for when we do so then all that we need will be given to us. You see, the more we serve others, the more we will become convinced that this must be the very life we were created to live. So when we become more and more convinced that our God created a world for us where we might rule through serving others, then we will discover that we are no longer overly obsessed about our own little life. Instead, we will find that we are filled with wonder at what only our God can do, for his power and ability are just as marvelous now as they were in the beginning.

         So, there is much for us to consider when at last we read of the creation of humanity on the sixth day of creation. What God does in this story is to give us a different way to consider our world and just what exactly is our role within this world. It would be easy for us, wouldn’t it, that when we hear it written that we have been granted dominion over all living things that this means that all living things were created to serve us. Yet, as the disciples found out when they asked Jesus just where they would be seated on the throne, we too are called to consider our dominion differently. To have dominion according to God is to be a servant to all life, and most importantly, to serve the lives of the people that happen upon our way. God emphasizes the glory in which we were created when we are told, not once but three times, God created humanity in his image; in the image of God, God created humanity; male and female persons, God created them all. So when we look at the face of another we are looking at a wonder who stands at the very center of the stage called paradise, one who may not yet know the purpose and dignity that they were created to have. But we are the ones who do know how God created all people so let us live in the way God created us to live, serving all people with dignity just as God first served us.  Amen!

         

         

Rest Assured:Prayer and Providence

 January 18 2026

Genesis 1:3-24, Matthew 6:25-30

         It goes without saying that when the NFL gets closer to the playoff season it becomes more and more like a three ring circus. Nowhere is this truth so obvious than the last game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. It was all over social media that before the game, a Catholic priest blessed the Steelers end zone by sprinkling holy water over it. Many now believe that this is the reason that this the Ravens missed the field goal in the last few seconds of the game sealing the win for Pittsburgh. That in turn most likely cost the coach, John Harbaugh, his job as well. Yet, can we really say that this loss can be attributed to the actions of a priest showering the end zone with holy water? To be honest, I would rather the priest had not done what he did not because I wanted the Ravens to win, but rather I don’t like the church to be seen dabbling in what seems to be superstition. Superstition is this belief that with the right words, or the correct actions, we can perhaps change the future such as altering the course of a game so that it ends in our favor. You see, what most people, and quite a lot of Christians apparently, do not realize, is that right from the beginning of creation, God ruled out the possibility of their being any hint of their being any means to change a person’s future than simply trusting that future to God.

         When we read the account of God creating the world, as we are doing in this series of messages, we should come away with being in awe of the power of God to take an unknown future and bring forth a beautiful present. We are looking at our beginnings found in the book of Genesis because on the seventh day we hear of God resting, as he surveys all that he has brought forth, a creation he exclaims is, ‘Very good!”. You see, as God rests and enjoys this beautiful place we call home, so too he calls us to join him in resting and enjoying life. This is the very rest that Jesus desires to give to all of us as we hear in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, where he says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus invites us to take his yoke and place it upon ourselves so that we might go where he goes, back to where we originally rested with God. 

         When we listen to the story of our creation we begin to realize that the story is more than a mere telling of why our world is here for as we go through this account we are given the very means by which we might obtain the rest promised to us. Right there, in the very first words God speaks we discover that God uses unformed nothingness and empty space as his canvas on which to paint his artwork. As his power summons forth creation we find that this power also summons forth faith within us. And then we also hear of how God hovers over us, protecting his creation from the chaos, and we realize that he has never stopped protecting us from harm, for this is how he shows his love for us. Suddenly, a word is spoken, a shout is hurled into the void and suddenly there is light. Here I am indebted to the author, Rachel Booth Smith, who wrote the book, “Rest Assured”, which is the inspiration for these messages. She points out that God uses, common, ordinary, everyday words when he calls forth creation. The reason for this, she claims, is that God intentionally does not use special words or incantations that only a chosen few might learn and possibly use, as is common among those who worship false gods. No, God simply says the word, “Light”, and there is light. You see, there is no power in the words themselves, as superstitious people hope they might be able to learn in order to give them an edge. No, there is only one source of real power in the world and that source is God. Oh, people may put some stock in their unwashed football jersey being the very reason why their team had a winning season, just like some might believe that Pittsburgh Steelers made it to the playoffs because of the workings of a Catholic priest, but the story of creation paints a different picture. Only as God speaks do we become aware of who has the real power.

         Now the thought that God alone having all the power in the universe may initially be a cause for panic by us, for we might have doubts as to how God will use his power. People often joke that when others say or do something wrong that they had better watch out or they just might get zapped by lightning because we got on the wrong side of God. When I hear these kinds of thoughts I think that it is too bad that people do not know this creation story. All one needs to do is listen again to God speak, for as he brings forth the different elements of this world, God declares that it is indeed, “Good”. This is telling us that God, so unlike us, is a God of integrity. You see, God is good, and therefore, what God speaks is also only always, good. So when we say that God is good, we are not just saying that God can do good, but rather we are saying that all God can do is good because he is a good God. This is important for us to understand because when we later come to know God as love we are saying that our God loves us for this is all that our God can do. So as we begin our story, we do so knowing that creation is good because it has been brought forth from a good God who is only able to bring forth a creation which is good.

         What we also learn about our good God is that his words are used to not only to create, but his words bring forth order. God speaks and Heaven is separated from Earth. God speaks and the waters subsides  and dry earth rises up. God also speaks forth the names for all that he brought forth, for a name speaks to the purpose for whatever it is that God has created. Earth is called earth because it is dry land. The Seas are the waters God gathered together. So as we read this account, we begin to see a picture of the good order of God’s creation, each piece fashioned and crafted to fulfill the role given to them by its name. It is good for us to read of this moment of perfection found here at he beginning because it tells us that we are on the right track when we sense that our world is terribly, out of order. This story of creation is supposed to create in us a tension between this glorious ideal we read of and the world we currently find ourselves in. Yet, because we also know that all power is held by God, then we also know that the answer to setting things right can never happen through some magic spell or through a sprinkling of holy water. This is what Jesus speaks about in the sixth chapter of Matthew, where he tells us, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the people of the nations do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Do not pray like this. Your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.’ You see, what Jesus is saying to us is that we do not have to need any special words in order for us to be on the good side of God for we know from his creation that all God has is a good side. This goodness is witnessed in God’s creation because God has created all that we could possibly need. This is so evident right here at the beginning, even before humanity was ever spoken into life.

         So, we are to have the assurance that this is a world where God thought of everything that we might need. God has created a home for us that is missing nothing, it is lovely and beautiful, generous and predictable.When we find in this first ten verses of this first chapter of Genesis is that God first, has made homes for the various inhabitants to dwell in. So, where God calls into existence the light named Day and the darkness he called Night, we then find that in the fourteenth through the nineteenth verses that this is where the sun, moon and the stars make their home. Then when God creates the Earth and the Seas we find in the twentieth verse, that this is the home where swarms of living creatures will cover the earth, where birds will spread through the skies and where fish will swim in the waters. You see, this order is to be witnessed by us so that we understand that just like them, we too belong here. Listen to Jesus again, from the sixth chapter of Matthew, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of greater value than the birds?….Consider the flowers of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin yet I tell you, not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. So if God clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not clothe you…?” You see, Jesus is here taking us back to the beginning, to where the care and order of God is so evident. The goodness of God is seen in his knowing the needs of every created being and then supplying exactly what is necessary for them to have life. 

         So what the story of creation speaks to us about is that we are to know that our God is a God who not only speaks life into being but he is also a God who knows all of these living creations and what they need today for life. You see, the story tells us that God did not simply call into being living creatures without knowing what they would need before hand. The key evidence of God’s overflowing abundance found in his creation is found when his creations begin to  bring forth of fruit. In the twelfth verse of this first chapter we read, “The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to their kind.”  We also see God surveying the living creatures filling both Earth and Sky, and not only calling them, “Good”, but we hear God speak a new word, a word called blessing. Verse twenty-two tells us that God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply upon the earth.’ You see, these environments God spoke into being not only supplied all the need for those creatures God called into being but God created so much abundance that the beings God called into life were themselves, able to bring forth even more life. So this creation has been made so that regardless of the infinite number of beings being brought to life, God’s goodness is able to provide for all of them.

         So, the creation that we live in does indeed have an order and a structure that is good for the God who has brought it forth is good. We have a God who speaks and where nothing once was there is suddenly something in its place. This God speaks again, and his words take and organize what he has created by separating and dividing each element. God speaks again and  all that he had made now has a name so that all that God created might be known according to the purpose God has for it. Yet, God is not done speaking for he speaks once more, and his blessing is placed upon the life forms he created, causing the life found in his created world to have more life spring forth from them. So at last, we find that God’s creation overflows with life. And God surveys all that he has made, and he declares that it is good. 

         So, this is the way God has ordered our world, a world in which there is a home for us, a place where we might be at rest. When we consider what God has called forth into being, we can begin to understand that God has designed our world to have life and to have life, abundantly. The order of God is seen to be that he creates a world where life is brought forth with the final hope being that this life would bear fruit; life springing forth from life. So what we find in our creation story is that the world we live in with all of its our anxiety and worry, does not have to be like this. You see, the reason why we can trust God for all of our needs is found in the end goal God has for all of life which is that there will be fruit. I mean, think about it; If God has created life to bear fruit, and if God has created the right environment for this to happen, then it just makes sense that God, through his creation is going to be able to supply not just what we might need but God will also supply whatever fruit our life might bring forth. No mater the infinite amount of life that may result, God promises that all will live, all will be blest, for all is good.

         So when we live in this world which seems to be out of order, we need to recall just what it means for our world to at last be in good, working, order.We live every day in this tension between knowing that the world is broken and knowing that God desires a world that is at last restored and ordered once more. Paul puts our dilemma like this in the eighth chapter of Romans, “The whole creation has been groaning  together in childbirth until now.” As Paul further tells us, creation is waiting in hope to be set free from its bondage of corruption, this brokenness that seems so evident. This is the stark reality we are aware of when we utter our prayers to God, for as Paul concludes, that just as the whole creation is groaning we too are to groan in prayer. Just as all of creation is longing to be free from the brokenness and have the original goodness at last be the norm, we too long for the original good order we see portrayed in our creation story to be the world we live in.

         As we have seen, the original order that we witness in the beginning, has life springing forth at God’s command, and this life, in turn, bears fruit, bringing forth life just as our good God first brought life into being. Now while we may not have a magic spell, or some superstitious ritual we can utter in order to bring this broken world back to its original glory, what we can do is to consider the brokenness of our world, our life and those we share life with. As we come to pray, we must keep in mind the order we see in the beginning, and then consider that as all life has as its ultimate goal to bring forth fruit, just what fruit am I bringing forth? Is the fruit of my life, good, as all fruit was, there in the beginning?I guess it should come as no surprise that at the end of his teaching on prayer, Jesus speaks to us about bearing fruit. In the fifteenth through the twentieth verses of the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus , tells us, “Every healthy, well-ordered tree, bears good fruit, but if the tree is diseased, it will bear rotten fruit.” We can figure out from the good we find in the creation story, that good fruit is fruit that has life so that by this fruit more life might be seen. So Jesus is telling us that we should have a life which is a life-giving life, the kind of life where more life is seen to flow out of this life God has give to us. When we understand that this is what it means to bear fruit then it is not much of a leap, to understand that being fruitful for us is very much the same as being merciful, for both entail us having a life that longs to bring forth more life. As a good God first brought forth a world full of the fruit called life, so too in order to be ordered in this good way, we must be willing to bear the good fruit of life. When we do this, I believe that we will once again begin to sense the hope to which God first created this world for we will have a life that has been not only created by God but we also have a life organized by God, and a life named by God as being, good, and very good!Yet, the speaking of the blessing of God over our life only happens as we are willing go forth to bear good fruit. You see, only as we bear good fruit, will we know we have a life that is ordered by God. Only by living out this order will we at last be able to trust the God who has called this order into being and at last, we will find rest in this world! To God be the glory. Amen!

             

Rest Assured: Of Puzzles and Pictures

 January 11 2026

Genesis 1:1-2, John 1:1-5

         These early cold days of the new year causes me to remember when the winter days got to cold for us kids to play outside, my Mom would often get us to help her put together jig saw puzzles. You learned quick to find the corners but sometimes, like when the puzzle was round, you had to make sense of these pieces in other ways. You had to look at the picture on the box and begin to sort the pieces by their color. As I think about putting puzzles together, you know, without the picture on the front of the puzzle box, the task of putting the puzzle together would be almost impossible.Sure, you might be able to find the corner pieces but to figure out the the picture hidden there among the mess would be prove to be extremely difficult.

         In much the same way as putting a jig saw puzzle together, to figure out this life we find ourselves in requires a picture which can assist us to put the pieces together. In this series of messages called, “Rest Assured”, we are discovering just what Jesus reveals to us, which is that he has been given to us so that we might experience a life marked by rest. This is the promise Jesus gives to us in Matthew eleven, verse twenty-eight, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me , for I am gentle and lowly in your heart and you will find rest for your soul, your very life.” Jesus teaches us that when we unite ourselves with him then we will discover just what picture is there on the outside of this box called life. We at last can rest when we know just what life is supposed to look like and perhaps more importantly, we can also know where we fit in this picture Jesus lays out for us. You see, what it means for us to be yoked with Jesus is that we are bound to him so that where he leads, we will feel strangely compelled to follow. So as Jesus walks on those ancient paths which lead to our rest, we do not need to know the way for Jesus will be for us the very way we can get to this promised rest. As we follow Jesus, then our life becomes a moment by moment trusting upon the leading of Jesus. Jesus is for us then, not just the way that leads us to our promised rest, he is in all actuality, our very life because his life has consumed our own as we have allowed him to lead us is into the true picture of our promised rest. When we at last, look upon this picture, we find that it is the very image of Jesus himself. And we also find that we are able to fit into this picture when we become conformed to the contours of the piece of the puzzle called Jesus, for he is our truth about this puzzle of life. You see when Jesus is for us the way, the truth and the life as we find in the fourteenth chapter of John, the result for us is that we are able to rest as we abide with him. 

         Now the truth Jesus is leading us to is the very truth found in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, the story of creation.You see, Jesus is telling us the original back to the future story because where he is leading us to is to a future where the original creation found in the beginning is our ever present home. You see, what Jesus also reveals to us is that he was there right at the beginning when chaos gave way to creation. This was the mind blowing realization of the early church. I mean, listen to Paul, in the eighth chapter of First Corinthians who writes, “…yet for us there is one God, from who are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and through whom we exist.” Paul could further write in the opening verses of Ephesians that our Heavenly Father has chose us in Jesus Christ, before the foundation of the world. These amazing statements of faith given to us by Paul, of course come from what Jesus himself has revealed to us. In a prayer Jesus spoke on the night he was betrayed, as found in the seventeenth chapter of John, Jesus is heard to say, “Father, I desire that they also, all those whom you have given to me, may they be with me where I am, to see my glory, the glory which you gave to me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” So Jesus, by own admission, clearly tells us that he had a front row seat when chaos became creation. Jesus, as John records in the first chapter of his gospel, is indeed the Word made flesh. The Word is the same word John also tells us was there, in the beginning, within God, one with God. 

         So we trust the leading of Jesus because he is as we hear at the beginning of the book of Revelation, “…the Alpha, the beginning of all things and he is the Omega, the end of all things.” When we take what we now know about Jesus, that he existed in the Father’s love before creation and through him the creation came to exist, we can now look at the creation story with new eyes. This story begins with a statement about God; God alone is the one who created everything, the heavens above and all of creation here on earth, so that what is written here in Genesis is an account of what God alone has done. Now it is also important that we remember that this account was originally a story told perhaps around a campfire at the end of the day. It is a story whose telling brought hope to the people of God when God was forced to throw them out of the land promised to them because of their rebellion and idolatry. God told his people that they needed to spend seventy years being slaves to the Babylonians and only then would he bring them back to live in Judaea. This time span is important because after seventy years most of the people who left for Babylon would have died there. What it appears God is doing is raising up a new generation who might at last be the obedient people he expected them to be. So, the task set before the people of God was that they had to instill their faith into their children otherwise there might not be anyone left to live in the land promised to them by God. This was no easy task, either, because they would be raising their children in a hostile environment, one where the story of many different gods could be heard on every street corner. Again, this sounds quite familiar, doesn’t it? You see, the people of Babylon had their own creation stories, yet they were vastly different than the one held to be true by God’s people. God, I believe, understood that this would happen when his people found themselves in exile and he may have even welcomed a side-by-side comparison to these other, so-called gods. You see, in all these other stories, the world always begins as a mess for the gods to clean up and sort out. For the worshippers of false gods, the world has always been a mess, it is currently mess, and it will remain a mess, so just pick a god who you believe will be the best ruler over the mess we find ourselves in. Such a dismal state of affairs would never have been any great source of rest and peace for those who clung to such stories.

         Well, even though the people of the ancient world did not have much to hold fast to in the stories they told about creation, we can, nonetheless understand why they told these stories of their beginnings. You see, in the quiet evenings, there around a fire as they thought about life, the people would think of questions that they struggled to find answers to. As they looked in wonder at this world they lived in, people would quite naturally be curious as to just whose fingerprints were on these marvelous works they witnessed throughout nature? Then they may have thought, if there was one who had made this world, why had he made this world like he did? Why did there seem to be an order to the workings of this place we call home? And then it makes sense that people would ultimately begin to consider, just why they were here, just why had they been given a life here in this place? Then, like many of us may have wondered ourselves, they may also have searched for the answer to the question,  “Does my life have a purpose or is my life just some random event void of any meaning?”.

         The story of Genesis is the story is a narrative which gives us answers to questions such as these. You see, for those who first heard this story, the question of how creation came to be was not even a question they would have thought about. While many people today still try and use the story found in Genesis to explain how our world came to be, this simply is not the focus of this creation story. Perhaps the people who first listened to this creation story held to the wisdom found in the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, where God declares that just as , “..the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts…”. What this is telling us is that there will be many aspects of creation that will be beyond our comprehension and we must simply accept that this is how it must be. Yet even so, what the creation story found in Genesis does do is to answer those nagging questions about this life we have as people here on earth, questions that no scientific endeavor can give us the answers to. Here in Genesis is found the reasons why God created this world we live in and just what purpose we have as people who live within that creation. In other words, the creation story in Genesis gives us a pretty good picture to help us figure out this puzzle called life.

         So, in the beginning, we are told that the earth was without form, and it  was also empty, a scene of absolute nothingness. Here is where creation begins, with the waiting for God to do what only God can do, to make something exist where nothing used to be. What we can know about God right here in the beginning, is that he alone has the ability to create life out of nothing. This is a great comfort for us to realize, because here is the God who can take the nothingness that causes us to be afraid and through his power, the nothingness gives way to something. God calls us to know him as this sort of God so that we trust him even in the face of an unknown future, for what greater unknown future could there be then the one found right here at the beginning. 

         We are told next that the Spirit hovered upon the waters. The image we are to have is that of a bird which is hovering as they build their nest, a place for new life to spring forth from. Now, the people who first listened to this story would have also recognized that the Spirit appearing as a bird hovering over their nest, is the very same image given to them on the night of Passover. The night of Passover is the night when God brought the last plague upon Egypt so that the king who held the people of Israel captive would at last grant them their freedom. This plague was that the angel of death was going to go throughout the land of Egypt and in a single night, take the life of every firstborn child and animal. The only ones who would be spared were those who had painted the doorframe of their homes with the blood of a lamb as God had instructed them. The people of Israel waited in their homes on that terrible evening, prepared to go when the time came for them to be free at last. This is why they ate their roasted lamb and their unleavened bread with their sandals on their feet and their staff in their hands. And as they heard the cries go up from throughout Egypt, the people of Israel who had obeyed God’s instructions found that God had hovered over their homes protecting them from the angel of death which passed over them. On this night the people of Israel discovered that their God is a God who places himself between them and death, the God who can bring life out of a night of death. 

         So here at the beginning of Genesis, we have a similar image of God placing himself between the emptiness and nothingness of chaos and this something of life that he is getting ready to bring forth. What we can know about God, in just these first few verses of our creation story, is that the glory of God is seen as he begins with utter nothingness which we discover is no match for God’s ability to replace that emptiness with the wonder of his creation. So we can rest assured that God indeed can take the nothingness of our empty hands and fill them with the very wonder of his creation. Yet this is not all, for God is also found to be like a bird hovering over what he is bringing forth, covering his creation with his very self so that the chaos cannot damage it.The image may even suggest the truth that all of God’s creation is always covered by the wings of our creator God for we are never told that God has, at some point, stopped watching over that which he has brought about. So, again, what we have come to know about God is that he is a God who covered over his creation with his wings right at the beginning and that he continues to do so which is an amazing comfort for those looking for rest. 

         So, the story of creation begins with the faith that the canvas upon which God works is the vast expanse of nothingness, that which is without any form, totally empty So, the something of life that God is bringing forth has as its cornerstone, the power of God to do what seems so utterly impossible to us. This is the base upon which creation is launched. Then we also learn that God himself covers over us just like a mother bird protecting her young, and this protection is as eternal as God himself. Right here then, the picture of life is seen to be framed with the power of God as its lower edge and the love of God as its top edge. When this is revealed to us by Jesus, then his promise of rest becomes much more believable, doesn’t it?

         At last then, we are ready in our creation story to witness the formation of our universe, and just what does God do in order to bring order out of the void? The amazing answer is that God simply speaks. Into the nothingness where even sounds to not exist, incredibly a voice cries out, “Let there be light”. Then there was, indeed, light where only nothing had been. The power of God to take nothing, the dark emptiness of the chaos that threatens us and create something right there, the light, is all done with a word. A simple word that anyone can speak but when spoken by God, this familiar word suddenly has a strange power to bring forth a new reality. This is the same word that John tells us was there with God, and in God, and all things were brought forth through this word, the very word who took on flesh and has come to live with us. In this word was held life, what John records as being the light for all people. This life, held within that word, this is the light that has come to shine in the darkness, and yes, we are certain that the darkness has not, and will not ever overcome this light, this life of the one we know as Jesus. In this light, the picture we need to solve this puzzle called life can at last be seen. So, let us rest knowing that the God whose power and love were there at our beginnings is the same God, with us today and for all eternity. Praise the Lord! Amen!           

         

Rest Assured: Are You Ready to Rest?

 January 4 2026

Matthew 11:20-30

         Happy New Year! Can you believe that once again we find ourselves facing another brand new year? Well, the good news is that right here, at the beginning of yet another year, the wisdom of the church calendar proves to be very helpful. If you remember back to the beginning of the season of Advent we said that this is when the church has its new year according to the church calendar. What we learn during Advent is God’s plan to give us a hope and a future. This plan, we also discovered, was also tied to God’s plan to give us peace through our willingness to to be at peace with our neighbors. This then, was followed by the joy of God causing us to rejoice no matter what our circumstances. Finally, above all, God longs for us to know the the certainty of his love for all people, a love that binds our life together with the life of God so that we might know God. So there in Advent we waited for these promises God made to us to become at last real to all of us. We longed for the day when our life might at last be filled with hope, that we could find a way to experience a lasting peace, that joy could bubble up within us and love at last would be the very way of life for all people. This day arrived at last, the day we know as Christmas, the day when the baby Jesus was at last born. Here at last was the long awaited king in the line of David who would usher in an era marked by hope in the hearts of all people, a time of lasting peace, an age of abounding joy and steadfast love. This is the truth that Paul understood so well for he writes in the first chapter of Second Corinthians, that Jesus is the, “Yes”, to all of God’s promises. 

         What this means for us as we face this new year is that instead of being filled with dread and despair, we can instead greet this new year with a living hope within us. Instead of expecting a year full of drama and stress, we instead are ready to experience peace as we seek the peace of others. We can also know that this does not have to be a year of chasing after every new thing that we believe will bring us happiness because we now know where a deep and abiding joy can be found. So, yes, this is the year that love is going to rule our life. We can look at this year so differently all because we have been given a gift whose name is Jesus.

         So, we have gone through the season of Advent, which was the four weeks of the church calendar, and then a new season called Christmas began when the birth of Jesus was celebrated. The season of Christmas lasts only twelve days as we might know from singing the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. So, beginning on the seventh of January we enter yet another season which the church calls, “Epiphany”. This is just a fancy name for revelation. If we remember again how we lit candles during Advent what we are to understand is that with the coming of Jesus, the Christ child, a light has come into the world. Now at last we what previously had been hidden from our eyes because of this worlds darkness is at last revealed to us in the light of Christ. The season of Epiphany, then,  is a time for us to consider just what has been revealed now that the light and life of Jesus has entered into our world.

         As I considered how to explain this season of Epiphany, I was reminded of a story about our first daughter, Elizabeth, when she was a mere six months old on Christmas. This was such a fun time to take and show her off at all of the family gatherings. Well, something rather funny happened when we took Elizabeth to a Christmas party for Jennifer’s relatives. Jennifer had a cousin whose son, Andrew, was around eight years old that Christmas. Andrew was a very bright kid who was always thinking. It became obvious that Andrew was pondering quite a bit about this new baby that everyone was fussing over because he stood and looked at Elizabeth then exclaimed, “What does it do?”. You see, Andrew just could not figure out what all of the excitement was about this doll baby who did nothing more than eat and fill its pants. I believe that there just might be a lot of people who are much like Andrew when they celebrate yet another Christmas. They look upon the manger scene and see the baby Jesus asleep on the hay, and they too wonder, “What does it do?”. Much like Andrew wondered about this six month baby called Elizabeth, so too I imagine many people after Christmas are left wondering about this new born child named Jesus.They desperately want to ask, just why in the world is everyone fussing over this baby born in a little backward village named Bethlehem?

         Now if, say, one of those people who are thinking back on Christmas and wondering just what was all this celebration was really all about, and they came to you, what might you be able to tell them about Jesus? Just what exactly does this Jesus do? Without much thought we might explain that Jesus is our hope for eternal life, you know the gift given to us so that we might not perish and have eternal life. Yes, this is a very good reason to get excited about Jesus but what if this person goes on and asks you, but what does this Jesus do for me here, in this life I’m living right now? They are rightly wondering, is this Jesus of any earthly good? So, just what answer might you give to someone who asks you if Jesus has any bearing on this life we are living, right here, right now, in all of the mess we so often find ourselves in? 

         Well, if you listened carefully to the scripture for today, you will know that Jesus indeed has something to give to all of us, today. In our scripture we do find that Jesus himself is telling us just what has been revealed when he was born as one of us. Like all of the stories found in the Bible, the background circumstances prove to be very important and this is true for the scripture we read here in the eleventh chapter of Matthew. We find that Jesus has done some powerful and amazing works in the cities that are located around the Sea of Galilee. As we may recall, Jesus healed the sick, going from place to place because the crowds had grown so large. Yet in spite of these people seeing the evident power of God at work among them, they, nonetheless, refused to allow this witness to affect their hearts. God had shown up in their midst in a demonstration of power and healing and the reaction of those who saw these miracles was a yawn, and maybe a shrug of their shoulders. They easily turned back to their life like nothing had ever happened. But something great had happened, heaven invaded earth so do course, Jesus was angered. Jesus was shocked by the unwillingness of these people to let their minds be transformed by what had been revealed to them. Can you begin to understand the crisis that arises when God reveals himself to us in power? As we enter into a season when we ask the question, “Just what has God revealed to us in Jesus?”, we have to expect that we will become different people when we witness the power of God.

         Jesus, yes, was rightly outraged by the refusal of these towns to be affected by what they had witnessed. So he takes the truth about judgment day, and he brings it to bear upon that very moment when these people turned their backs on God. Jesus reaches back to the infamous story of Sodom, found in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, where God judged this town worthy of destruction all because he could not find ten righteous men living in that city. Jesus states that on judgement day that it was going to go better for the citizens of Sodom than for those who had seen his miracles and went home unmoved. You see, they, unlike Sodom, had indeed witnessed the mighty acts of God in their midst, yet such displays of power had borne no fruit in their lives.

         Now it is right here that our story takes a strange turn because Jesus goes from pronouncing judgment on these unrepentant people to being caught up in a moment of intimate conversation with his Heavenly Father. Here, again, we have yet another revelation. We discover in the words of Jesus that the reason why it was that so many people refused to be transformed after witnessing the works of God. You see, God, our Father, hides his grace from those who think they have life all figured out. No, God rightfully, gives his grace only to those who are actually interested in his plan, that great goal that God has for all people. This is why Jesus tells us that the ones God is looking for are those who know themselves as being children. Just like we laugh at a child telling their parents just how they intend to live their life, so God too must be shocked by our arrogance when we believe we can demand that he support the plans we might have. Like children we must know we are utterly dependent on our Heavenly Father. We must come with our hands held out ready to receive a gift. After all, this is the way Jesus approaches his Father, for in his prayer he reveals to us that all things have been handed over to him. Can you see the Son standing before his Father, his hand held out in anticipation to receive? So too, we must follow this posture of Jesus. Jesus in childlike obedience takes what is given to him by his Father. Jesus then turns, and he offers his gift to all who come to him as a child, hands held out ready to receive.

         You see, when we receive this gift from Jesus, this grace of God, we come to know something of the goodness of God. Through the receiving of this gift we have come to know that, as James says in the first chapter of his letter, every good gift, and every perfect gift comes down to us from our Father above, the one whose face never turns away from us. So, yes, we can come to know ourselves as those Jesus has chosen to share his life with us, an unbelievable honor. All of this leads us to the moment when Jesus tells us these well-known words, “Come to me all you who labor and are carrying loads that are way to heavy for you to bear, I am the one who will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I am gentle, lowly in heart. With me you will find rest for your soul, your very life. My yoke is easy; my burden is light.” At last we come to the whole point of what Jesus is getting at which is that he is the gift which really does, keeps on giving. Jesus is the gift given to us by our Heavenly Father, the only one who is able and willing to give to us something called, rest. You see, Jesus did not need the gift of prophecy to see which of those who had seen God’s power and had refused to repent. All Jesus needed is to look and see that these people were restless. They were walking around with the weight of the world bearing down upon them. There they were, rushing about, fussing over what they were going to have for dinner, and what they were going to wear, becoming consumed by all of the concerns of their life and it was wearing them out. Who says that the Bible doesn’t connect with real life, right? You see, the reason why Jesus was so upset by their lack of enthusiasm with what God was up to, is that the result was so tragic. Here God was holding out a way for his people to find relief from this nagging restlessness that overwhelmed their life and instead they chose to stick to their own wisdom and understanding. A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and such was the situation Jesus witnessed, people living in a hell of their own making, refusing to try something different. It simply did not have to be like this. God had stepped into their situation and he offered them a gift named Jesus. Yet, they were so busy wringing their hands over their situation that they could not simply stop and hold their hands out to receive what God had to offer, the gift of Jesus who held out the gift of rest for all of them.

         So the answer to the question, “ Just what does this baby do?”is this: This child named Jesus, is a gift from God, the Father, who offers to all the gift of a life marked by rest. We should not be surprised by this offer of Jesus to give us rest though, because what Jesus tells us here in the eleventh chapter of Matthew is a mere retelling of what we find in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah. There God tells his people, “Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” This truth that God reveals to us about rest is further found to be very similar to what God spoke to Moses after the tragedy of the Golden Calf. In the thirty-third chapter of Exodus, Moses prays for the people of Israel so that God’s wrath would not be upon them. Moses pleads with God to remain with his people, reminding God of the grace he had shown to him. Moses says to God, “ Now that I have received your grace, please show me your ways, your ancient paths, so that I may know you, so that I might continue to receive your grace. Remember that this nation is your people.” God responds to this prayer of Moses by telling him, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”. Where the sin of God’s people abounded in their worship of the Golden calf, God’s grace abounded even more, for even to these sinful people, God holds out the possibility for them to know his presence and experience his rest.

         What we find when we go searching for a better understanding of this idea of rest is that it is rooted in the story of creation, where on the seventh day, we are told that God rested from his labors. This is the very reason why the people of God were told to rest every seventh day and call that day holy because this is what our holy God did there in the beginning. In the next several weeks, in this series of messages entitled, “Rest Assured”, we are going to consider, more closely, just what has been revealed to us in this gift of Jesus. We are going to consider just what does it mean for us to receive this rest offered to us by Jesus. What might it mean for us to enter into this new year and not be wore down from all of the concerns, anxiety and worry that can come over us as we look to an unknown future. I love this quote by the Holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom who says that we should, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” As we set out on this new year, let me ask you, “Are you ready to trust this unknown future ahead of us to the God that we know?”. “Are you ready to stop wringing your hands and instead simply hold out your hands out, like a child, saying, “Rest, please!”, and then expect that Jesus will lead us to rest in the Father’s arms. So, are you ready to put the yoke on, and unite yourself with Jesus as he walks the ancient paths, knowing that he is leading us to find rest in a future yet unknown? I pray that this is the year that you experience Jesus as the one who gives us the rest we all are searching for. To God be the glory! Amen!