Sunday 13th October – Rest – Pastor Adrian Kitson

This whole week I have been searching for rest – godly rest – the rest of a clear conscience and a trust in the Lord’s promises for me and us as church. Today, it just happens that the Scriptures speak of rest in Jesus. He seems to know we need this rest in him in all that happens in life.

Rest is easier when you know you are safe – when you are known and accepted.

After spending 8 days with around 500 people, I know for sure there are 6 people who know the essential me. I can rest with them.

The person who knows me most fully is my partner in life for 37 years. The other person who knows the essential me is my older sister. She was there in the formational experiences. Our four kids know the real me.

The words that matter the most for most of the time are the words these people speak.

The words your close people speak matter more than the words of others. Their words, more than anyone else’s words can cut like a knife or heal like a balm.

Truth is that the ones that cut like a knife may be spoken to do just that, or they may be spoken to simply tell the truth of thing; not to cut but to love.

Problem is, even the people who love you the most are not perfect. Just like you, even they can lose the loving intent and just drive the sword in for maximum cutting effect. They are only human.

As Dave Gleeson, the lead singer of Aussie hard rock band, The Screaming Jets, wrote in the song, ‘Helping Hand’ wrote “

There is a helping hand here today, friend.

The writer to the Hebrews knows all about cutting words. He God can cut you down in a millisecond any second of the day, and if he does, it will be right and true and you will know you are cut. His sword work is accurate and devastating.

I hear that and I am scared. As Colonel Nathan Jessup in the 1990’s movie, A Few Good Men’, played by Jack Nicholson, says to the young Lieutenant Caffey, played by Kevin Bacon, the prosecuting lawyer, “You can’t handle the truth!”

No I can’t. I can’t see myself as well as I think. I am very uncomfortable with people seeing the real me because I don’t know what they will do when they do. They may hurt me, cut me, undo me, shame me as much as they may praise me and affirm me.

So, like you, I find it easier to play it safe, turn inward and construct the cone of silence as I search for safety in my own little bubble of people just like me.

Problem is that then I forfeit learning much, growing much, experiencing the joy that taking a risk in relating to someone whose convictions are different or engaging my heart with something new often brings. I am on the treadmill of endless worry and work…..

Even worse, I stay scared of God; never quite sure of what he will do with my weaknesses and wrongs. It often seems safer to search for more immediate help in my troubles and fears – anything other than his truthful words.

And so I work. I keep going. I try and live as best as I can always wondering if I am doing enough. I try to figure out what will happen and get ahead of it.  I try to stay on the side or ‘being right’ as I see it and never allow that I could also be wrong in parts. But I get so tired….

But there is rest for us Christian it seems. Rest even in this really hard time.

God rested from his creating work and established a special pattern of rest for people. But can you rest – especially now?

In all your work, your worry and your wanting to be a winner,  what if there was a constant someone who had the ability to cut you to pieced in public, let all your secrets out, expose all your fears and foibles anytime he liked but would only ever do any of these uncomfortable things not to shame and blame and rip apart, but to restore you, hold you close to himself, love you, affirm you as his own, teach you to keep trusting and hoping, keep you in the wonderful future of life and hope and love he called all of us to and gave each of us at the start?

If there was this ‘Someone’ with me who was always capable of cutting me but not to condemn me or shame me but call me and confirm me as his own, even conform me to his love and hope and joy on a daily basis for all me days without ever changing his mind about me, never losing the loving intent toward me, how would that help me and change me? How could I go about my worried or wonderful day with this kind of guaranteed help and hope?

Better still, what if this Someone were in your close 6? What if he truly sees me and has seen all I have seen, known it all and lived it all as a real person just like me without wavering or falling or fearing because he trusted that he himself was held in the palm of his father’s hand through it all. What if this person was ever-present to do the same thing for me?

From the moment I rise to the moment I find myself back with my head on the same pillow  I could trust that whatever happened and whatever was said that day, this Someone who knows me more completely than even my close 6, has loved me in the words – the hard ones and the easy ones, the cutting ones and the comforting ones, the cynical attacking ones and the gentle trusting ones, the unifying ones and the disconnecting ones.

If this was true, and this Someone’s Word was true and sure no matter what, I know what I could do. I could rest. I could really rest. Even in this disturbance, this unsettling, this concern, these shaky times, I could rest with this Someone, this friend, this advocate, this safe one with my fellow shaky ones.

And as I rested with him, I could actually hear, receive, welcome, take on his truth-telling words because I would know that the words he speaks were for me not against me; sent to save me not shame me, spoken to heal us not hurt us, love us not lose us, embrace us not exit us, gather us not cancel us.

It is then that I might find myself resting in the presence and the words of this sword bearing closest friend of mine gladly hearing and learning his words because I know that his words and his presence are what makes me full and true and hopeful and useful to this world and in this changing church.

And then I might even have the heart and will and mind in all this turbulence of faith and church and world to

Friends, I have been anything but restful in this time of great change within our country, our world, our community and in our church.

In our unrest our Saviours safety is long and sound rest.

I hear today that for all of us, there is rest and it is with this Saviour of the cross and the empty tomb now walking with us on that same road to Emmaus, changing us from being destitute and down to new and burning with his hope and love in this church and this community, wherever we find ourselves church-wise.

This Great High Priest who is familiar with our way says, “Rest from your work, just as my Father rested from his when he commanded this world, this church, this universe together by his word”.

He says,

In this moment the priests of all priests, the Pastor of all pastors, the Good Shepherd of the wandering sheep is assuring us that he knows the unrest and that there is true and complete rest in his promises of life and love hard won for us in a dangerous world.

Rest in the words of the One who knows you from before you were born and who knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139).

He is speaking his truthful words to heal you, restore you, teach you his way of bold love so we together may hold on to this faith we have in the grace of God given and shed in the cross and empty tomb of this Great High Priest who is the Chief Liturgist and Preacher of this gathered community of the good news.

This Great High Priests will not damage you with what he knows. He loves you even though he knows.

Enter that restful place around his cross of grace. There we will all

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