Read: Hebrews 5:11-14 NRSV
About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
This exhortation to a church community seems harsh, but it’s probably a message that we all need to hear throughout our lives. Honoring God with our time, to “rest” in His presence, is such an elementary part of our faith that we should all be experts by now, but we’re not. At least, we go through fits and starts of going to church, reading our bibles, praying, and fasting, and then we get tired and distracted and we backslide.
Perhaps it’s a healthy check to our egos to be compared with babies. Right now my wife and I are transitioning our son from milk to solid food, and it’s a vivid analogy for our relationship with God. We’ll spend hours preparing delicious roasted apples or steamed vegetables, only for them to be thrown on the floor with a lot of screaming and thrashing. What God is offering to us is far better than what we choose for ourselves, but we have to move on from our infancy and towards spiritual maturity.
God wants us to enter into His presence, to rest in wholeness, completeness, and shalom. We can prepare for the day of our reunion by practicing rest, a reflection on His word and on His will. Ritual rest, like observing the Sabbath, may feel formulaic, but there is efficacy in routine. Committing to weekly rest by attending church and sacrificing time to God acknowledges our dependence on him. Daily rest, including time for prayer and worship, makes us more like Jesus, the ultimate example and priest who prepares the way for us. To enter into a relationship, we must be willing to commit to quantity time, not just quality time. Jesus understands what we need because he understands what it means to be human. Let us follow His example and enter into God’s rest. Amen.
