In Between
John Edgerton
December 28, 2021
And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
~ Mark 1
The gospels are filled with these sorts of summary statements. In between one major event and the next major event, these summaries serve to remind us of an important lesson. Even for someone as remarkable as Jesus there is going to be downtime, days or weeks or even months when not much happens. And that’s fine.
Things can be calm, languid, moving at their own pace. Human worth is not measured exclusively by productivity or activity. This wisdom shouts at us from all sides—the calm of night calling us to rest, the rhythm of the sabbath commanding us to cease our work, the cold of winter reminding us to slow down. Everywhere we look, the world reminds us to rest.
Perhaps God places reminders like this in so many places because She knows how hard it can be for us to rest, how tempting it is to define ourselves by what we do.
But if all that wasn’t enough, God also gives us Jesus as a teacher. And if the world-changing, life-saving work of Christ could afford to have some downtime built in, surely we can give ourselves that space too.
Prayer: God of the in between times, bless us with days of rest
