PART VIII.
SUNDAY AND REST.
“Return unto thy rest, O my soul.”—Ps. cxvi. 7.
his evening, my dear girls, we will try to realise as far as possible how Jesus, our one perfect pattern, spent His Sabbaths. We get glimpses of them, here and there, in the history of His life on earth, and because they are only glimpses they are all the more precious.
It is an astonishing fact that the events of only one complete day of Christ’s life are recorded, and that day was the last of all, and ended on the cross. But we know well what sort of working days Jesus spent. Days of temptation, but no yielding, though the keenness of it was sharpened by hunger. Days of ceaseless work and weariness, but also of uncomplaining perseverance in doing what the Father had given Him to do. Nights spent in secluded spots or on the mountains, in prayer, and in communion with God, after days passed in healing, blessing, teaching and feeding the hungry multitude. Jesus was always ready to help all who sought His aid, or who needed it without expressing their wants. Words were not necessary to the Son of God, Who could read the heart-longings of His brethren according to the flesh.
Do you wish to know whether Jesus set the example of attending public worship on the Sabbath? Here is the answer: “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” On this and on other occasions we find Him teaching and preaching, as well as reading, and it is certain that the presence of Jesus at public worship was no fitful thing, but the habit of His life.
It was in the synagogue that Christ healed the man with the withered hand, and taught the sweet lesson that acts of mercy and good doing are lawful on all days and at all times. There, also, He loosed from her infirmity the poor woman who had been bowed together for eighteen years and could in no wise lift up herself.
It was on the Sabbath day that Jesus made clay, anointed the eyes of the blind man, and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam, whence he returned seeing, and full of gladness.
We get other glimpses of the Sabbaths of Jesus besides these which have shown Him in the synagogue. They were not days of gloom or unsocial isolation. See Him walking through the cornfields on the Sabbath day with His hungry disciples, who satisfied their craving by plucking a few ears and rubbing them in their hands. This picture leaves a sweet thought. Christ’s followers may even want bread, yet be blessed with a sense of their Master’s presence and sympathy, in every time of need.
Jesus accepted an invitation to eat bread with one of the chief Pharisees on the Sabbath day; thus we see that He did not abstain from social intercourse on the day of rest. The Jews were most particular in buying and preparing beforehand the best food for the Sabbath day, in order to do it honour. An old writer, in alluding to this, says, “The Sabbath should not be a day of austerity. The most nutritive food should be procured, if possible, that both body and soul may feel the influence of this Divine appointment, and give God the glory of His grace. On this blessed day let every man eat his bread with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God. If the Sabbath be a festival, let it be observed unto the Lord; and let no unnecessary acts be done.”
It was whilst partaking of the chief Pharisee’s hospitality that another suffering man came under the notice of the Great Physician, and was healed, and sent away rejoicing on the Sabbath day. In like manner, the impotent man, who had been thirty-eight years helpless, was bidden to take up his bed and walk. With the command came the power to obey, and “the same day was the Sabbath.”
What have we learned from these glimpses of Jesus on the day of rest? Surely that it was a happy day which included attendance at public worship, the study of the Scriptures, the teaching of them to others, healthful outdoor exercise, indoor social intercourse, and the acceptance of hospitality, together with the instant seizure of every opportunity for good doing. There is no trace of gloom in connection with the Sabbaths of Jesus. So you and I, dear ones, when in God’s house, can say, “Coming here regularly, I follow Christ’s example.” If teaching the little ones of the flock, “My master taught in the synagogue. In my humble way I can pass on to those younger than myself the lessons He gave. I can work no miracle of healing, but, if the mind is in me that was in Christ, I can and I will make some poor sufferer’s Sunday the brighter for my presence and my help.”
If I am walking by the way, or a guest at the table of another, my conduct shall be in harmony with the day. I will neither act nor speak so that I should be ashamed to think, “My Master knows the thoughts of my heart, and has heard my words and seen my actions.”
We can do, or leave undone, many things in the home which will be helpful to the servants. We can save them trouble without any effort to ourselves, and thus give them a fair share of Sabbath privileges. It is sad when servants have to say “Sunday is the hardest day of the week to us,” yet this often happens, not because of necessary work, but owing to the indolence and self-indulgence of the family, and the extra labour entailed by many visitors. Believe me, only those can truly enjoy God’s gift of a day of rest who are His servants, and who have in them the spirit of love, which comes from Him Who “is love.” With it they will need no written rules. They will be a law to themselves. The Sabbath will be looked forward to with gladness as a day to be dedicated to God and our neighbour, by worship, good doing, occupation without toil or weariness, and happy intercourse with those we love. We shall not say, “I can make the fields my church, and worship the Creator in the midst of His works as well as I could under the roof of a cathedral.” We shall love to join with those who are gathered in His name and house, but we shall not on that account forget to praise Him when we walk by the way and discern Him in His works. We shall be glad to put the toils and cares of the workaday world as far out of sight and mind as possible, that Monday may find us strong and ready to bear the heat and burden of the six coming days.
I was once deeply touched by the words of a dear woman, a cottager’s wife, of whom it might be said she just “knew, but knew no more, her Bible true,” for she could read it, and that was all, and it was her one book. How real it was to her! How she dwelt on its messages of cheer and hope, and was gladdened as she spelled out the words of some sweet promise! How she revelled in Sunday as a gift that only those who toiled week in, week out, could fitly value! She would not have the worries of the other days intruding themselves upon the hours sacred to joy, and peace, and rest.
It happened that she and her husband had been passing through a time of trouble and anxiety. There had been sickness in the home, and this meant suspended work and wages, more need for money and less to meet it. The week-end saw them in sore straits for quite a little sum, and the thought of what might happen on the Monday, if it were not forthcoming, troubled the mother’s mind for a moment.
“But it was Sunday,” she said, when speaking of it afterwards, “and I wouldn’t have that spoiled. There was the rest day for us, whatever Monday might bring, and bread for so long, anyway. Every now and then I seemed to hear those words, ‘The Lord will provide,’ and I took the message and put the worry right out of my mind. I had got into a way of never asking for money or anything of that sort on Sundays, and I didn’t on that one. I just enjoyed it in the reg’lar way with my John and the children, and, though I did see a bit of a cloud on his face now and then, I never pretended to notice, but smiled back, and it went. I never slept better than I did that Sunday night.”
“And when Monday came?” I asked.
“Help came, in quite a nateral sort of way, as it seemed, through John’s old master. He said we had been on his mind all Sunday, and he’d brought us the loan of a sovereign. We could pay it back at sixpence a week, but there was no hurry. We must be a bit behindhand through John’s illness. The master was always just, but he was reckoned a hard man, and he went out of his way when he lent that sovereign. Didn’t my heart go up to God in thankfulness that Monday morning, and wasn’t I glad to tell my John, ‘He has provided.’”
I have always thought that this dear woman realised the privileges and preciousness of the Sabbath in a greater degree than anyone else I ever knew.
Let us cull a thought or two from the utterances of George Herbert, the country parson, who was, in 1630, inducted into the parsonage of Pemberton, and who has been called the “Keble of the age which boasted of Shakespeare, Bacon, Spenser, and Ben Jonson.” I could wish that his life (written by Izaak Walton) and his works, in prose and poetry, were in every girl’s bookcase. It is passing from the unlettered peasant woman to the cultured divine, but the quotations I will give you show how the same spirit actuates high and low, the ignorant and the learned, when, as the children of God, they express their sense of the infinite preciousness of the Sabbath. Herbert’s poem called “Sunday” is too long to quote as a whole, but you will enjoy reading some quotations from it.
“O day most calm, most bright!
The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,
Th’ endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with His blood;
The couch of time; care’s balm and bay,
The week were dark, but for thy light,
Thy torch doth show the way.
* * * *
Sundays the pillars are,
On which Heaven’s palace archèd lies;
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God’s rich garden; that is bare
Which parts their ranks and orders.”
In alluding to the change from the seventh to the first day of the week, now observed as the Christian’s Sunday, the poet uses very beautiful and expressive imagery to account for the alteration.
“The brightness of that day
We sullied by our foul offence,
Wherefore that robe we cast away,
Having a new at His expense,
Whose drops of blood paid the full price
That was required to make us gay,
And fit for paradise.
* * * *
Thou art a day of mirth,
And where the weekdays trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.”
It is related that, on the Sunday before his death, Mr. Herbert rose suddenly from his bed, called for one of his instruments, and, having tuned it, sang the following verse from the same poem.
“The Sundays of man’s life,
Threaded together on Time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife[2]
Of the eternal, glorious King.
On Sunday Heaven’s gate stands ope’.
Blessings are plentiful and ripe,
More plentiful than hope.”
Our poet-pastor was no gloomy ascetic. He revelled, so to speak, in this good gift of God, and sang His praises with a joyful heart. Whilst picturing all the varied aspects of the country parson’s life, and noting its sad experiences, he gives us a picture of him “In mirth.” “As knowing that nature will not bear everlasting droppings, and that pleasantness of disposition is a great key to do good;” and “Instructions seasoned with pleasantness both enter sooner and root deeper. Wherefore he condescends to human frailties, both in himself and others, and intermingles some mirth in his discourses occasionally, according to the pulse of the hearer.” Other duties ended, “At night he thinks it a very fit time, suitable to the joy of the day, either to entertain some of his neighbours or be entertained by them, and to discourse of things profitable and pleasant. As he opened the day with prayer, so he closeth it, humbly beseeching the Almighty to pardon and accept our poor services and to improve them, that we may grow therein, and that our feet may be like hinds’ feet, ever climbing up higher and higher unto Him.”
I feel sure, my dear girls, that in giving you these beautiful pictures of Sabbath joy, I have done you a real service. I have never forgotten either the words of my village friend or the effect produced on me by the first reading of the country parson’s “Sunday.” Both reflected the mind of the Master they served, and to-day their example and words are well worthy of our imitation.
Thus far I have said little about “Rest,” except in connection with the “Day of Rest.” It is delightful to note that from the very beginning there was a Divine recognition of the need for rest, and that the Creator’s plan for bestowing the blessing was so wide in its application. It was ordained for man in the first instance, then extended to the animals that had been subdued to service under him, and, later still, to the land. Long before the children of Israel had ended their wanderings in the desert, the command was given to them by Moses, “When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord.” “In the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land.”
The Israelites, who had been for so many generations the bondsmen of Egypt, and then for forty years wanderers in the desert, had to be divinely taught what pertained to a settled mode of life. As landowners, they had to learn that each crop yielded takes something out of the ground, and that it must have a period of rest, or its power of production will be exhausted. Hence the Sabbath for the land. In our time the chemist has taught the farmer that by putting certain substances into the ground, he can restore what the crop has taken from it; but in times within my own memory the remedy was to let the land lie fallow—that is, at rest for a year before it was sown again.
What a delightful word “rest” is! It has so many meanings in everyday use, and in the Bible also; and all of them are suggestive of benefit and good to soul, mind, and body. Glance for instance at Psalm cxvi., and you will find a picture of one who had “found trouble and sorrow,” and been full of fears and anxieties; but he had gone with crying and prayers to God, who heard and answered. So, bursting into a hymn of gratitude and triumph, he exclaims—
“I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. I was brought low, and He helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”
Here, my dear ones, you see that rest means the calm confidence in God which brings the soul a peace which passeth all understanding. This is the rest which Jesus linked with those sweetly familiar words of invitation so often quoted: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
This rest means “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” which those who love and trust in Him enjoy even in this troublesome world. With this soul restfulness all the trials of life lose much of their keenness; without it they pierce more deeply and are doubly hard to bear. Yet there are so many worries and anxieties in daily life to give us unquiet minds. Even when our own paths are fairly smooth, we often have uneasy minds and sleepless nights on account of those we love, or we are harassed by mental visions of coming evil, till we are ready to cry, as David did, “O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away and be at rest.”
A little later, in the same Psalm, comes the remedy: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.”
From Psalmist, Apostle, and, better than all, from the lips of Jesus Himself, we receive unfailing guidance to the one source of rest, both for troubled souls and disquieted minds. When all the world fails us, let us, my dear ones, try to remember that He is faithful Who promised, “I will give you rest.”
Then there are these poor frail bodies of ours that have to bear weariness and the pain which makes the rest they cry out for impossible. How many of us have felt our utter helplessness at the sight of suffering which we could not relieve, though we would gladly have borne it for a while in order to purchase an interval of rest for one we loved?
One of you, who asked that the subject of “Rest” might be considered at a Twilight gathering, told me that she was an invalid, crippled with sciatica and muscular rheumatism, only able to move from place to place by means of a wheeled chair, seldom free from pain, and sleeping but little. Yet she was able to show me that her mind was active in planning for the good of others, and that her thoughts shaped themselves into songs of thankfulness and longings for a more complete submission to God’s will. So, as I read, I said to myself, “Thank God for this record! Though it tells of pain, it also tells of patience. The body suffers, and the burden is a heavy one; but it is borne by means of God-given strength, and ‘There is a rest that remaineth’ for His people.”
When this world, with its sorrow, suffering, trouble, and weariness, shall have passed away they shall find eternal rest in the Father’s home above. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their faces, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
“Rest comes at length; though life be long and dreary,
The day must dawn, and darksome night be past;
Faith’s journey ends in welcome to the weary,
And Heaven, the heart’s true home, will come at last.”
(To be continued.)
[SHEILA.]
By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.