Jesus is Real Rest
Previously we considered two rest-strategies we often deploy when our hearts and bodies are tired: escape and optimize. The escape strategy believes that rest is found in a place; perhaps, the ocean or the mountains. The optimize approach thinks that rest is achieved through a plan, a to-do list, or a routine. However, we can see from the invalid (escape) and the pharisees (optimize) in John 5 that these strategies do not work. We know they don’t work because we’ve tried them. We’ve escaped on a vacation, came home, and needed a vacation from vacation. We’ve tried to optimize our life by reorganizing the kitchen pantry or updating our bullet journal but still go to bed just as anxious and sleepless. Why is this so? John 5 explains that real rest is not in a place or a plan, but in a person.
In John 5 we get to see that Jesus is real rest. Our tired hearts and bodies can only be renewed and restored by him for two reasons: 1) Jesus has the authority to give rest, and 2) he took on restlessness.
Jesus has the authority to give rest
John tells us that Jesus asked the invalid man, “Do you want to be healed?” In essence, he responds, “Of course! I want to get into the healing water, but I’m too weak! Someone always gets in before me!” The man was helpless. He couldn’t escape his restlessness, but out of the overflow of his love Jesus healed him on the Sabbath, the day of rest. He does so by the authority of his word. Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up, your bed, and walk.” By healing on the Sabbath and doing so by simply speaking, Jesus shows us that he has divine authority to give real rest.
On the seventh day of creation God instituted the Sabbath and invited his Image Bearers to join him in his rest; this is, to know and enjoy life with Him. But, as this encounter in John 5 reminds us, something went terribly wrong. When Adam and Eve sinned they rejected God’s rest; they rejected life with God. Sin resulted and with it came death and disease; but, God would not allow his promise of rest to become void. In Genesis 3, God promised that a descendant of Eve would come, reverse sin’s curse, and restore men and women to God’s rest. By healing on the Sabbath, Jesus is showing us that he is the Promised One who is also God in himself.
This encounter in John 5 highlights Jesus’s divinity. He is fully man and also fully God. Like God spoke creation into being in Genesis 1, so also Jesus speaks and the invalid is healed. The implication of this isn’t lost on Jesus’s opponents. John 5:18 says, “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” As God in himself with the Father and Holy Spirit, Jesus is the authoritative giver of real rest. The way he gives rest is by taking on our restlessness.
Jesus took on restlessness
Verse 14 says, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” Scripture teaches that all suffering ultimately results from sin. All of our emotional, physical, and spiritual restlessness is the result of sin. Sin is the reason our hearts and bodies get tired. Now, consider closely what Jesus said: “Sin no more, lest something worse may happen to you.”
Based on Jesus’s words, it appears that the invalid’s paralysis was the result of a specific sin, and Jesus has reversed that result. He gave real rest by doing away with the sin that paralyzed him. We know by looking at Jesus’s life and ministry that he can do this kind of thing; he can forgive sin and exchange it for real rest because he took on sin’s restlessness. The clearest example of this is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
“And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.’ And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” That night in the Garden Jesus was overwhelmed with restlessness. He was greatly distressed, troubled, and filled with sorrow. His heart and body was exhausted because, with our sin and restlessness upon him, Jesus was being cut out of the rest he always enjoyed. Jesus went through the restlessness of the garden and the cross, then, on the other side of the cross, was raised inaugurating the beginning of eternal rest. Now, the restless can come to Jesus and have rest now and forever. Tired hearts and bodies don’t ultimately need places and plans, but an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. Places and plans can’t give us the rest that Jesus can.
