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Let us be on guard while the promise of entering into his rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed… Therefore, let us strive to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience.
Hebrews 4:1, 11
Thank you, dear God this Friday with Your words reminding us of “entering Your rest”, Your Sabbath!
But what is Your “rest”, God our Father?
More than a particular day of the week, it is first of all Your very presence like in paradise that our first parents have lost due to their pride and disobedience to You.
May we heed and learn from the reflections of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews of how Your chosen people, the Israelites, disobeyed you, dear God, while in the wilderness that prevented them from entering Your rest in the Promised Land of Israel, spending 40 years wandering in the desert.
Sadly, all these continue to happen in our own time when we are supposed to be disciples of Your Son Jesus Christ.
Help us O God to resist the temptations and strive hard to see you, feel you, and experience you.
Help us to be like those men carrying the paralytic who sought ways and means to see Jesus Christ, our only true hope and inspiration and consolation in times like these. It is in Jesus Christ’s coming that we are able to enter Your rest freely and truly, dear God, to experience Your love and mercy, kindness and compassion we have all taken for granted.
But, more than a place and a day, Your rest, O Lord, is heaven, Your very presence, that very moment when Jesus healed and forgave the sins of the paralytic, astounding everyone, glorifying You, saying, “We have never seen anything like this” (Mk.2:12).
Let us “rest” in You, dear God by returning to You, of being renewed in You with Your whole creation in Jesus. Amen.
