Even the land rests

The closing of 2 Chronicles is amazing. The Chronicles were written to restore identity to a rootless generation. The two volumes pressed home the message in numerous examples that the only way to live in God's benevolent reign is by trust and obedience. To their peril, Israel failed mostly. Violently and humiliatingly sacked to non-existence, at the end of the kings' reign - the chronicler points out that their 70 years of non-existence was the Sabbath rest the land never got. The land finally got to rest. Rest from what? From evil, from sin, from wars, fightings within and without, from greed and idolatry. Rest.

Rest is an intrinsic law of the Universe. A rhythm that can only be violated to our peril. And if only to teach us that, God Himself rests! Why should he ever NEED to rest? But that's the whole point. The point of rest is not so that we can work. The chief aim of rest is not work! The aim of rest is to detach us from work - so that it does not BECOME our life, that it doesn't overwhelm us, that we don't place the seat of meaning and identity in it. But that work is work, and rest is rest. Rest is for itself. It is a self-justifying institution.

There is no rest without time, space and silence from the mind and heart's frantic voicings. There is no agenda in rest. For rest to be rest and has to have no point. It is about simply being. Being with myself. With God. With nature. With one another. But there are no goals, no aims, no parameters. Just simply rest.

The ending chapters in Revelations is such a rest. When we are surrounded by the fruits of the tree of life. Eternity in every moment. The way it was in the beginning.