Snow Day Service: A Liturgy for the Resting Soul
Some worship for you to listen:
Contemplative: Where You Are - Sanctified Vessels, Not in a Hurry - United Pursuit (or a great cover by Collective Mvsic)
Corporate: Yeshua/Not in a Hurry/Our God Reigns - One Voice INT Music
Verses: Hebrews 4:4-13
“For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”[c] And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”[d]For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,[e] just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
There’s something about a snow day for worship service that is so unnerving.
I mean, you can’t do anything about it. It’s just an abrupt stop to everything. You have to yield to the weather.
Maybe it was the fact that New York City Public Schools never took snow days (I think I had three total between first and ninth grade). Or maybe it was the fact that I was never allowed to miss Sunday services as a kid. Either way, whenever I encounter a forced weather-related cancellation of Sunday service, I’m always met with tension and discomfort in my chest.
Shouldn’t I keep going? Is this really okay? It feels as though I’m doing something wrong.
All my life, I’ve functioned from a heart posture of hyper-productivity and overwork. I often get anxious if I’m not working, or if something is a bit more inefficient than I would like. It feels like I’m doing something wrong.
It’s in the same zip code as the part where I used to sign up to do a little too much in my college ministry, or the part of my heart that still studied for my LSATs and decided to go to work two weeks after graduation without consulting any of my close church friends because I needed to keep going.
So to me, uncontrollable snow days for church are just as hard to swallow as this passage in Hebrews 4.
Hebrews 4 talks about a challenging narrative of rest.
Hebrews 4 talks about the unsettling reality of rest clearly. It identifies rest as two things; first, it defines rest as the practical and spiritual reality of ceasing from works, and second, it defines rest as the entering into the completion of God’s will and promise, just as in the Creation account and the Mosaic covenant.
Hebrews 4 defines the act of rest as something that we can follow Him into or not. In the context of Hebrews, rest is framed as something we do not enter into because of insecurity or brokenness, but disobedience. Why?
The people of Israel did not enter into the rest of God because they did not obey God. Sure, their weeks may have been long. However, by disobeying, by distrusting God, and by taking their own counsel as to what would be best in the situation, they failed to enter God’s rest. Instead, they chose to continue wandering in their wildernesses.
It goes without saying that there is nothing wrong with being diligent with working the field that the Lord has assigned to you to steward and tend to. Whether that be your schoolwork, your first job, or your family, work- consistent work - was assigned to us by the Lord before the Fall.
However, when it becomes the well from where you draw your life force, your worth, you may find yourself in a heart cycle where, sure, you worship the Lord, and sure, you submit to Him, but you cannot stop working.
After all, what would happen if you did?
Many days, I find myself a couple paces away from the people of Israel. As a person who has been churched her whole life, it is so easy for me to conceal this part of my discipleship that is twisted with my faith, my service, or even my ministry. But after running on a hamster wheel non-stop for a long time, I realize that I have been going, going, and going without stopping.
Here’s the other thing about this: that’s scary. It’s like I’m a train without brakes.
Newton’s first law of Motion says that an object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will continue in motion with the same speed and direction unless acted upon by an external force. Essentially, an object will resist changes in its state of motion unless a force compels it to change.
If I don’t learn how to hit the brakes, it would have to take a lot of force to stop me— a force that can really, really hurt for a time before it gets better.
A close pastor friend and spiritual older brother once said to me, “Jane, when you take away the title and the mantle, do you feel loved by God?” And though I knew the answer was yes, I was struck with the uncomfortable reality that I had to think about it. If I had nothing to do, would I feel out of place at church? Would I still be beloved? Or have I only grown in my relationship with God in a context where I had something to offer him?
My friend went on to say to me, “Jane, when you work without stopping, your heart becomes discipled into a reality where you need to work, financially, spiritually, and mentally, in order to worship God. You may know that you don’t need to strive to be loved by the Lord, and you may know that the Lord loves you as you are. You may know all the right things, but your heart will not be discipled by the truth that you know if you don’t allow yourself to live out the truth you know.”
Herein lies the duplicity of the American Christian narrative. We go into our sanctuaries and worship the Lord, we say He is worthy, but how much of our lives are a result of the lived realities of Scripture that we believe so fully?
If I wanted to live out the reality that I do not need to work to be loved, and that this is what Christ has done for me, then I needed my life— my schedules, my planner, my workflow, and my yearly cadence— to reflect that.
Hebrews 4 takes the act of hitting the brakes with a lot of weight. Per the author of Hebrews, rest is not passive; rest is the active ceasing from my own work because God told me to, and because God has it all worked out in the end. Rest is my submission of my time to God in ceasing in work as an act of worship. In resting, I am actively walking out the truth that one, I am not God, and two, that I trust my God.
Of course, this is easier said than done.
How do you rest? How do you walk into the completion of God’s will and promise before we have seen it?
The answer is so simple it’s infuriating: faith.
We believe that we walk into this because the Lord did. We walk into rest because God will have His way. We walk into rest because we are not God; God is God. We walk into rest because we worship God and we practically acknowledge that He is the one with full control. We walk into rest in obedience and submission to His good and perfect will, purpose, and promise that indeed, it is finished.
It also goes without saying that rest requires better stewardship of our time. If we account for rest in our week, we ought to plan for it and therefore be more diligent other times. However, when it’s time for rest, we need to have the discipline and surrender enough to put down our projects and tasks and lift up our hands to God.
Hebrews 4 encourages us to “work hard” (spoudazo) to enter this rest. This translates as “doing one’s best,” or “applying oneself diligently.” So it’s not that we’re not doing any work. Rather, to apply this into our lives theologically, it will require an active dependence on God.
Whether it is our worship or dependence, our God is deserving of it.
Today, as the author of Hebrews exhorts us, let us not harden our hearts.
Beware: we may not be entering into the unsettling and uncomfortable act of resting as obedience to the Lord.
Yes, there will always be things to get done. But let’s not fool ourselves. We need to allow our hearts to live out the faith and trust that God is who He says he is. We need to enter His promises by putting down our work and getting off that hamster wheel, lest our hearts be falsely discipled otherwise.
And believe it or not, His rest is good. Really, really good.
In the midst of a snowy Sunday, as you warm yourself with a hot coffee or tea and ponder on these things, I pray you’ll be able to allow yourself to let go of the things that you can’t control and obey God in resting in his embrace.
Praise God that he peels back our layers to have all of us— even to save us from ourselves and teach us how to obey Him in our rest.
Here’s a breath prayer as you go into your week:
Inhale: I submit to you
Exhale: You are my rest
Inhale: You are my rest
Exhale: I trust you
Recommendations for reading: I want to recommend the book Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. My friend Young has a Substack where he talks about counter-formation, rest, and challenges the boxes we as believers might find ourselves in. Read his piece on counter-formation here.
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Please feel free to end this time with the Lord with the Lord’s Prayer. Try to inhale and exhale every other line, and do not recite it fast; mull over the lines as you pray to him this week. Take your time with it before you say Amen.
Our Father, who art in Heaven,
Hallowed by Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power,
and the Glory forever and ever,
Amen.
