Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while

From Mt. Olive

Dear members and friends of Mount Olive,

"Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile." Jesus spoke those words to His disciples during an especially busy time as they accompanied Him on His ceaseless daily work of preaching and teaching and healing. In fact Mark records, "For there were many coming and going and they did not even have time to eat." That kind invitation is a comforting reminder to us that our Savior knows how busy our lives can be and how tired we can become. As true man, He Himself became weary and needed to sleep, and from time to time went off by Himself to recharge and restore His energy through quiet prayer to His heavenly Father.

We're now in the time of year when many people "come aside" and go looking for a quiet or even deserted place to rest awhile. My family and I are planning to spend some time in the Rocky Mountains out west. While we have a lot of places we'd like to see and many activities in mind, we're hoping also just to rest in Colorado's beauty. I hope that you have some similar opportunity for a restorative vacation, maybe on a lake or seeing new places. There's a real value in doing that, as we have the chance to relax from our daily tasks and responsibilities. I usually find that I get more done in the week after a vacation than I do in the month before it.

We know that even if we aren't able to come aside for physical rest, our souls enjoy a permanent rest. The Gospel sends us on the best sort of vacation! In His Word and in the sacraments, our Lord kindly offers us the peace with God which He won for all of us when He offered up His own sinless life unto death at Calvary. He said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

We could never have earned that rest for ourselves. Our working and striving to overcome our sins and restore our relationship with God would always be an exercise in futility. We can't keep the Law as He requires. Despite our most intense efforts, we would remain condemned by our sins of thought, word and deed. When we realize that and confess our weakness, the Lord comes to our exhausted hearts with the same life giving message He delivered on Easter evening to the disciples in the upper room: "Peace be with you!" Each time we hear and believe the words of His absolution we are granted that rest and peace we need.

Holding to that peace with God by faith, when life here with all its busyness and stress has ended, we will enter the eternal peace in heaven. "Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' "Yes," says the Sprit, "that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.'" (Revelation 14:13)

Yours in Him who is our rest, Pastor Petersen