And to remember well we must rest. Without the pause of rest, we make no space, no silence for memory to speak in to. Rest leads us to reflect and reflection helps us stitch the loose threads of happening and circumstance into a larger tapestry of meaning and purpose. The random doings of our days, the quotidian collection of occurrence all coalesce in the crucible of rest. What emerges from our rest is remembrance and what emerges from our remembrance is celebration. We celebrate what God has done and what he will do.
The connection between rest, remembrance, and celebration goes a long way to explain the nature of God’s own rest. The first seventh day, the original Sabbath, was God’s feast of remembrance, his celebration of all that he had made. The Voice that created rested in the perfect silence of what he had created. In his rest he surmised all that he had made, and in the silence of rest he rehearsed the symphony of his making. The timeless one reflected, and he exhaled a sighing breath of satisfaction. In reflection there was celebration. Truly, it was good.
Part of our rest then is to reflective on what God has done, and as creatures our reflection should always take the form of worship. So for us to truly Sabbath and to truly celebrate the work of God, we must not only rest, we must also sacrifice. But sacrifice too is a kind of rest. To sacrifice is to worship and to worship is to declare our dependence on God, and in our declaration of dependence, we rest in him and his provision.
Sacrifice is also a kind of rest because it is a type of remembrance. When we worship, we remember. And our memory itself can be a kind of sacrifice. We walk the corridors of the mind and offer memories on the altar, praying they would burn sweet, that the flame of sacrifice would transfigure the ambiguity of ordinary living, with all its trial, boredom, uncertainty, and frustration into a sweet and pleasing aroma. To rest and walk the fields of memories in faith is to worship him and celebrate not just what he has made but what he is making and remaking.