A few weeks ago I preached on the Sabbath rest. God wants us to enter His rest. The Israelites of Moses’ time experienced a foretaste of God’s rest in the Promised Land. Even though Christians will experience everlasting life on a new earth in the future, we can enjoy God’s rest now. We do not need to wait for the next life to enjoy God’s rest, peace, & joy; we may have it now—we should have it now! F.B. Meyer put it this way, “To all of us Christ offers ‘rest,’ not in the other life only, but in this. Rest from the weight of sin, from care & worry, from the load of daily anxiety and foreboding. The rest that arrives from handing all worries over to Christ and receiving from Christ all we need.”
I knew I wanted us to examine what it means to rest in the Lord, but I couldn’t figure out how. Then I started thinking about porpoises. Mark Twain once said, “You talk about happy creatures--did you ever notice a porpoise?--well there ain't anything in heaven here superior to that happiness.”[i] Then I realized what I had in mind was probably dolphins, not porpoises (they come from the same family but are totally different species of marine mammals), but Dolphin-Driven life didn’t seem as punny to me.
That being said, we need to have a rhythm of devoted rest built into our lives. Many people say there just isn’t time. It simply is impossible—the demands of career & family are too great. The preacher in our text from Hebrews is warning us to make the time because not doing so has very serious consequences. We must pause & spend time with God. Therefore, I propose we look to the porpoise, or dolphin and see what we can learn from him.A porpoise/dolphin lives in 2 worlds. They are mammals who live in the sea—the domain of fish! They are great swimmers and can stay under water for a very long time, but eventually they must come up for air. Christians live a double life and need to come up for air as well. One translation of Exodus 31:17 reads, “On the seventh day God rested and drew breath.” As Christians we are called to be in the world, but not of it. We are Kingdom of God people living in the last days of this fallen world—Satan’s domain. In ANE literature the sea usually represents chaos. Therefore, the porpoise teaches us that we can swim through the chaos of this finite, fallen world, but eventually we must come up and breathe the air we were created to breathe.
Up above the surface of the chaos, pain, loneliness, and death of this world is the glorious Son of God and the air we breathe is the Spirit of God. The Hebrew & Greek words for spirit, ruach & pneuma, can also be translated as wind or breath. The point is, we are not meant to stay submerged in the chaos of this fallen world. No! We must rise above the surface, breathe deep of the Spirit & bask in the Glory of the Son. We must gather to worship God, because when we do we are living the life God created us to live—we are breathing the air God created us to breathe. Furthermore, we need to be together. Dolphins & porpoises are always seen together racing, and jumping, and laughing, we should do the same. In Hebrews 10:24-25, the preacher says, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”[i]
I know the analogy breaks down pretty quick, but it comes out of my desire to proclaim and live the Good News in a way that is attractive. Dolphins & porpoises almost always look like they are having fun—their mouths even seem to be turned up in a perpetual smile and the noises they make sound like laughter. I want to make the same impression as a Christian and as a church. I want folks to wonder why we always seem to be having fun—“I thought you had to give up fun to go church!” Let’s swim through the chaos and lead people up above it to breathe in the Spirit & be warmed through & through by the Son.
This past week I had set a goal to spend time in reading the Bible, meditating, and praying at least 4 out of the 7 days. I used A Guide to Prayer to stucture my time. I actually surpassed my goal. I have my accountability group to thank for this discipline--thanks guys! I don't think the sermon I preached this morning was anything special, but I felt a better connection with God and with the congregations than I have in a quite a while.
It is good to come for air!
Blessings & Peace,
Rev.Kev
[i] New Living Translation
[i] Notebooks & Journals, Vol. 2 (1877-1883), p. 275.
