“God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our Savior
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.”
First published, 1833.
We all need physical “rest” – from Old English – “ræste” – “rest, bed, intermission of labor, mental peace.” God has made us so that our bodies demand such “intermissions” – “inter” – “what happens between” + “missions” – “our tasks, what we are sent to accomplish.”
We also need mental/spiritual rest – especially at this time of year when so many struggle with despair.
God is the primary source of rest. The anonymous author of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” knew this. Note: he did not use the comma after “ye” but after “merry.” He did not intend “merry” as an adjective for “gentlemen” but he knew that being “merry” is the result of “God resting” us. In other words, even as December brings Christmas so God’s resting us makes us merry.
Let me give you a picture of rest that can make us merry. I traveled to a cabin near Glacier with a friend and his 90-year-old father, Bill. We had come to a retreat where hundreds of “older folk” from the Northwest gather. Bill had been a regular for decades. Then, several years ago, his effervescent wife, Lil, suffered a stroke. When we took this trip, she was bedridden and sometimes confused. Bill was her primary caretaker. But, so that Bill could have a rare getaway for two days, Lil was in the care of family and friends.
After settling in at the cabin, Bill phoned Lil. From the other room, I inadvertently overheard Bill say: “Lil, I choose you. You are the girl of my dreams.” And there were more inexplicable endearments. I’m not sure what they were. They flashed by. I hadn’t expected to hear such intimacy. I hadn’t expected to hear such love. Bill’s bride, Lil, was disoriented and needed to hear her husband’s voice on the phone – reassuring her – once again. We could say: “Bill rests you merry, Lil.” Indeed!
Like Lil, we can be “bewildered”- from “be” – “thoroughly” + Old English “wilder” – “lead astray, lure into the wilds.” During a Christmas break from college, a friend and I hiked to Horn Lake (elevation @ 11,000′) in Colorado’s Sangre de Christo range. A storm blew in. For me, the swirling snow was dizzying. Without my friend’s help, I might still be bewildered.
And how do we orient ourselves in life? What are our BIG reference points? Let’s turn to three essentials of the Christian story.
A visiting missionary described how folks in his African village used to bury their dead -face down. After the villagers became familiar with the Gospel, they began to bury their dead facing up – indicating that these dead bodies were awaiting their promised face-to-face resurrection with Jesus – when he returns in the clouds. That grand CONSUMMATION orients us. “The end of all things is near. Therefore, be clear-minded and self-controlled so you can pray” (1 Peter 4:7).
And CREATION orients us. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light’ day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day” (Genesis 1:3-5). What a reference point we have here – we and our world are not the results of time and chance, but we are created by the Person.
And, what about REDEMPTION? In 2003, on our way West, several sons and I stopped to worship at a church pastored by a friend with whom I had attended seminary. My former classmate preached from the text above – Genesis 1:5: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” In the margin of my Bible next to that passage, I still have a note I made during his sermon: “Our day begins in the evening – with our resting and God working.”
See the connection with REDEMPTION? Even here, at the very beginning, we have a hint of the Gospel Redemption to come – God, The Worker, accomplishing our salvation in the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – and we, the recipients who depend upon his work, resting. Therefore, the second question asked of those who want to join a Presbyterian church (PCA) is: Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and REST upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel? (PCA Book of Church Order).
CONSUMMATION, CREATION, AND REDEMPTION can re-orient us – can rest our souls.
Nevertheless, we are often bewildered by the impact of the Fall – an event that has brought pain to us and still can shake us all. Think of Lil and Bill. Think of those folks in Africa. And when you think of my classmate who preached so well, you need to know that, a few years after that sermon, he, bewildered by despair, took his own life.
What shall we say when the Fall turns so deadly? Another classmate, Dr. Bryan Chapell, long-time President of Covenant Seminary, spoke at our friend’s funeral. “The questions that I dread to ask and, at the same moment, find that I must dare to ask, the Word of God answers in this sermon (The Sermon on the Mount) of my Savior. Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.’ With these simple words, Jesus assures us that being poor in spirit does not disqualify us from the Kingdom of God. The most important reason that poverty of spirit does not disqualify from the kingdom of God is that God’s riches are so much greater than our poverty.”
Because of the Fall, our reality is: “Cheer up, we are worse than we think we are.” But, in Christ, the love of God is greater than we dare imagine.
Christian, when the Fall savages us – when missionary stories – when stalwart examples of older Christians – when, to some extent, even Scripture seems empty – when we fail ourselves and others – or when they fail us – there is still One who comes to us. We may be bewildered. He is not. He made True North. And he knows we have been bought – ransomed – redeemed. Christian, bewildered though we may be, we “belong” to him -“be” -“thoroughly” + “longen” – “to go,” from Old English – “pertain to, to go along with, properly relate to.” Christian, our True Older Brother has come to rescue us – and he has. We are shocked at the unexpected intimacy of his love. Still, it is now proper that we irrevocably “belong” to him in the highest sense. So, we “go with” him – he directs the orientation of our hearts.
And seeing that we are held so dear, we believe and rest. Edward Mote (1797-1874) put it this way:
His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
O tidings of comfort and joy! Through Jesus, may God rest you merry, gentlemen and gentlewomen.
Note: Lil went to be with her Maker, Redeemer, and Friend on October 16, 2012. Bill joined them on October 14, 2014.
