A Mind at Rest

​11th Sunday after Pentecost – C (Proper 13)                                                 LSB #’s 615, 746, 643
Text – Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
 
What does a man get for all the toil & anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?  All his days his work is pain & grief; even at night his mind does not rest.  This too is meaningless.
 
A MIND AT REST
 
 
Do any of you struggle with those nights where you’re trying to get to sleep, but you just can’t get your mind to slow down long enough?      Maybe you had a big argument that day.  Maybe there’d been some bad news concerning your family   or bad results from the latest medical tests.   Maybe you’d just seen one of those horror movies that brings on nightmares. 
In times like those we learn to appreciate a mind at rest.  Peace of mind is sought after the world over,   & people have tried everything under the sun in looking for it.   He tried the proverbial   wine, women & song,   but nothing satisfied King Solomon for long. 
God said that Solomon was the wisest man who would ever live, & though wisdom is better than foolishness,   death still erases any lasting significance   that human wisdom might have.   The king even tried finding peace in the work that he did,   & here’s what he discovered:
“I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.  And who knows whether he’ll be a wise man or a fool?”  (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19a)     History records that the son who followed Solomon as king was indeed a fool. 
“What does a man get for all the toil & anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?   All his days his work is pain & grief;   even at night his mind does not rest.     This too is meaningless.”  (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23)     Utterly meaningless!   Everything is meaningless.  The book of Ecclesiastes isn’t exactly the life of the party   is it? 
In the gospel lesson we read of a man who has found the answers to peace & happiness.  This rich man realized that he only needed to build bigger barns   in which to store all of his wealth.  Then he would have plenty of good things laid up for many years.    Finally     he could eat,   drink   & be merry.    What a life!     No more worries!      His mind   was at rest!!    But he forgot one thing,   didn’t he?     Do you know what that is?        Oh, yeah!   God!!!    But God said to him, “You fool!       This very night   your life    will be demanded from you.”         
So much   for eat, drink & be merry.       And this is how it’ll be with anyone   who stores up things for himself,   but is not rich toward God.   (Luke 12:21)        If right now   God said that you were going to die this night,    how would you handle that news?        Would your mind be at rest?    PAUSE
The Gospel lesson stresses how foolish it is to set your mind on earthly things at the expense   of the spiritual or heavenly things.    Even hard work & success are no guarantee   of having a mind at rest.   And in the reading from Ecclesiastes the bottom line is this,    you work hard   & then you die.      Like a dog chasing its tail,     everything    is meaningless.    PAUSE
Without the eyes of faith,   that’s what you see.      That’s the world King Solomon lived in.   That’s the world Jesus lived in.   That is the world   you & I live in.     It’s a screwed up, sinful, unfair & hopeless world.    It is a world where you are afraid of showing your faith by standing out as different;   by standing out   as someone who believes in right & wrong. 
You’d rather be just like everyone else, & so you either run the rat race of getting ahead in life,   or you surrender & give up.   I’ve been in both places.    I’ve wished that I were dead because life was not worth  being alive for,      and  I’ve worked six days a week,   ten to twelve hours a day  just because I was getting paid  good money for doing it. 
You work hard, & then you die.  Or you don’t work at all – & then you die.    Can you give me a good reason why your mind can be at rest?         If your best friend,    your son or daughter, comes to you ready to end their life, would you be able to give them hope?   Could you give them a reason to live?       If they come to you having lost their family & friends because they’ve spent all their time & energy chasing after a career, could you   show them a better way?  Are you able to look   through the eyes of faith   & see a world where your mind can truly   be at rest?   PAUSE
Years ago I spent time   at a class on the book of Revelation,   & I received an answer to a question that someone asked me not too long before.   The question was, “Why does Revelation use such bizarre & sometimes frightening imagery to tell its story?   The professor had a good explanation, & here’s an illustration.   Think about the meaning of the following poem: 
If the midnight sky & the stars were mine
From the rolling sea to the mountains high
If I owned the world    & if I could choose
I would give it all away   only to be with you. 
 
That entire verse, all four lines of it, could be summarized in only three words, “I love you.”  But the poetry, the figurative language of the verse,   it grabs your emotions.     It reaches down inside of you & doesn’t   so easily let go.      Yet how many times have you heard the three simple words, “I love you,”   & let them slip   right   on   by?   PAUSE
The book of Revelation was written in such picturesque language   in order to grab your heart & sink deeply into it.   Your God does not want you to forget the message He is sending.  He loves you!  The midnight sky & the stars, the rolling sea & the mountains high, they are all His.    He does own the world,   & His Son did give it all away   only   to be with you. 
The central message of Holy Scripture   is that Jesus Christ became man, in order to be with us & to conquer sin, death & the devil for us.   He’s done all of that,   & the book of Revelation declares & celebrates His victory.     But practically no one understands, because they’ve been listening to all kinds of false prophets.   
For most people, the book of Revelation is more like a nightmare preventing their
mind from being at rest.    So as I sat through the class on Revelation,   I kept thinking of how   just four days after I became a pastor in North Dakota,   Selma Harmel passed away.    I kept thinking of that   because the book of Revelation was one of her favorite.   Her Bible had several passages in it marked & highlighted   because she found peace of mind & rest in its message. 
What was it that she had learned, & how did she come to the understanding that those verses of Revelation   would put her mind at rest?     I wish now that I’d been able to talk to her & ask those questions.  But even without being able to speak to Selma,   we ourselves can still find comfort in the words of Scripture. 
One of the glorious sections of Revelation tells us about the Ascension of Christ   into heaven, & our 2nd reading today, from Colossians chapter 3, says this, “…seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”   Christ isn’t there as part of some kind of POW camp.    Jesus is the Victor,   not the prisoner. 
And it’s that news which brings rest   to my mind.  The victory has already been won for us.  We don’t need to be striving anxiously to keep ahead of the battle.   And we also don’t need to surrender out of fear or a lack of hope.   Jesus said, “Come unto Me    all you who are weary & heavy laden,   & I will give you rest.”  (Matthew 11:28) 
But when struggles come into our lives, where do we usually turn?  Is it to Jesus?    If the diagnosis is heart damage,   if you’re no longer able to earn a living from the factory or the farm,   if your children never bother   to check in on you,     if divorce has become reality,    have you turned to Jesus for rest   from the weary path of life?  
Jesus has already done the hard part.    He’s already been crucified.    He won’t waste His suffering by refusing to help you now,   & if He was willing to be crucified for you, how can you believe that you are worthless?      God spent the life   of His own Son   in order that He
might give you rest;   rest from all of your worries & from all of your troubles.   
King Solomon may have been the wisest man the world has ever known,   but life is not meaningless as he wrote.   Neither does life find its sole purpose in self-indulgence as the rich fool of the gospel lesson believed.   Through baptism, you’ve already been raised from death to life,   & looking through the eyes of faith, God enables you to see that new reality. 
There’ll still be trials & suffering, as God is transforming us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.  And our sinful nature doesn’t like change so it is constantly putting off that transformation.    Attending church & Bible study frequently   requires us to fight a war within ourselves.  Daily devotion times & even prayer   are easily put off   & forgotten. 
Those are battles we’ll have to fight every day of our lives.  Yet, we don’t fight them alone, & Jesus Christ has already guaranteed the ultimate victory; the ultimate rest.     We do have hope already in this life   & not just the next.   Our lives are worth living   because God’s Spirit is able to use us   in bringing hope & rest to people we encounter every day. 
God’s Spirit also brings hope & rest to each of us as we set our hearts on things above.  Many days that rest is hidden to our earthly eyes because our life now is hidden in Christ.   Yet, on the final day of time, when Jesus reveals Himself in all His glory, we will appear with Him, also in glory. 
May God enable us to take our eyes off of the earthly things until that day.  Amen.
 
 
Through Jesus blood & merit, I am at peace with God.  What, then, can daunt my spirit, however dark my road?  My courage shall not fail me, for God is on my side; though hell itself assail me, its rage I may deride.  Amen.  LSB 746:1. 
11th Sunday after Pentecost – C (Proper 13)                                                 LSB #’s 615, 746, 643
Text – Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
 
What does a man get for all the toil & anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?  All his days his work is pain & grief; even at night his mind does not rest.  This too is meaningless.
 
A MIND AT REST
 
 
Do any of you struggle with those nights where you’re trying to get to sleep, but you just can’t get your mind to slow down long enough?      Maybe you had a big argument that day.  Maybe there’d been some bad news concerning your family   or bad results from the latest medical tests.   Maybe you’d just seen one of those horror movies that brings on nightmares. 
In times like those we learn to appreciate a mind at rest.  Peace of mind is sought after the world over,   & people have tried everything under the sun in looking for it.   He tried the proverbial   wine, women & song,   but nothing satisfied King Solomon for long. 
God said that Solomon was the wisest man who would ever live, & though wisdom is better than foolishness,   death still erases any lasting significance   that human wisdom might have.   The king even tried finding peace in the work that he did,   & here’s what he discovered:
“I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.  And who knows whether he’ll be a wise man or a fool?”  (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19a)     History records that the son who followed Solomon as king was indeed a fool. 
“What does a man get for all the toil & anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?   All his days his work is pain & grief;   even at night his mind does not rest.     This too is meaningless.”  (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23)     Utterly meaningless!   Everything is meaningless.  The book of Ecclesiastes isn’t exactly the life of the party   is it? 
In the gospel lesson we read of a man who has found the answers to peace & happiness.  This rich man realized that he only needed to build bigger barns   in which to store all of his wealth.  Then he would have plenty of good things laid up for many years.    Finally     he could eat,   drink   & be merry.    What a life!     No more worries!      His mind   was at rest!!    But he forgot one thing,   didn’t he?     Do you know what that is?        Oh, yeah!   God!!!    But God said to him, “You fool!       This very night   your life    will be demanded from you.”         
So much   for eat, drink & be merry.       And this is how it’ll be with anyone   who stores up things for himself,   but is not rich toward God.   (Luke 12:21)        If right now   God said that you were going to die this night,    how would you handle that news?        Would your mind be at rest?    PAUSE
The Gospel lesson stresses how foolish it is to set your mind on earthly things at the expense   of the spiritual or heavenly things.    Even hard work & success are no guarantee   of having a mind at rest.   And in the reading from Ecclesiastes the bottom line is this,    you work hard   & then you die.      Like a dog chasing its tail,     everything    is meaningless.    PAUSE
Without the eyes of faith,   that’s what you see.      That’s the world King Solomon lived in.   That’s the world Jesus lived in.   That is the world   you & I live in.     It’s a screwed up, sinful, unfair & hopeless world.    It is a world where you are afraid of showing your faith by standing out as different;   by standing out   as someone who believes in right & wrong. 
You’d rather be just like everyone else, & so you either run the rat race of getting ahead in life,   or you surrender & give up.   I’ve been in both places.    I’ve wished that I were dead because life was not worth  being alive for,      and  I’ve worked six days a week,   ten to twelve hours a day  just because I was getting paid  good money for doing it. 
You work hard, & then you die.  Or you don’t work at all – & then you die.    Can you give me a good reason why your mind can be at rest?         If your best friend,    your son or daughter, comes to you ready to end their life, would you be able to give them hope?   Could you give them a reason to live?       If they come to you having lost their family & friends because they’ve spent all their time & energy chasing after a career, could you   show them a better way?  Are you able to look   through the eyes of faith   & see a world where your mind can truly   be at rest?   PAUSE
Years ago I spent time   at a class on the book of Revelation,   & I received an answer to a question that someone asked me not too long before.   The question was, “Why does Revelation use such bizarre & sometimes frightening imagery to tell its story?   The professor had a good explanation, & here’s an illustration.   Think about the meaning of the following poem: 
If the midnight sky & the stars were mine
From the rolling sea to the mountains high
If I owned the world    & if I could choose
I would give it all away   only to be with you. 
 
That entire verse, all four lines of it, could be summarized in only three words, “I love you.”  But the poetry, the figurative language of the verse,   it grabs your emotions.     It reaches down inside of you & doesn’t   so easily let go.      Yet how many times have you heard the three simple words, “I love you,”   & let them slip   right   on   by?   PAUSE
The book of Revelation was written in such picturesque language   in order to grab your heart & sink deeply into it.   Your God does not want you to forget the message He is sending.  He loves you!  The midnight sky & the stars, the rolling sea & the mountains high, they are all His.    He does own the world,   & His Son did give it all away   only   to be with you. 
The central message of Holy Scripture   is that Jesus Christ became man, in order to be with us & to conquer sin, death & the devil for us.   He’s done all of that,   & the book of Revelation declares & celebrates His victory.     But practically no one understands, because they’ve been listening to all kinds of false prophets.   
For most people, the book of Revelation is more like a nightmare preventing their
mind from being at rest.    So as I sat through the class on Revelation,   I kept thinking of how   just four days after I became a pastor in North Dakota,   Selma Harmel passed away.    I kept thinking of that   because the book of Revelation was one of her favorite.   Her Bible had several passages in it marked & highlighted   because she found peace of mind & rest in its message. 
What was it that she had learned, & how did she come to the understanding that those verses of Revelation   would put her mind at rest?     I wish now that I’d been able to talk to her & ask those questions.  But even without being able to speak to Selma,   we ourselves can still find comfort in the words of Scripture. 
One of the glorious sections of Revelation tells us about the Ascension of Christ   into heaven, & our 2nd reading today, from Colossians chapter 3, says this, “…seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”   Christ isn’t there as part of some kind of POW camp.    Jesus is the Victor,   not the prisoner. 
And it’s that news which brings rest   to my mind.  The victory has already been won for us.  We don’t need to be striving anxiously to keep ahead of the battle.   And we also don’t need to surrender out of fear or a lack of hope.   Jesus said, “Come unto Me    all you who are weary & heavy laden,   & I will give you rest.”  (Matthew 11:28) 
But when struggles come into our lives, where do we usually turn?  Is it to Jesus?    If the diagnosis is heart damage,   if you’re no longer able to earn a living from the factory or the farm,   if your children never bother   to check in on you,     if divorce has become reality,    have you turned to Jesus for rest   from the weary path of life?  
Jesus has already done the hard part.    He’s already been crucified.    He won’t waste His suffering by refusing to help you now,   & if He was willing to be crucified for you, how can you believe that you are worthless?      God spent the life   of His own Son   in order that He
might give you rest;   rest from all of your worries & from all of your troubles.   
King Solomon may have been the wisest man the world has ever known,   but life is not meaningless as he wrote.   Neither does life find its sole purpose in self-indulgence as the rich fool of the gospel lesson believed.   Through baptism, you’ve already been raised from death to life,   & looking through the eyes of faith, God enables you to see that new reality. 
There’ll still be trials & suffering, as God is transforming us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.  And our sinful nature doesn’t like change so it is constantly putting off that transformation.    Attending church & Bible study frequently   requires us to fight a war within ourselves.  Daily devotion times & even prayer   are easily put off   & forgotten. 
Those are battles we’ll have to fight every day of our lives.  Yet, we don’t fight them alone, & Jesus Christ has already guaranteed the ultimate victory; the ultimate rest.     We do have hope already in this life   & not just the next.   Our lives are worth living   because God’s Spirit is able to use us   in bringing hope & rest to people we encounter every day. 
God’s Spirit also brings hope & rest to each of us as we set our hearts on things above.  Many days that rest is hidden to our earthly eyes because our life now is hidden in Christ.   Yet, on the final day of time, when Jesus reveals Himself in all His glory, we will appear with Him, also in glory. 
May God enable us to take our eyes off of the earthly things until that day.  Amen.
 
 
Through Jesus blood & merit, I am at peace with God.  What, then, can daunt my spirit, however dark my road?  My courage shall not fail me, for God is on my side; though hell itself assail me, its rage I may deride.  Amen.  LSB 746:1.