Remember the Work Is Done

It’s 2:30 in the afternoon.

Just moments ago there may have been fighting, or whining, or happy squealing over a table smeared with peanut butter and jelly breadcrumbs. Or maybe it was a cheerful chase that crunched leftover Cheerios on the floor. Either way, its almost like my kids’ bodies get the message that nap time is near. And, at least for the last few months, I’m just hanging on until we make it to this quiet respite.

And it is there — here — that I remember that rest is for Christians. That the work is done.

In this world, we go to bed with things unfinished or with checklists that are completed only to be drawn up again the next day. But cascading over it all is that the most important, hardest work in this life is finished.

Though we have worked our fingers down to the bone, though we have no righteousness of our own, though we have no right to draw near his throne, the Father has set his love on us in Jesus. And Jesus has finished it. Jesus has come and lived in our shoes. He went to the cross in our place. He bore the wrath we deserved for our sins. And he said it is done. It is finished. The impossible work of trying to earn God’s favor by our goodness. Over. The inescapable fear that, no matter what, we aren’t good enough. No more.

Jesus said it is finished. Our sins are forgiven. His righteousness is ours. And now, having been raised from the dead, he is ruling and reigning and living to intercede for needy and weary people like us. He is our refuge and strength, our Rock unlike any other. He is that glorious river, the psalmist whispers, always abounding, never ceasing, constantly replenishing our thirsty souls.

It is in him — in Jesus — that no matter how deafening the commotion of our work becomes, or how wild and disorganized things might seem, it is in Jesus we rest. And it is in that rest that we work, not frenetically, not always trying to save our skin, but freely, gladly, full of the love and grace he has poured into our lives.