Holy rest

We all need a break. We’re so busy, it’s hard to find time to ourselves. None of us can function at 100 per cent every day without ultimately affecting the quality of our relationships, work or sanity. The word holiday has its origins in Middle English, itself taken from the Old English hāligdæg, from hālig (holy) and dæg (day).

The word comes to us from a time when the only breaks from work were holy days (Easter Day, Christmas Day and local feast days). The story of human labour is one of survival. Days were long, though storytelling and the passing down of tribal lore would take place around the family or community hearth. Up to and beyond the middle of the 19th Century even children laboured and only the most fortunate and very few had the opportunity to learn to read and write. So a holiday was a most welcome and awaited occasion for all.

Holidays were granted at the whim of potentates for such occasions as the marriages of princes or auspicious signs of divine intervention (rain, volcanoes, spring and harvest festivals). In Christian villages and towns throughout the world holidays were celebrated with parades, feasting, religious ceremonies. Holidays truly were a break from the tedious rhythm of workaday life.

How fortunate we are to have weekends, rostered days off, public holidays and four weeks paid leave each year, where we can re-create ourselves, and yet how astonishing it is that despite the freedoms we have obtained, we have been become constricted by the demands of timetables. Our holidays no longer celebrate life, they are days for doing even more of what we do every other day. And we’re tired.

The disciples rejoined Jesus (Mark 6:30 – 34). He invited them to come away with him to rest a while, for there were so many demands on them that had not even eaten. Yet despite their efforts, the crowds anticipated where they were heading, and many had reached their destination even before they had set a foot ashore. Even Jesus himself struggled to find that time for himself. There are pointed moments in scripture where Jesus seeks a quiet place for prayer and refreshment – time set apart from work (e.g. Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16).

You and I need holy days – time set apart from all that stuff we do day in and day out, and we need holy places – of quiet and stillness. Indeed the quiet that you are invited into, just as the disciples were, is the presence and person of Jesus. And your holy day, your holiday, is any day of your choosing – for that is the day that God will celebrate with you. But should you, like those disciples of Jesus, want to find a time and space with others who share your need, come, worship and rejoice any Sunday.