One of the unexpected but welcome things I was given as part of my new worship pastor job was a copy of the Church of England Lectionary 2020. It’s an ecclesiastical document and follows its own inner logic and actually begins on 1 December 2019, the beginning of Advent (anticipating the birth of Christ; as this was the beach head of God’s salvation plan, that does make sense), and so I’m already almost a week into it.

One of yesterday’s morning prayer passages was Isaiah 28:1-13. In the NASB, the core of verse 12 is God’s proclamation:

Here is rest, give rest to the weary

Isaiah 28:12 (NASB)

I may not be getting the full sense of it in context but this was the portion that stood out to me. Particularly approaching Christmas when, even more so than the rest of the year, most people would describe themselves as “busy”, I think the community of the church should take time to understand and enjoy the rest offered by God and to share that with those who are heavy-burdened.