Thought for Today
Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.
Psalm 8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established
Luke 3:23 Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli,
John 4:34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
“Yet this one God is also three distinct persons, each fully God and each with work to perform.” (Donald K. McKim, Coffee with Calvin, pg. 3)
I usually think of work as an intransitive verb meaning, “to exert oneself physically or mentally especially in sustained effort for a purpose or under compulsion or necessity.” (merriam-webster.com) There are several other definitions listed on that website including some use of the word as a transitive verb.
When I commonly think of work, I think in terms of my first career as an engineer. Then, when someone asked me what I ‘did,’ I would tell them, “I’m an engineer.” For many adults, our careers, our ‘work’ becomes an integral part of our self-identity.
Although the word work appears 315-419 times in the Bible, I must admit that before reading that quote above, I never much thought about work in terms of the Trinity. If I thought about it at all, I would probably have referred to God’s activity in those verses in the Old Testament about Creation as simply God’s being God. Creation is just what God does. Certainly that is not work . . . is it?
As a youth, I thought about work as what my father went off to each morning. Like many, my parents did assign their children certain tasks and duties around our home. We helped in the yard, in that long-ago age before dishwashers were common, we washed and dried the dinner dishes. But all those chores seemed less like work and more like mind-numbing, futile punishments. Is there a difference between work and mind-numbing, futile punishments; or, are they synonyms for the same thing?
Have you ever thought about Jesus’ incarnation, Jesus’ life and ministry as work? Similar to my concept of God’s work, I always simply assumed that everything we read about Jesus in the New Testament was just what messiahs did . . . certainly that’s not work, or is it?
Now, after reading that sentence above from Coffee with Calvin, I have to rethink my entire mental framework supporting my own ideas about work. Personally, I should probably begin with determining whether my own “work to perform” was my first career as an engineer or my ‘retirement’ career as a parish pastor. Somehow it seems wrong to refer to being a pastor as work. Is it possible to think of something I completely enjoy and relish as being work? Can work be a blessing? Can work add meaning and fulfilment to life itself?
If the answer to those questions is “Yes,” then I need to ponder on what the work of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in my own life was in terms of my call to ministry. Were God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit ‘working’ in my life, preparing me for the call to ministry I received in my late 50s? If so, couldn’t they have found some way that did not necessitate my having to take courses like Differential Equations and Advanced Rotational Kinematics? “. . . to the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.13.1)
I do believe that each of us can find in our lives evidence of the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Life itself is prima facie evidence. We are who we are, what we are and what we have the potential to be because Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been there for us. Sadly, sometimes we have ignored their work, sometimes even defied their preparations and guidance. But when we listen, when we pray, when we direct our lives toward their work, we can indeed fulfill the challenge of Micah 6:8. We can lead lives oriented around doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our Triune God.
Stay safe, sense God’s working in your own life, trust God,
Pastor Ray