Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

The hospital supervisor sent for a young surgeon and lauded his efforts in the operating room the previous day.

"Marvelous bit of work," he said.

"You operated just in time.

One more day and the patient would have recovered without it."

Whether or not this was good timing depends on the perspective from which it is seen, but all agree that timing itself is important.

God built His whole universe to operate like clock work.

Timing is essential for beauty, power, and harmony.

Take a photograph at the wrong time and you will ruin it, and fail to capture the beauty you intended to get because of too much or too little light.

Poor timing lets the precious smile pass, and you catch the smirk or frown instead.

Poor timing in your motor leads to loss of smoothness and power.

Illustrations could be multiplied to show that timing is an important factor in all that is good and pleasant.

Jesus is the author of all beauty and harmony, and the author of time itself.

He was a master of good timing.

His life from the very start was perfectly timed.

He was not born just any old time.

It was in the fullness of time that He was born of a woman.

The time was just right.

We cannot examine the whole life of Jesus, but even a glimpse of a few major events show it to be a life of precise timing.

His entry into Jerusalem; the Last Supper; and His crucifixion, were all precisely timed in proximity to the Passover so as to fill these events with symbolic significance and prophetic fulfillment.

When His hour was not come, they could not take Him.

But when His hour had come He submitted to the cross.

His timing of His resurrection on Sunday morning; the sending of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, are further examples of the importance of timing in the life and plan of Jesus.

All of the Gospels show that Jesus believed and practiced the wisdom of Eccles.

3:1.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."

Jesus had His time of preparation; His time of testing in the wilderness, His time for baptism and public ministry, and His time for withdrawal to rest and pray.

Jesus had the perfect life because it was a balanced life.

He knew how to use time fully and wisely.

Mark gives us an example of the wisdom of Christ in this connection that none of the other Gospels portray.

It is of unique value because it is a picture, not just of good timing of Christ in His own life, but in relationship to His disciples.

In other words, there is valuable teaching here for all who love and follow Christ.

The disciples have been sent on a mission of preaching, casting out demons, and healing.

John the Baptist was killed while they were on this mission.

Verse 30 brings us to the point where the disciples have returned to report to Jesus all they have done and taught.

Verse 31 tells us they had such a response that they were mobbed, and so busy they didn't even have time to eat.

They were tired, and no doubt saddened and discouraged by the tragic news of John's death.

It was time for something to happen: But what?

Jesus, the Master of timing and the Great Physician, prescribes rest.

He says to them, "Stop what you are doing and come away by yourselves and rest awhile."

This is the same Jesus who said, "Work for the night is coming," and who stressed the urgency of getting laborers into the harvest.

Here were masses of people eager to be ministered to, but Jesus says to His disciples that they should come away from it all, and go to a deserted place.

Jesus is saying there is even a time to let go and leave off of doing the good and the best things of life.

Jesus hallowed holidays, and magnified the value of vacations.

He authorized periods of time off from service.

G.Campbell Morgan says of this passage, "If the story is a revelation of His understandingness, of His care, I could go further and say it is a stupendous revelation of His wisdom.

It is a rebuking revelation to some of us."

There are Christians who think they are wiser than Christ.

They think they can neglect the law of timing and rest that He has built into the very fiber of reality.

They give themselves to activity all out of proportion to time spent in restful mediation.

They ruin their health and spoil their fruit, and then wonder why God did not honor their dedication and protect them from poor health.

The answer is obvious.

When you break a law of God, it breaks you.

No one ever has a right to break a law that God has built into the framework of life, and expect to escape the consequences.

The law of rest is universal, and if we had the time, we could see how it applies in all realms.

Metals need rest or they will break.

Certain woods will shatter on a lathe if not given resting periods when you work with them.

God demanded that the Israelites not only give their servants a rest, and their animals, but even their land, for land that gets a rest will be more productive.

Rest is a universal law, and the great physician always prescribes that we obey such laws for health and holiness.

The context makes it clear that we are out of order if we expect God to work miracles to save us from the consequences of neglecting the law of rest.

The disciples had just been performing miracles, and while they were in seclusion in a remote place, Jesus performed the marvelous miracle of feeding the five thousand.

They were in the very midst of miracles, and yet Jesus did not restore them to new strength and vigor by a miracle.

He calls them to obedience to the natural law: Come apart and rest.

The implications of this prescription by Christ are far reaching, and should have a profound influence on each of us.

The Christians wise enough to listen to the doctor's orders will have a solution to one of the major problems of our age, which is the problem of meaningful use of time.

Karl Jaspers says our world, "has completely lost the faculty of creative repose."

Books galore are written on the subject of rest and leisure.

There is a desperate search for answers as to how to rest and make leisure meaningful.

Charlotte Buhler concludes, "A meaningful use of time is only possible within the total framework of a meaningful life."

This being so, Christians should be shining examples of success in the balanced life.

Unfortunately, in this realm as in others the children of darkness are often wiser than the children of light.

We let humanists get the credit and the honor for leading the way when Christ should get that honor through us.

We want to look in more detail at the problem and the prescription of Christ in hopes that we can learn something that will aid us in developing a pattern of life that leads to greater health, holiness, and happiness in our relationship to God and man.

First consider-

I. THE PROBLEM.

The problem is simply that we are finite and have limitations.

Our psychology professor at Bethel, Swan Engwall, emphasized that Christians must learn to accept their limitations.

He said that every person has a breaking point, but many have a devil may care attitude expressed in these lines:

I burn my candle at both ends.

I know it will not last the night,

But Oh, my foes, and Oh, my friends,

It gives forth such a lovely light.

Such an attitude leads to irresponsible living with total disregard to the laws of health ordained of God.

Charles Aked writes, "We live faster than men ever lived before.

We burn the candle at both ends, and then for fear our neighbor shall get ahead of us, we light it in the middle too.

We are consumed by the fever of living."

One little boy who had seen his parents so seldom because of their running to this event and that, heard them debating if they should go out again.

He conveyed to them his feelings with the reversal of a well known statement.

He said, "Don't just do something-stand there."

The problem is that many have been on the treadmill so long they don't know how to stop and be still.

William Davies wrote, "A poor life this, if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare."

A restlessness characterizes most people today.

In spite of all the wealth available people are not content because money cannot buy the values that can be gained only through a wise use of leisure.

Bertrand Russell the atheist even saw this and wrote, "To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization."

The result is, men try and kill time, and instead it kills them.

Ralph Barton, the illustrator for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, left this suicide note: "I have run from wife to wife and from home to home in a ridiculous effort to escape from time.

I'm fed up with the effort of living 24 hours a day."

Here was a man who did not know how to use time meaningfully.

He had no concept of rest and repose.

There was no balance in his life.

He lived for the body only, and let his soul shrivel.