Let us strive to enter into God's rest!  What a tremendous refrain for the New Year!  What does it mean for us to enter into "God's rest?"  Whatever it means, it cannot be that brief respite from activity that we call "R & R" or "vacation."  It must mean something about delighting in the ultimacy of creation, brought to completion and brought to perfection for us by God.  God's rest is not like a nap, like a Sunday afternoon on the couch watching football.  God's rest is like the perfection of unity, the wholeness of creation bursting in song, as in today's Psalm:  "What we have heard and know, and what our fathers have declared to us, we will declare to the generation to come - the glorious deeds of the Lord and his strength, and the wonders that he wrought!"  Entering into God's rest means sharing in the delight of God for all of creation, especially us, God's "babies."

Our gospel reading reminds me of an Advent and Christmas theme I have been praying with recently:  "No Room."  "There was no longer any room for them, even around the door" when Jesus was at home.  To get the paralytic to Jesus, the man's friends had to resort to unusual, creative measures.  It strikes me as rather comical, even as I see myself struggling frantically to "get to Jesus" when it seems there are so many obstacles in the way.  I forget that God comes to us.  God's desire for us is so powerful that God comes to us, delighted, like a baby whose simple presence finds a way into the coldness of our hearts.

I am struck by an apt comparison of today's frantic pace with the scene Luke's Gospel presents of the Holy Family turned away from the inn because there was "no room."  Today, when productivity and activity is paramount to life, there still seems to be "no room" for Christ.  William Breault, S.J., reminds me that "the inn is a symbol of the heart."  There must be a way to tap into what the heart is most longing for in our world today.  There must be a way to give Christ some way to enter into what is empty, if only we can remove some of the clutter.  First we must admit that without God, we are empty and hungry and lonely, longing for that rest for which we were created.  St. Augustine knew it best:  "We were made for You, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You!"

Today, O Lord, I am emptying my heart.  Come take your rest in me.  Amen.