One of my favorite cds this time of year is the one by Andrew Peterson entitled Resurrection Letters. It is a handful of songs about Easter: the crucifixion and the resurrection. Peterson is a good storyteller, but he is also a good theologian. One of the songs on that cd is called He Rested.

He tells the story of the aftermath of the crucifixion. “So they took his body down. This man who said he was the resurrection and the life was lifeless in the ground.” And then Peterson notes that they laid his body in the grave on the Sabbath. Jesus died on Friday—Good Friday—and was buried on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath. I’ve heard Easter weekend noted like this: Good Friday, Silent Saturday, Resurrection Sunday. Jesus was crucified on a Friday, and the Jewish leaders, who took no thought of having an innocent man executed, didn’t want his body hanging on a cross on their sabbath. Dead bodies could disqualify one from sabbath observances, and especially this one, since it was the Passover. Besides, it would be improper in polite society to have a dead body hanging on a cross during the highest holy days of the year. We wouldn’t want that to spoil our festivities. What would the children think!?

So, Jesus’s dead body was taken off the cross and placed in a tomb, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And Jesus was put in the tomb on Saturday, the seventh day of the week, the Jewish sabbath. And what is interesting is this. When God gave the Ten Commandments, he ordered that the sabbath was to be kept holy; it was to be set apart. God said that we were to do our work on the other six days, but we were to rest on the seventh. Why? This is what God did. “In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:8-11). God rested on the seventh.

And that’s what he did at Easter. One of Jesus’ last words, while hanging on that cross, was, “It is finished.” How true. When Jesus died, it was finished. Everything he came to do on earth was finished, complete. And the most important work that he came to do was not teach or heal, but die on the cross for the sins of his people. And when it was finished, God rested.

I think that is part of what Easter means—rest. Easter should bring spiritual rest. Easter says that the work is done, and now there is rest. Everything required for our salvation has been done; you can add nothing to it. And now we rest in what God has done for us on that cross. Jesus did the work on the sixth day—and all of the days leading up to it—and then he rested on the seventh. There is nothing else to be done, by us or by him.

And the rest that God promises, and that Jesus earned for us, begins now, though interrupted by sin and suffering, and will continue on through all eternity. The book of Hebrews says that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (4:9). There is an old hymn that says, “Lay your deadly doing down, down at Jesus’ feet; stand in Him, in Him alone, gloriously complete.” That’s the idea.

Easter means that we are not doers, but receivers. Doing will make you weary, but receiving will give you rest. When you work for a salary, there is labor and toil. When you receive a gift, all you do is open it and enjoy it. We will wear ourselves out when we try to do what God has already done for us, really when we try to do that which only God could do. But we will rest when we receive what Jesus has done for us on the cross.

And that also means this. If we are not experiencing rest, then it means that in some way we are trying to work for our salvation. If we are not resting, we are trying to add to what Christ has done. But when Jesus died and was laid in that tomb, on the seventh day, God rested. And we should too.