GOSPEL MESSAGE & RECORDING
Rev. Fr. Gheevarghese John
The Gospels records that when our Savior Jesus Christ was born there was no room for Him at the inn. (Luke 2:7) When Christ was of age He entered the synagogue in Nazareth and proclaimed through the scriptures that He was the messiah, upon hearing this the Jews threw Him out of their town. (Luke 4:16-29) Throughout Christ’s ministry on earth, He was traveling—preaching, teaching and performing miracles—but He never had a place to call His own. Jesus was always going from one place to another, like an itinerant preacher. In other words, He never had a “place to rest His head.” In the latter part of Christ’s ministry, He was thrown out of the Temple, and rejected and despised by all. The Son of Man could find no place to rest His head. As the Gospel reading says, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no places to rest His head.” (Luke 9:58)
Although totally rejected and despised, there is one place where Christ finally rests His head, and that is at the cross. The Apostle John writes, “…and He rested his head and gave up His spirit.” (John 19:29) Here, finally Jesus is able to rest His head at the cross. The Gospel demonstrates that Christ finally rests His head in taking the sins of the world. He rests His head in loving us, and in dying for the sins of the whole world. How awesome and amazing is it that God Himself would come down into human history and rest His head at the cross in dying for all of mankind.
So then as Christians what is our response? What are we to do in knowing that Christ loved us so much? In the Gospel we hear Christ’s exhortation to his disciples, “Follow me.” (Luke 9:59) We are to follow Christ in our spiritual journey and have no rest until and unless we get to the cross. We should have no rest in our professional success, in our houses and cars, in our material gain, or even in our families; none of these things should give us rest. The only rest that we should have is the final hour when we stand at the foot of the cross and gaze at the crucified One and rest our heads at His feet, understanding fully that He died in loving us.