Every day, I spend some good number of my life doing explicitly religious activities. Whether it is worshipping, celebrating the Eucharist, praying, adoration, spiritual reading or school, I have a set of mental theology that accompanies with what I do. But I probably spend twice as much time a week sleeping and yet, I have never thought about it theologically.
C.J. Mahaney in his book titled Humility: True Greatness, says that sleep is a daily gift from God. Psalm 127:2 says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved in his sleep.” Sleep is a gift so graciously provided in God’s lavish generosity and love that if one neglects this gift, they will suffer from anxiety and health consequences. God is good and sleep is part of God’s goodness to us. The importance of having a proper night’s rest reflects not only onto our physical well-being, but also our spiritual wellness. Therefore, recognizing the theological significance of our slumber is essential.
There are three theological points
that I want to make about sleep. First,
God does not sleep. We are able to rest
because we know that God is on the watch and God is in control. Our God is the God
of the all-nighter. When
we sleep peacefully, it can be a manifestation of our trust in God and we are
able to renew our mind with the calm assurances of the promises of God. It reminds us of our dependence on God and
gives us an opportunity to entrust ourselves, our entire self to God’s
care. Secondly, having to sleep proves
that we are not God. I particularly
enjoy this quote from Fr. James Martin, SJ, “The Good News is that there is a
Messiah. The Better News is that it’s
not you!” As
we sleep, strength is restored, the mind is cleared, and we are prepared to
serve God another day. God could have
created us without a need to sleep and devote more time to do God’s work. But each night as we are confronted with the
need to sleep again, we are reminded that we are not self-sufficient. So when we are tired, we can be humbled to
our humanity and rest. Jesus in his full
humanity, slept. When anxiety causes us
to have difficulty sleeping, we can imagine Jesus sleeping in our boat and ask
him to calm the storm. Having Jesus in
our boat is better than having a hundred people bailing water!
Third,
sleep is a good practice for death. I
always wondered why in the children prayer before bed it had to mention about
the possibility of death, “Now I lay me down to sleep… if I should die before I
wake…”. As I grew older, I realized that
it makes sense to recite a miniature kind of last will right before I turn off
my conscious control of my heart and mind, and recline into a state of total
oblivion. That moment when we
consciously choose to be unconscious and let ourselves go, is a daily
opportunity to relinquish control to our God and a reminder of our baptism into
Christ’s death. We lay down our body and
the control of our conscious mind to say that we are not the Creator. There is only the One who “will neither
slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) and neither you nor I am the One. Sleep as Mahaney puts it beautifully, “is
a picture and a parable of what it means to be a Christian. Your sleep tonight will be a small but real
act of faith. You’ll lay your full
weight on a bed, trusting this structure to support you. You can fully relax, because no effort at supporting yourself is required;
something else is holding you up. And in the same way, throughout the night as
you sleep, someone else is sustaining
you. This is a picture of what
it’s like to belong to Christ.” 
I pray that we would all sleep sweetly and
refreshingly tonight, with souls stilled and quieted, like trusting children in
the arms of God (Psalm 131).
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