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“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” This is one of the first prayers that many of my generation learned to pray. It was a humble admission that sleep was the entrance to a realm in which we had no control, not unlike death itself. Death is that looming reality we try to push from our consciousness, but I think sleep is meant to be a nightly memento of death’s relentless approach. I don’t mean this post to be merely a morbid reminder of our mortality. Rather, I think sleep is also a persistent parable of grace. Let me explain….
Sleep is something no one has to learn. Indeed, aside from eating, it’s one of just a few things we do as infants. Parents of infants might take issue with the first line of this paragraph since sleep seems so difficult for most infants. But I don’t think it’s the doing of the thing that’s so hard for them, but rather the forced acceptance that they fight. For even as sleep is a blissful cessation from the strain of life, it is also a brutal reminder of our weakness. Try as we might, we simply can’t stay awake past the limits of our energy. Our minds may fight it, but eventually, we all succumb.
It is this aspect of sleep that feels most like death. That sensation of consciousness ebbing, of entering into a world of compelled vulnerability and helplessness. We may have many weaknesses, but none is so unnerving as not being able to keep ourselves awake. We don’t often feel the threat because we typically make our place of repose the most comfortable and secure location in our homes. Mattresses and security systems mitigate the defenselessness we feel through that nocturnal span of unconsciousness but make no mistake, sleep is a most poignant reminder of our weakness.
And just as there is a similarity between sleep and death, so too is there a hint of hell in a sleepless night. What could be a more potent indicator of eternal torments than insomnia? Sure, there is no lake of fire or flaming brimstone, but the utterly uncontrollable consciousness of a restless night is torture without rival. The inability to shut off our minds, to stop turning things over and over in our heads or the pondering dread of future events as the night drags on forever, all are but dim reflections of that greater woe. And the relative comfort of our beds only adds irony to the suffering, as will the remembrance of God’s goodness to the damned.
But sleep is also one of God’s kindest tokens of mercy. Who is not familiar with that delicious release we experience as we sink into our beds and feel the weight of the day evaporating? My wife and I often heave a sleepy but joyful sigh of “Bed”, as we nestle beneath the covers. The psalmist reminds us that it is “vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives His beloved sleep.” (Psa. 127:2) To release the tools of labor, lay our bodies down, and forget for a while the stress of the day is a most precious gift.
It was this mercy that Hamlet sought in Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy. He envisioned death as nothing more than eternal sleep, an escape from his cares. He longed for the solace of slumber but falsely thought to find it in death. It was the remembrance of death’s enigma that shook him from this reverie. “To die, to sleep–To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.” The cycle of waking and sleeping so familiar to each of us is halted as we approach that unknown rest. What lies beyond, in “the undiscovered country”, is where the analogy between death and sleep part ways. For we know what we shall find as daylight breaks, but mystery shrouds the dawning after death.
Oh, how we need the grace of sleep! Not just for the replenishment it brings our bodies, but for these reminders it brings our souls. The acknowledgment of our weaknesses, the reminder of our mortality, the peace we find in resting, and the limits of our knowledge.
As we lie in bed each night, slowly drifting off to sleep, may we remember that just as God put Adam to sleep, wounding his side to fashion his wife, so our Lord has tasted the sleep of death, suffering the piercing of His side, to redeem His wayward bride. He slept that we might awaken in His likeness. (Ps. 17:15) What wondrous expectation, as I lay me down to sleep! Sweet dreams….
