The Sabbath Day

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths.  This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who sanctifies you.

Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you.  Any who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.  For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord.  Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.  The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.  It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested" (Ex. 31:12-17).

 

What is the Sabbath?  How are we to observe it -- and why?  Any thoughtful answer to that question must begin with a thoughtful reading of the Scriptures, for the Sabbath originates in God's 'plan of action' for the Israelites who had been freed from slavery in Egypt.  The law to observe the Sabbath came in the wilderness -- halfway between a life of slavery and a life of freedom in the Promised Land.  These are the laws given to free men and women.

 

For six days, we are to work for our sustenance, for our existence.  But we are not slaves under the command of another, that we must work also on the Sabbath.  There is one day a week when we acknowledge that our daily bread is given to us by Providence, no matter how hard we work for it during the week.  One day in the week is to remind us that relationships are more important than work -- acknowledging God, acknowledging family and friends as gifts to us as much as our daily bread.  My grandchild calls Sunday "fun-day;"  I wish I had taken that approach with my own children.  I was too busy to stop work, even on Sunday -- too busy to acknowledge them as treasured gifts from God.  I thought if I stopped working, the world would fall apart.

 

Sabbath means "stopping."  We must cease activity and rest in the knowledge that "You will be my people, and I will be your God."  The Sabbath is a visible sign that God will provide for His people, that they are not alone in the universe, dependent only on their own efforts to survive.

 

The Jews, with good reason, learned to "build a fence around the law," so as not to transgress it.  But the fence often becomes an end unto itself, so that we become nit-pickers.  Faith and love teach us to enter into God's courts with thanksgiving, to acknowledge that He is our Source, and to rejoice in the gifts of family and friends.  How we do that is probably not as important as the fact that we do it consciously and with joy in our hearts.

 

[Note:  Science has demonstrated that our bio-rhythms are not on an exact 24-hour cycle, but more on a 26-hour one, so by the end of six days, we are a little "off" in terms of the earth's rotation and our work schedules.  We seem to need the seventh day biologically, physically, as a day of rest to "catch up" our bio-rhythms to the rising of the sun.  Wasn't God smart to give us a Sabbath day from the very beginning?]