Remember
the Sabbath Day
A Biblical reflection
on the need for a Sabbath Day
There seem to be two
extremes when we begin to talk about practices on the Lord’s Day. On the one hand we may find people who appear to define the Lord’s Day
by what we cannot do on that day. We might call these strict Sabbatarians. You cannot go shopping; you cannot watch TV; you cannot take part in sporting events; you cannot work for pay; you cannot hunt; you cannot do homework. Of course, they will say that we can go to
church, worship, seek the Lord and do acts of mercy. We are to honor God by setting aside one day
of seven where every moment is taken up with spiritual pursuits and not worldly
activities. To many people the “cannots”
seem to outweigh the “cans,” and the Lord’s Day appears to be a burden and not
a blessing.
For
those who reject a strict Sabbath keeping, the alternative is usually an
extremely loose keeping of the Sabbath.
Extremely loose being defined as doing whatever seems most convenient on
the Lord’s Day. They might say that the
Sabbath is not meant to be a burden but a joy.
So if I need to go to the store it is not big deal. If I miss church because I am out of town or
have family visiting, it is no big deal.
If I want to go to a football game on Sunday, God will understand. If I have to work, I have to work. The mall is going to be open, so why not do
some shopping? For the loose Sabbatarian
almost anything goes on Sunday as long as you are attending church on a regular
basis—and even that may not be necessary.
On a
continuum from strict to loose, I think that we would find that in our day most
American evangelicals lean toward the loose side of Sabbath observance.
My own
thinking is that both of these extremes are mistaken, though both contain
elements of truth. If we desire to bring
all things under the Lordship of Christ then this will include our Sabbath day
attitudes and activities.
So how
would God have us view and keep the Sabbath?
It appears to me that the key is to go back to the beginning in
Genesis. In Genesis 1:1 we have a record
of God calling the universe into existence.
This is followed by the main purpose of Genesis 1:1-2:3 “which focuses
on the making and the shaping of the earth as a place for humans to live and
love God.” As we will see this main purpose will have an impact on how we view the
Sabbath Day. But consider for the moment
that during the six days of creation God was putting everything into the world
that mankind would need to live for and love God. He
gave us light and darkness, times and seasons, the skies and the heavens, water
and land, animals and vegetation; and He
made us male and female. All the days of
creation the Lord is working to supply what mankind needs in order to live for
the glory of God.
If
this is true, might it be the case that God gave us the seventh day, a blessed
and special day, for the same reason?
Did God not give us the seventh day of rest, not because He needs us to
observe it, but because we
need it? We need it not only for the physical rest
that it is meant to provide, but especially the blessing of remembering God as
our Creator and Redeemer. Is God not
telling us as our Creator that it is important for us to take one day out of seven to find
rest in Him?
In
Exodus 20:8-11 God bases the keeping of the Sabbath on His work in
creation. He worked for six days and
rested on the seventh. Why did God
rest? Did He rest because He was worn
out by all of His hard work? No. God does not get weary (see Isaiah
40:28-31). He rested because He had
finished His work of creation and pronounced it very good. I think of it like this: when you finish cutting your lawn or planting
your garden, what do you usually do? You
take some time to just look and admire and find satisfaction in the work of your
hands. This, I believe, is what God
did. He took a moment and, as it were,
stood back to enjoy the work of His hands. God set the pattern for us. We are so constituted that we need to take a
day of seven to step back from our normal pursuits and enjoy the work that God
has done in creation and in redemption (Deuteronomy 5:13-15).
Do
you not find it to be the case as you go through the week, that our minds and
hearts get distracted by so many things?
There is work and the house and the yard and family and bills, etc., so
that we truly begin to forget about what is most important. We begin to forget about God and His kingdom
and His glory and His faithfulness and His daily blessings and grace. And we begin to fall into following the
course of this world and start setting our hearts on things that do not satisfy
our deepest longings. It is true that
every day we should seek to find refreshment in God through His Word and
personal communion in prayer, but God made us to need something more. That something more is a full day to delight
in God.
God
knows us perfectly. He created us, and
He knows that we need a day out of seven to get re-orientated on what is right
and best and most valuable. He knows we
need to find real refreshment and rest in Him, and so He has given us a day to
meet our needs--our need to be blessed in Him.
Is
this not what Jesus is telling us when he says, “The Sabbath was made for man
and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27)?
The Sabbath is a gift that God gave to man because our hearts need it so
much. The loose Sabbatarian tends to
say, “Thanks for the gift, God, but I don’t really need it.” The strict Sabbatarian seems to say, “Look at
the gift I have for you, God, a whole day devoted to honoring You.” Both miss the point. We need the gracious gift of the Sabbath.
To
view the Lord’s Day from this perspective, I find, makes a huge
difference. For those who are strict
Sabbatarians it can begin to show you the joy and blessing of the day. It is not meant to be a day of burdensome “do
nots” but a day of “Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened and I will
give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
For
those who see nothing special about the Lord’s Day or who wonder if a Sabbath
was only part of the Old Testament, we can at least say that man’s need for a
day of rest has not changed. Our nature
is the same now as it was then, and we still need a day out of seven to refocus
ourselves on God and His glory and take our eyes off the things of the world
that hold such a powerful sway.
For
the loose Sabbatarian I would say that it does matter what you do on this
day. It matters not so much because God
demands certain practices from you, but you need this day. You are no different from anyone else. You need this day to seek God and His rich
blessings and doing the same things you do on other days of the week would seem
to work against this. It is a day to
delight in the Lord and you are the one who misses out when you go your own way
and do your own thing:
"If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
Isaiah 58:13-14
