Introduction to the Sabbath

“Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” ~Abraham Joshua Heschel [1]

God’s Invitation & Gift

The Sabbath has become a popular word in the Christian conversation, Sabbath derives from the Hebrew šabbāṯ, from the root šāḇaṯ, ‘to cease’, ‘to desist.”[2] However, a simple assessment of the current climate reveals that it is evident that we have yet to take hold of its reality in our lives. Over the last few years, we have witnessed more overwhelm and depression than any other time in history. Pastors and factory workers alike are beginning to awaken to the realization that something is missing. No matter what we do, we cannot seem to get rid of the buzzing in our minds. Like an automated response, we attempt to dull the noise within with more activity. We crave more activity to fill the space we feel drawn to fill. We continue to search it out. We build whatever our minds will present to us. We do as much as we can to fill the giant hole growing inside. Still, something calls to us. Something draws us. There is something in all of us crying out for reprieve; a true rest that cannot seem to be found in anything we have already set our hands to. Our very soul cries out for the answer that was there from the very beginning of time. It is so close but seems so far out of reach. That something, that answer begging for our attention, ceasing or resting, the Sabbath.

From the very beginning of Genesis 1, we come face to face with the goodness of God. Before there was sin and devastation on the earth, humanity’s only experience was oneness with the Creator. When he placed man in the garden, it was to carry out the work of living in union with the Creator and creation. Contrary to what is often displayed in our culture, God celebrates work and calls it good! And through his loving-kindness towards us, he invites us to delight in rest as a result of our good work (Genesis 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, 1:31).

When the Sabbath is first mentioned in Genesis 2, two things are apparent; it is both, God’s invitation and gift to humanity. Who would have imagined that the answer to restless activity was not more activity?! Well, God did. In his perfect design, God created mankind with a desire to create, as he creates. And in that, he foreknew that we would yearn for satisfaction in what we would complete. It did not take him by surprise that our hearts would then stray to find our greatest desires to be met in creation instead of him, the Creator. Still, he knew that only one response would suffice, rest.

Sabbath provides the invitation to rest and recognize the Creator as worthy of our full affection, and not our work or things that we create with our hands. Sabbath provides rest from striving to feel satisfied and complete by our standards, and instead, accept the invitation to feast at the table of delight with the one who blessed us with all of it. In Genesis 2:1-3 we read,

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (ESV)

Out of his goodness towards us, God invites us to rest from our good work. In his kindness towards us, he establishes himself as the only rightful source for the rest that our souls need, not as a vain way to gain our affection, but as a step to woo us to him, our loving Creator.

What the Bible Has to Say

When mankind sinned against their Creator, the invitation and gift of the Sabbath became a commandment, a law. In Exodus 20, we encounter a people, slaves, whom God rescued from Egypt. These people would go on to become the Israelites (Jews), God’s chosen people (Exodus 20:2). At this point in history, sin had been passed down, from generation to generation. What was once good work had now become slavery enforced by the hands of those who rebelled against God. Consequently, the invitation and gift of rest became unattainable. Still, God had a plan to draw us, in our restlessness, back to himself.

In Exodus 20:8-11, God commanded the people of Israel to both remember the Sabbath and keep it holy (set apart) from every other day of the week. The people who were once slaves in a foreign land, stripped of dignity, and void of worth to their enslavers, were commanded to take a day of rest. They were commanded to treat this one day differently than every other day. They were commanded to do the opposite of what they were used to and place no burdens on themselves, those who worked for them, their families, or even their livestock. At that moment in verse 11, they were reminded of what took place at the beginning,

“Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (ESV)

I encourage you to take a moment and behold the beauty of how God ordered each commandment and how it speaks to his character. The first four commandments express how we are to position our hearts and our worship. These four remind us that God is God alone. That there is nothing on the earth below or heavens above that was created to satisfy us, except God himself. We were made for him! But then, something happens in the fifth commandment, God commands us to rest. He doesn’t ridicule work or curse it. Rather, he commands us to rest in a way that benefits every person and all of creation. The final five commandments flow from a heart that is postured to worship its true Creator from a place of rest and delight. Through these commandments, we witness evidence of his plan of redemption for all of humanity. From a place of slavery to creation, back to a loving relationship with the Creator.

We learn through Scripture the good news; the law cannot complete in us the redemption we so desperately need. In reality, we are incapable of keeping the Sabbath or any other commandment. We were created to be complete only through union with our Creator. Therefore, the law can only remind us of what we lack. Don’t misunderstand me. God made no mistake in giving commands to his people. The law shapes the outside behavior that we need to correct. But it was only part of the plan. God created us to live from the inside out. External behavior change is not enough to transform our inner world. Hence, God once more, initiated what needed to be done to transform us completely. God’s initiation plan was simple: Jesus.

God sent his son to do what the law could not do on its own. Jesus not only showed us the way, but he was also and is the way to the transformation that we need. In Romans 8:3-4, the Apostle Paul reminds us,

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Jesus is the rest that our souls long for. It can be hard to wrap our minds around the character and nature of Jesus. He was fully God, yet fully human. He was sinless. And yet he died for no cause other than to see humanity come back into union with the Creator. In multiple passages through the New Testament, we find Jesus declaring the truth about himself, that He is indeed the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, and Luke 6:5). He does not just give us rest, he is rest.

Contemporary Application

So, how do we, as modern-day Christians apply Sabbath into our lives? Are we to keep the Sabbath as a command as the Israelites did? How do we apply the Sabbath as those who are under a different covenant than the people of Israel? The answer is much simpler than we can imagine, we can choose to. We can learn from Seventh-day Adventists who have been modeling for over 150 years what it means to rest.[3] Every single week, they set apart a twenty-four-hour period, from sunset to sunset, Friday through Saturday. They prepare in advance to spend their day of rest in delight. The hard truth is that the Sabbath has been a place of contention and debate between Jews and Christians, which ultimately led to some of the reasons behind the split between the two.[4] For Jews, the Sabbath was a commandment that was to be kept religiously. For Christians, the Sabbath became embodied in Christ, therefore shifting it to a way of life, rather than just a day. But we can still learn from both how to practice and live in and through the Sabbath. We may be faithful under a new and different covenant than the Jews who walked through the wilderness for 40 years, but our God and faithful Creator, has not changed. And just like those who walked through the wilderness, those escaping slavery, we are still called to cease from our good work and delight in the rest God so generously has invited us to partake in.

Let Us Return to the Sabbath

The Sabbath is an invitation and a gift that asks something of us in return; full attentiveness, being present, and closeness to our God. Scripture reveals to us that the Sabbath was a command fulfilled through the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus (Matthew 12:8). Therefore, he is inviting us to delight in the beauty that awaits us. To choose twenty-four hours to delight in God should draw us effortlessly. But if we are honest, we recognize that we are more entangled in the temporary nature of creation, instead of the eternal nature of our Creator. The Sabbath reorients us to the truth that God is good, that he is kind, and that he enough to sustain our weary souls. In the coming weeks, we will discover how to take the concept of the Sabbath and live in the fullness of it, both in a set-apart day and as a daily rhythm that affects every part of who we are. As we look ahead to what we will discover, my prayer for you is this, that you will return to your rest. That you would accept the invitation of your Creator to delight in union with him. And most importantly you would find refuge in him as your sustainer and safe abode.

~Natasha

Notes:

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951), 10

[2] E. J. Young and F. F. Bruce, “Sabbath,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 1032.

[3] Erik C. Carter, "The Converging of the Ways? —What Sabbath Practice Can Teach Us about Jewish-Christian and Intra-Religious Relations Today" Religions 11, no. 12 (2020): 1, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120661.  

[4] Ibid., 2.