The Jericho Road

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20.8-11

I’ll be preaching on this passage in Cardiff this coming Sabbath, May 23rd.

Key Question: What does it mean to remember and keep the Sabbath holy?

Here are a few thoughts, some notes, some observations and reflections in that direction. I hope to build on these for the sermon.

The immediate context of this passage is the Ten Commandments, those written on tablets of stone by the finger of God and given to Moses who passed them on to the church in the wilderness. This context is important for understanding and interpreting the holiness of the Sabbath, for holiness is defined by the character of God which is revealed to us in this law and was later amplified in the life of Jesus as he perfectly kept the law of God.

All that is enjoined in the covenant of God with his people in the Ten Commandments, as well as what is forbidden, applies to the Sabbath day’s holiness.

And this keeping is of a specific day, the Saturday, the seventh-day of the week, which was and remains the eternal memorial of God’s creation of our world. The Sabbath is a period of time, not the time of our choosing, but of God’s. It is a period of time when we have the special honour and blessing of reserving everything on that day for the worship of God and the service of suffering humanity.

We serve, not in secular work on the Sabbath, but to relieve suffering of body, mind, and spirit for the sake of Christ and his love for others. Jesus clearly taught this in his Sabbath “keeping”. He not only worshipped with the church (Israel) at church (the synagogue), but he spent the day in teaching, healing, and communion with his Father. Therefore, we see from his example that not only do we refrain from secular work that would normally support our needs, but we devote our Sabbath time to meeting the needs of others. This Sabbath “work” is our true rest.

The Sabbath rest is found in selflessness toward God and the rest of his creation. We put aside, thus resting, from the work of meeting our own needs, but like God does on the Sabbath, we continue the work of grace. The concept of the Sabbath rest being the “work” of God (he “made” the Sabbath on the seventh-day of creation) is difficult for the selfish heart to grasp. Yet it is clear that of all days, the Sabbath is for the service of love to God and to our neighbors as ourself. Sleeping away the Sabbath hours beyond our normal time is not “rest”, but a perversion of what God intended true rest to be. Rather, we rest the whole person when we abide in the serving grace of Christ, when the heart is at rest on this special day, a day like no other, when we lay aside for one whole day our secular work and take up God’s alone, a work that is our rest.

However, this is not to be twisted for a secular advantage, as if buying our neighbors goods on the Sabbath is a means of helping them, of “serving”, them, for Scripture forbids secular trade on the Sabbath. Meeting human need on the Sabbath is keeping it holy only when that service is defined by love, not as we see love, but as God defines it in his law. Self-sacrifice is the rest of God and it will define our love every day, but especially on the most holy of days given to man, for man.

A loving Sabbath service does not enable man in his rebellion against God by trading with him, but by freely offering him the love of God manifested in the forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal life. We give, by grace, these things to others as ambassadors of God on his holy day. The ministry of such a love is in harmony with the holiness of the Sabbath day.

Our principle occupation on the Sabbath is the spiritual rest Jesus enjoyed as he finished his work of atoning for man’s sin at Calvary. He rested from the work of redemption on the Sabbath, having made a way for man to be free from his sin. We rest in the freedom from sin he has provided through his blood. It is in this freedom that we can love others without the constraint of a sinful heart, without the galling yoke that pulls us into selfishness. Christ died to sin in preparing for his Sabbath rest and we share in this death which gives us rest by placing all of our faith in his work for us. Trusting him, abandoning our lives to his keeping, is the rest that enables us to keep the Sabbath holy.

Unlike the playday many so-called Sabbath keepers have created, the Sabbath is rooted in the joy of self-sacrifice instead of self-indulgance. The sports, the entertainments, the gluttony that many call rest is nothing be the deception of a self-centred heart that would turn his holy day into their holiday. But God is not to be mocked. Desecarting this holy law of life will end in death. All that the self-indulgent heart claims for it’s rest will end in it’s destruction. The only rest in will no is the rest we find in death, where the “dead know nothing” and are forever separated from the love of God and man. The Sabbath is not a leisure day of senseless “fun”, but a day filled with the joy of God’s presence and the freedom to love.

Remember that Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Remember his holiness, taking every thought captive for Christ, leaving our daily work behind, letting our whole being enjoy our devotion to God. Put away the cares of our week and concerns for the future. Make no plans for next weeks work. Remember it as it was created by God, a day, one day of the week, a specific space and time for indulging in the holiness of God that is given us in Jesus Christ. He has written the law on the heart of the believer, written it as he did the law on tablets of stone. This is his new covenant promise, to write on our hearts the very love of God. The Sabbath is a memorial of both his works, old and new, the work of God in creation and the work of God in redemption. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.