Remember the Sabbath

 

Growing up in an evangelical Protestant church and home, we didn't talk about the Sabbath very often. Of course I was taught about the Ten Commandments, and it is one of them: "Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy." But I mainly remember hearing about the Sabbath as a Jewish thing. It's what they did. But as Christians, we now celebrated the Lord's Day, which is Sunday. Because that's the day of the week when Jesus rose from the dead. That's what I remember being taught.

It wasn't until recent years that I started wondering about the Sabbath, I guess because I realized... it's one of the Ten Commandments! And we see the other nine commandments as God's instructions for holiness and righteousness for all people, not just the Jews. They are relevant to all people. It's His desire for all people. And though we know that we are not legalistically bound by those Laws - that our salvation does not depend on us obeying them - we also know that God's desire is for all people to obey those commands. That's how He wants us to live. That is what holiness and righteousness look like. So why do we Christians separate out the one commandment about the Sabbath? If it was one of God's top Ten Commandments, it must be important to Him. There must be a reason why it's in that list.

So I started studying what the Bible actually had to say about the Sabbath. Not what other Christians had to say about it, but what the Bible actually said. And much of what I found was a bit surprising to me. 

In the Bible, the Sabbath is actually first spoken about (though the word Sabbath was not used at the time) way back in Genesis, in the creation account. In the very first week of life on this planet! I've read this passage and been taught this passage many times over the years, but I never really grasped the importance of what was being said here. 

Genesis 2:2-3   "And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. 

From the very beginning, God set the seventh day apart from the other six days of the week. He blessed it and He sanctified it. It was to be a holy day, set apart from the others. The other six days were for work. The seventh day was for rest - for God and man to fellowship together. In a sense, the first six days of work happened so there could be a seventh day. Adam and Eve, and their kids, and their kids etc all knew this. Noah knew this. The seventh day was different than the first six days of the week. It was to be a day of rest. And this was all before there were any Chosen People or Jews or Jewish laws. There were just... people. All people that God wanted to have fellowship with.

The next mention of the seventh day being different (and this is also the first mention of the word Sabbath) is in Exodus 16. It's the account about God providing manna to the Children of Israel after they had left Egypt. And again, this is before the Ten Commandments were given by God to the Jews. Before they were a nation. It was just a really big family now turned ethnic group - all related, all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his twelve sons.

Exodus 16 tells us how God provided manna for them to eat while they were in the desert. It was there each morning for the first six days of the week. But there wasn't any on the seventh day. But God provided twice as much on the sixth day each week so they'd have enough to cover the seventh day. And why? Because...

On the sixth day He said:  "Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the Lord." 16:13 It was just a fact to them. They knew this. The seventh day was different than the other six days of the week.

Then on the seventh day He said:  "Eat it today for today is a sabbath to the Lord... Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none... See, the Lord has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day."  16:25-30

Then we come to Exodus 20. The passage we're all familiar with. The Ten Commandments. This is when God sets the rules for His Chosen people, the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, who would now  become a mighty nation set apart for Him. Through them He is going to show the world who He is, and what righteousness and holiness mean. And through them He will ultimately send the One who will fulfill all of these for us. But in the meantime, in His top ten list of rules - the most important things He wants them to know and remember - we find...

"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 of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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

And notice that it says "Remember..." They already knew the seventh day was different from the other six days of the week. That God had sanctified it and blessed it. Ever since the very beginning of life on this planet. This information had been passed down from Adam and Eve all the way to Noah and to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob...

I discovered that the Bible is very clear that the Sabbath is not just a Jewish thing. It's not just something that "they" do. It was a thing for 2,000 years before there even were any Jews.

Some interesting historical facts... 

To the Jews, and in the first two generations of Christian literature, the Sabbath meant Friday night to Saturday night (the seventh day). Sunday was most likely referred to as the Lord's Day. And for those two generations, early Christians celebrated the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. In fact, for several hundred years many Christians celebrated the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. They celebrated the Sabbath not because it was a Jewish thing, but because it was a God thing. 

It wasn't until the beginning of the second century that Ignatius of Antioch, one of the Church fathers at the time,  approved non-observance of the Sabbath. So for the first time, after about 100 years of Christianity, Christians were told they didn't need to "Remember the Sabbath" anymore, but they could just observe the Lord's Day instead. 

The current "Christian" position of only observing the Lord's Day, and not observing the Sabbath, didn't happen until after the New Testament was completed and all the apostles had died. In 321 AD, Constantine issued the first civil Sunday law, compelling all the people in the Roman Empire, except farmers, to rest on Sunday. This, with five other civil laws decreed by Constantine concerning Sunday, set the legal precedent for all civil Sunday legislation from that time to the present. Then around that same time, the Council of Laodicea urged Christians to honor Sunday by abstaining from work on that day if at all possible, and prohibited them from abstaining from work on the Sabbath. So for some reason, over 300 years after Christianity began, it was decided that Christians should worship on Sunday, and should not observe the Sabbath.

So after studying what the Bible had to say about the Sabbath, and spending a lot of time thinking about it and praying about it, and reading a few others' thoughts on it, God led me to some conclusions that I feel He wants me to apply to my life, in obedience to Him. And for my benefit too. As Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27 (And by the way, He went on in Mark 2:28 to say that "the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." He didn't abolish the Sabbath. He affirmed it.)

It's not meant to be a legalistic thing for us. But it is a God thing. It's something that was important enough to Him that He included it in the Ten Commandments. And it was never just meant for the Jews. It's something that He wants all of us to do. And it's simply a fact that whether we observe it or not, Saturday is the Sabbath. The day of the week that God blessed and sanctified.

So here's my list of reasons why I am now observing the Sabbath:

• To be obedient to God. It's one of the Ten Commandments! He wants me to do this. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day, and set it apart from the other six days of the week.
• To rest.
• To stop my normal routine. I need this, because it is so easy to live life on auto-pilot simply doing all the things that need to be done or that I want to do or that others want me to do.
• To remind me who God is and who I am. His plans and work are what's most important. I am not the center of the universe. He is.
• To relinquish dominion over my own life, and recognize God's dominion over it.
• To remind me that there is something bigger going on than "my stuff" and that in His time God will provide and work out His plan, and I want to adjust my life to Him.

Today as I'm writing this it's my 39th Sabbath Day. Well, it's the 39th time that I've actually intentionally observed the Sabbath. Every Saturday for my whole life has actually been the Sabbath. I just didn't pay attention to it. And how it plays out in each person's life will vary depending on how God leads each of us. But for me the seventh day of the week - the Sabbath - now looks something like this...

• No scheduled plans ahead of time, unless they are unavoidable.
• See interruptions as divine appointments.
• A technology fast - no TV, Facebook, Instagram, email, etc. Though I do allow Christian content - podcasts, worship music (I have a great Sabbath playlist!), etc.
• Extended time reading my Bible. Which often leads me to...
• Extended time studying my Bible.
• Journaling. I love to write, but I've never been a daily journaler. Except now on my Sabbath days.
• Read Christian books.
• Spend extended time listening to God.
• And spend extended time in prayer. I have a special Sabbath prayer list I use each week. And I also (weather permitting) take a walk to an awesome prayer garden at a Catholic church not too far from our house. There are six stations that relate to specific things for Catholics. I skip the Mary one, and use the other five to pray through the Lord's Prayer, spending some time on each of the five areas that Jesus told us to include in our prayers.
• Whatever God leads me to do! The Sabbath was His idea. It's His plan and schedule, not mine. I simply want to rest in Him, and with Him.

The Sabbath was never meant to be a legalistic set of rules (though the Jews added on a ton of those to what the Bible actually told them about the Sabbath!). So there are two questions I ask myself as I'm trying to decide what I will, or won't, do on the Sabbath:  Is it rest? Is it worship? If it's some kind of work or chore that's on my normal "to do" list, I don't do it on the Sabbath. But if it's something that will refresh my soul and be an act of fellowship and worship with God, then I do it. 

So for your take away from all this, it would be awesome if you actually started observing the Sabbath in whatever way God leads you. He gave it to us as a gift because He knows how much we need it! But at the very least, from now on you can be aware of the fact that Saturday is the Sabbath, whether you observe it or not. I actually keep a candle lit all day on the Sabbath simply to remind me that today is a day that is special to God. He blessed it. He sanctified it. And He gave it to us as a gift.

And if you're thinking "This sounds weird, Bernice. How could we have possibly missed this all these years?" My challenge to you is to do your own study of what the Bible actually has to say about the Sabbath. Starting with this passage...

"If because it is the Sabbath, you stop doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and you call the Sabbath a delight, and you say, 'The holy day of the Lord is worth honoring,' and you honor it; desisting from your own ways, and from seeking your own pleasure, and from speaking your own word; then you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth."   Isaiah 58:13-14