By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all 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.
The Sabbath
God is God, He obviously didn't need to take a day off to rest. And with Genesis being pretty short on details - the creation of the entire world in two chapters! - it can be reasoned that anything that is in there is probably pretty important. With those two things considered it would make sense to consider what the significance of this seventh day of rest is.
Seven Day Week: First, in researching this issue I came across a more fundamental issue that was quite interesting. The significance of the seven day week adopted around the world. You would think there would be a simple secular explanation, but in fact there isn't: "Society's seven day calendar week is the only major rhythm of human activity that is totally oblivious to external nature." And then consider that "in all the ancient world, so far as is known, there was no seven-day calendar cycle except for the Jewish week" (God's Mysterious 7-Day Cycle). Put em together and it seems to me that you get a decent boost for the validity of the creation story put forth in Genesis.
Ten commandments: The sabbath is one of them! Exodus 20:8-10: 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. Well, this is definitely #1 on the list of commandments that I'm most likely to forget. It doesn't seem to be as important as all the other ones, true, but on the flip side, it is a commandment all the same, and it does say in James 2:10: "...whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." Pretty strong.
In his sermon on work & rest I thought it was really cool how Pastor Dan had mentioned that if you look at the ten commandments, the first three are more focused towards God (love God, no idols etc.) and the last six towards other people (don't kill, don't steal etc.). And then there's the Sabbath which has its hand in both.
Physical: Yes, it provides those of us looking for a break a regularly scheduled chance to do so, but more interesting I think is the flip-side: it acts as a command to those who are not looking to take a break to do so; and in this age of the Blackberry, divorcing couples and alienated children, it makes the idea of a forced Sabbath look all the more logical.
Spiritual: It forces us to rely on God. As Pastor Dan pointed out, observing the Sabbath put the Israelites at a severe disadvantage as an agricultural society when you can't work 1 out of 7 days. And yet, when they relied upon God they still managed to prosper. Likewise, the irony of me saying I'm too busy to observe a sabbath or help out the church is precisely the reason why I need to. I'm placing too much emphasis on my own strength, my own ability to get things done, and taking my own direction in life when I should be handing all that over to God.
Observing the Sabbath is not only our way of honouring God but His way of helping us grow closer to Him in forcing us to rely upon Him. That's pretty awesome to see how it all comes together.
Is the day important? In his sermon Pastor Dan cited Romans 14:5-6: "One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God." This seems to be in support of the idea that we can observe different personal Sabbath days, which seems to make sense to me in that the most important thing is the regularity and what's going on between you and God which has nothing to do with the day itself. That said, in researching this topic there seemed to be a ton of sites dedicated towards rigidly keeping the date of the Sabbath without compromise, and I can also see where they're coming from. Comments?
(return to Genesis 2)
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2 comments:
well to whether the sabbath can be changed or not, i would wonder about how it has already been changed for most Christians. As now it is on Sunday instead of Saturday, though i guess it could be argued that since that is the major day of worship it should be on that day.
Although I'm not sure if this is a helpful comment, I'm struck by the practice of orthodox Jews who consider even flipping a light switch on the sabbath day to be "work" and therefore sinful. Of course, I know many of the "extreme" practices are no longer valid following the New Testament, and I'm also thinking of the times when Jesus healed on the Sabbath despite heavy criticism from the Pharisees.
Also, I was thinking, with the whole agricultural society thing, yeah, it was difficult to take a day off, but as long as you're your own boss, isn't that still easier than if you're working for pay? Not sure how you'd be honouring your boss if he told you you needed to work and you told him "screw it, I have to go to church and observe the Sabbath."
That said, I always FELT really crappy when I missed church to work at my retail job, although oddly enough I don't feel as crappy about, say, working on an article or homework on Sunday if I have to.
A fine balance. Argh, sorry for rambling, hehe.
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