In our family growing up, I remember what we used to do every weekend. First, Saturday night was prep time. Get your bath -- relax -- have a chocolate milk shake -- watch a little wholesome TV with the fam -- get to bed early. Then came Sunday. Go to church -- worship God -- come home -- eat lunch -- take a long nap -- get up and go to church again.
In the early years of my own family, we employed a similar model, more or less. Go to church -- eat lunch -- come home -- take a long nap -- get up and go to church again, if there was p.m. church.
Today -- it seems very different. Go to church -- have meetings -- get lunch on your own -- get home -- go to another meeting -- errands or yard work -- no nap -- do a little work till the evening -- finally key down around 8 or 9 p.m. Now I would say not every Sabbath is such a poor example as this, but you could pick any one of a hundred and it would be a moon-cast shadow of what the Sabbath is supposed to be. It is God AND ourselves we are shorting.
And maybe that's not the way the Sabbath is for you at all. If it isn't, I bless and encourage you to keep it up. But I fear the death of the Sabbath is here.
"Blessed is the man who ... keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil." (Isaiah 56:2) The Sabbath is a blessing. Crafted especially for us. For six days a week, we have the opportunity to walk and talk and work with Jesus, but on the Sabbath, the day He set apart, He meets with us just to be with us, to refresh us, to celebrate with us. The thousands of things that haunt us, the multiple forms of media that clamor for our attention, the need to do, to find, and to see is stilled for twenty-four hours as the God of the universe stoops low to meet with us.
Inherent in the Sabbath is happiness, well-being, and prosperity. "'If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please ... then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.’ The mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 58:13, 14). So the Sabbath is a blessing.
So tonight - Saturday night - pre-Sabbath - I am going to spend in relative quiet -- alone (my family is out of town) -- reading my Bible -- thinking -- in a semi-dark and cool house -- maybe play a little piano -- and physically, emotionally and spiritually prep for tomorrow's day of worship and the Sabbath.
And my question to us ALL is: Since the Sabbath is the JEWEL OF THE WEEK, why aren't we regularly celebrating it?
I trust you have a peaceful Sabbath tomorrow.
And be blessed.
9 comments:
I am woefully disobedient in observing the Sabbath. To be honestm as a new Christian, I rarely have thought about it. I need to figure out how to make this happen. I like the idea of making it a blessing and a Jewel of the Week. I love days devoted to God, but I don't observe regularly. I don't want to do it in a legalistic way, but as a joy...to spend with my Lord.
Great blog and thoughts! My only comment is why are you keeping Sunday as the Sabbath instead of the Biblical Saturday, seventh day of the week? Check out www.sabbathtruth.com
Remembering the teachings of my precious, God-fearing grandmother: resting on the seventh day means, on our calendar, resting on Saturday. Sunday is really NOT the Sabbath, as it is not the seventh day; it is the first day.
As a couple, we DO tend to TRY to rest on the Sabbath, although it doesn't always work out that way; and you are so right when you say we are shorting God AND ourselves when we do not observe this day HE set aside for us to keep Holy.
And going to church doesn't necessarily mean we are "keeping it Holy". Honoring HIS request to rest after six days of work is how we keep this day Holy and consecrated unto Him.
And I REALLY like the term "Jewel of the week"!!! That will be what I call my seventh day from now on!
See you on Friday!
Because, my friend. My schedule does not practically allow for a Saturday SABBATH with any consistency. It is a personal prescription for failure, quite frankly. The SABBATH in the Age of Grace is about setting a day's space more than about a particular 24-hour period. Good website though. Thanks.
Does it actually HAVE to be SATURDAY? Can our "sabbath" be any day we choose to take rest from "working"? I have always wondered about that. What if you work Thursday through Tuesday...can Wednesday be your Sabbath day? I just wonder if the NAME of the day really matters?
And it seems that Pastors never really get a sabbath...they are "on-call" every day...what's the saying? No rest for the weary?
AAAHHHH....resting in Him today...
SABBATH is about honoring God with our time and attention - and resting from the things we do to make life happen. One of my earlier comments on this page addresses this. Check that out.
Focus on GOD time - not on the DAY.
I am struck by what an immense privilege and honor it is to be able to spend time with God. I am not a pastor and I don't have all of the answers, but I know that I went through 46 years without Jesus in my life. Most of that was due to ignorance of WHO He really is. It's just that being on the other side of that now, I have such a deep appreciation of this gift He has given me. I am in awe of how He has changed my life and continues to do so every day. I know for myself, I want to give Him all of me and devote my life to Him. It is the greatest satisfaction I have ever known in my life.
I love this post! I am a huge fan of resting and reflecting on the Sabbath, whichever day one chooses. Possibly because it caters to my 'lazy' nature. In fact we don't even do our chores on Sunday - the kids love it! Beds go unmade, dishes pile up, but Monday always comes soon enough. Teenagers, Graduations, weddings, all come soon enough. Thank the Lord for slowing us down on the Sabbath!
I work at a company where I am the only non-Orthodox Jew. On Fridays, especially in winter, they break out early to start their Sabbath at sundown, and they are absolutely faithful to the Sabbath. It's amazing because sometimes the Sabbath bumps into a holiday that also requires them to observe Sabbath-like conditions. So they can go 2 or 3 day stretches of reserving their time for God. And they really observe - no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no gizmos, not even riding in a car - just them and family and God. I know they can be very leagalistic at times (I can't believe some of their rules!), but they do remind me that maybe I take too many shortcuts with my faith.
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