Recaptured by the Sabbath

 The Sabbath:  

24 Hours to Have Our Hearts Recaptured  

It’s More than a Mark on the Calendar 

 

Larry R Evans

May 29, 2029

 

Introduction

 

Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate self.” (The Sabbath, p.13). What is there about the Sabbath that teaches this?  Have we looked at it this way? It may be time to look at an old landmark through a polished lens–one that is continually being polished.

 

While in seminary, I took a class about the Sabbath. For twelve weeks we studied the prophetic and spiritual goldmine found in the Sabbath.  I do not remember even once when the class tried to prove which day is the Sabbath. That was assumed, but there was much more to be seen. Unfortunately, many only know the Sabbath as it is contrasted with its substitute.  There is so much more to know and experience.  I suspect we could spend a whole quarter reviewing why the Sabbath is so significant.  Maybe we should have a midweek small group doing just that – looking at the spiritual and prophetic meaning of the Sabbath.

 

Heschel also wrote, “The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.” (p.22).  When we look at the whole week, we see that the call of God is threefold:  (1) Called to belong to God; (2) Called to be a disciple – to be God’s people in life; and (3)Called to do God’s work –using the gifts, the occupations, the roles we have in such a way as to honor  Him in whose image we have been created. We are not only God’s mission but also His missionaries. I’m not sure we do justice to the depth of the Sabbath’s significance if it is compartmentalized and not seen in its relationship to the other six days. (See, R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days)

 

Many outside our Church are now speaking about the meaning of Sabbath-keeping. They may have the day wrong, but they have a good understanding of the true Sabbath.   Mark Buchanan, for example, wrote an excellent book entitled, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabbath.  He does a great job of exposing the significance of God’s holy day. Perhaps someday we could do a series of meetings on just the purpose and meaning of the Sabbath.  Today, we will touch on both–which day and why.

 

Question.  Was the world made for human beings or were human beings made for the world?

 

How we understand the relationship between work and the Sabbath is important. Work without rest and rest without work are two extremes that distort both.  We see this distortion in our world today.

Origins

The Bible opens with God working—speaking, fashioning, designing, crafting, sculpting. God makes light, matter, space, time, sea and land, and most beautiful of all­­ human beings.” –R. Paul Stevens in The Other Six Days, p. 113.

Notice how the Sabbath is introduced, although the word Sabbath isn’t used per se.

And on the seventh day, God ended 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. (Gen 2:2,3)

The Sabbath follows the Creation work God had completed. We sometimes think of the Sabbath only in terms of rest from our tiredness but doing short-changes the meaning of the Sabbath. We must not forget that it is not what was created that brings significance to the Sabbath. It is the moment itself that lends significance. It is not our work during the week that sanctifies the Sabbath. It is the moment in time with God.

 

The Bible is more interested in time than in things, in time more than creation, in time more than in the work that was done as important as that was. As one author said, “Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness.” 

 

Heschel says it well,

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of life. (p.14)

This becomes evident in Creation Week.  Adam and Eve had not worked but they shared the day with God. The “Sabbath rest,” then, means more than rest from physical work. 

God in His love called the man and the woman on the day after their creation to fellowship in rest, to establish intimate communion with Him in whose image they had been made. (SS Bible Study Guide, May 23)

Lessons Taught on the Way to Sinai: 

Preparing for the Encounter on Mt. Sinai

 

Food and mealtimes are the centerpieces for teaching many of the truths found in the Bible.  The exodus from Egypt is no exception. (Can you think of other examples?)

He told them, “This is what the LORD commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the LORD. So, bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow.” Ex. 16:23 

The full account of the preparation for the Sabbath is found in Exodus 16.  It included:

1.     Only a regular portion of manna could be used each day, but on the sixth day, a double portion was to be gathered.

2.    No manna was given on the Sabbath.

3.    The extra portion needed for the Sabbath was preserved from the sixth day unspoiled, while the manna would not keep on any other day.

 

·      Do you see any reason why it was important for the mana experience to precede the Mt. Sinai experience? 

·      How did that experience prepare the people, who had just left Egypt, to receive the Ten Commandments?  

·      What do you think God was trying to do?  

·      Are there applications for us today?

God commands that we imitate him in order to discover again that we’re not him, and that we need him.

Sabbath is a return to Eden.

That’s Exodus (Buchanan, p.88)

The theme of God as the Creator and Provider as shown in Eden was a needed reinforcement on the way to Sinai.   It would be at the heart of what He would give them in the Ten Commandments.

 

Sinai, the Covenant of Promise 

A New Way of Living

 

When God called Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the response of Moses was simple and straightforward, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11).  God’s response was “I will be with you.” (v.12). This turned out to be the theme throughout the entire exodus experience. God’s promise, “I will be with you” was the beacon of hope.  

 

By the time we get to Exodus 19 God tells Moses and the children of Israel three important purposes He had for delivering them from bondage:

 

1.     They were to become God’s own possession, a special treasure. (v.5)

2.    They were being set apart as a kingdom of priests. (v.6) This had universal implications.

3.    They were to become a holy nation (v.6)–separate from the value system of other nations while reaching out to them for their spiritual welfare.

 

Before God uses a person or a people to carry out His mission, He prepares them.  Often His people resist the necessary preparation.  A kingdom of priests suggests very clearly that Israel was not to serve only itself, but the nations around them.

 

10 Promises

(Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5)

 

The preamble to the Ten Commandments reveals not an abstract God but a God who acts in history! There was no question about the miraculous deliverance from Egypt. God was with them. He set them free.  The Hebrew negative term lo’   – “do not” –is to be understood not only as a prohibition but also as an enabling promise! They had been delivered or saved from the oppressive Egyptian slavery. It is from this perspective that the 10 Commandments were given – not in order to delivered or to be saved.  The negatives were given from a positive experience. To break the Commandments meant they were headed back to a bondage and God wanted to prevent that.

 

At the very center of the Commandments is the Sabbath Commandments. There are four structural points of the Commandments that we’d like to point out.

 

1.     In contrast to the way they lived in Egypt, God was inviting them to a new way of living.

2.    To “Remember” was an invitation to celebrate what God has done.  So, everyone within reach was to rejoice – your son or daughter, you male or female servant, your animals, etc. The Sabbath was not an isolated event. Share it with others! To do so they would have to stop working.

3.    The position of the Sabbath in the 10 Commandments teaches an important principle: As we relate to God so goes the way you will relate to others.

4.    The word count for the Sabbath commandment is about 1/3 the number of words for the entire Decalogue. It is obviously important to God and to us if we are to a “kingdom of priests for Him and serve His purpose of reaching other nations for Him

 

The 10 Commandments are filled with hope, with promises, and most of all with the assurance that “God desires to be with us.”

 

The teachers’ comments, summarizes the significance of the Sabbath well,

The Sabbath is a covenant sign ‘between me an d you throughout your generations’ (Ex. 31:13); compare Ezekiel 20:12 . . . The person who keeps the Sabbath in the right spirit thereby signifies that he or she stands in a saved relationship with God.”  (Gerhard F. Hasel and Michael G. Hasel)

 

The Lord of the Sabbath Is also Our Shepherd

 

As mentioned earlier, “God with us” is a theme that emerges throughout Scripture. Psalm 23.  It begins with these words, 

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures . . . 

The true story told Mark Buchanan about the funeral of very popular teacher.  She taught seven- and eight-year-olds at church. She worked really hard to help them learn Scripture and one of those Bible passages was Psalm 23.  At her funeral a boy was asked to recite Psalm 23.

 

He went to the front of the small but crowded church and turned about. He did not bring a printout of the Bible passage. He froze.  After some time, he said,

 

The Lord is my shepherd . . . 

Long pause

The Lord is my shepherd . . .

Another long pause

The Lord is my shepherd and that’s all you need to know.

 

The Sabbath is that reminder every week.  The Lord is our Shepherd. Every day we have the assurance that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is with us and is preparing us to be part of His kingdom of priests to reach out to the nations of the world.  The Sabbath is His promise that He will not forsake or abandon us.

 

Remember the Sabbath and the lessons of trust it teaches.