Sabbath
Even a cursory reading of the Bible will tell you that keeping the Sabbath is kind of a big deal. Now, we tend to hear that as, “Go to church on Sunday.” But for the people of Israel, it was much more.
In the Bible Saturday is the Sabbath. Actually, the word Saturday comes from Shabbat-day. But it is not, first and foremost, about getting to corporate worship.
On Sunday we’ll read about some drama between Jesus and the leaders of the day regarding the proper observation of the Sabbath. (You can read it here.) Each of the four Gospels tell us of conflicts with Jesus regarding the Sabbath, so it was a contentious issue that obviously came up repeatedly.
The central command about the Sabbath is actually part of the Ten Commandments: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work…” The original commandment doesn’t even mention going to synagogue or temple or church. You could actually say that the Sabbath was the first labor law!
These commandments come as the people are in the desert, on their way out of Egypt where they were slaves. As slaves, you don’t get a day off — no Sabbath. Now that they are out of bondage, they are to honor one another by making sure that everyone takes a day of rest and that resting is holy – set apart for the Lord, just as the Lord rested on the seventh day following the work of creation.
By Jesus’ time, Sabbath-keeping had become more of an exercise in rule-keeping than an act of devotion. Jesus wanted to recapture the Sabbath as a day dedicated to the Lord and doing the Lord’s work (separate from our human, temporal labors). But people had a hard time accepting this shift.
So what is the Sabbath for us today? How do you keep a Sabbath? What might make it more Holy?
The column appeared in the June 2, 2024 issue of St. John’s eNews. Click here for the complete issue.
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