1. The Weariness We Carry
A group of pastors once met in small circles to share their lives. One question asked, “What do you enjoy doing in your spare time—how do you relax?” Again and again the answer came back: “Spare time? I don’t have any.”
We fool ourselves if we think this nonstop pace makes us more effective. The average office worker receives over 220 messages a day—emails, calls, texts, ads, interruptions. A global survey of 1,300 managers found that one-third suffer ill health from stress and information overload; for senior managers it rises to 43 percent.
Sometimes exhaustion becomes dangerous. The Exxon Valdez spill, Three Mile Island nuclear mishap, and Chernobyl all happened in the middle of the night. Before the Challenger shuttle launch, NASA decision makers had worked twenty hours straight and slept only two or three. Fatigue distorted judgment and cost seven astronauts their lives.
And the greatest danger may be what overwork does to our souls. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Some of us have made an idol of exhaustion. The only time we know we have done enough is when we’re running on empty and when the ones we love most are the ones we see the least. We offer our calendars to God in lieu of prayer, believing that God—who is as busy as we are—will understand.”
What’s the answer? How do we find rest and renewal, not only for bodies but for our souls?
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2. Time or Space?
Technical civilization is about conquering space—building, acquiring, producing. Yet, as the Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heschel observed, “It is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.”
To gain space we spend time, forgetting that time is the heart of existence.
From the beginning God sanctified time before space. At Sinai He called His people holy, and only after they made the golden calf did He command a sanctuary in space. Most holy places—mountains, temples, forests—are spatial. But the Sabbath is a cathedral in time, a weekly foretaste of eternity. Six days we wrestle with profit and production; on the seventh we care for the seed of eternity in our souls. The world may claim our hands, but our hours and hearts belong to God.
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3. House of Mercy Without Mercy
Open with me to John 5:1-3.
It is Passover, year 31 A.D. Pilgrims flood Jerusalem and its great Temple. Near the Sheep Gate lie two pools called Bethesda—“house of mercy.” In 1935 archaeologists uncovered these pools. Legend said that when an angel stirred the waters, the first to enter would be healed. So the sick gathered—waiting, competing, even wishing others might die so they could be first.
It was Sabbath. And through the Sheep Gate—where sacrificial lambs entered—the Lamb of God walked in. Few noticed.
Among the afflicted lay a man paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
The man replied, “I have no one to help me. Someone always steps down before me.”
Then Jesus said, “Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.”
Immediately he was healed. Strength surged into his legs; joy leapt in his heart.
The religious authorities met him not with celebration but with cold accusation: “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat!”
They never asked, “How were you healed?” Their focus was on rules, not redemption.
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4. The Signature of Seven
Why such outrage?
To our modern ears it seems strange. But at stake was the seventh day itself.
The number seven is woven into creation.
Seven colors form white light.
There are seven basic musical notes, seven crystal forms, seven groups of elements in Mendeleev’s table.
Yet the seventh day is unique: it is not marked by a natural phenomenon like moon or tide. It exists only because God declared it holy (Genesis 2:2-3).
Leviticus 25 describes sabbatical years and the Jubilee—seven times seven years followed by freedom and restoration. From creation onward, seven signals completion and relationship.
The Sabbath was given before sin, before sacrifices or ceremonial law.
Ceremonies deal with sin and sacrifice; the Sabbath celebrates creation and love.
Jesus summed the law in two commands: love God and love neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).
Love requires time together. Sabbath is the weekly appointment where love is nurtured.
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5. Sabbath Lost and Found
Over centuries, Sabbath joy was buried beneath thousands of human rules. By Jesus’ day, over 2,000 Sabbath restrictions existed. Two famous examples:
• Spitting on the ground was forbidden—someone might inadvertently water the soil.
• An egg laid on Sabbath could not be eaten, though it might be sold to a Gentile.
Into this legalism Jesus declared, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). He healed on Sabbath to restore its true meaning—a day of mercy, not merit.
In an 18th-century German town, a young man begged to play the great church organ but was refused. Finally admitted, he transformed the music until it sounded like angels singing. Asked his name, he replied, “Mendelssohn.”
When the Master touches the instrument, everything changes.
When the Master touches our lives, the Sabbath is no burden but music of freedom.
Jesus still calls: “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
In Greek, the word “rest” shares the sense of Sabbath—ceasing, delighting.
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6. Sabbath Through the Centuries
History shows the rhythm of seven is built into creation. During the French Revolution, leaders tried a ten-day week to erase biblical roots. Animals collapsed; humans broke down. After only 13 years Napoleon abandoned the experiment and restored the seven-day cycle.
Why? Because Sabbath is more than biological. God didn’t need rest (Isaiah 40:28), nor did sinless Adam and Eve. Sabbath was given not for weariness but for communion. Humanity is wired for relationship—two eyes, two ears, two hands. From the start God blessed marriage and the Sabbath as gifts of fellowship.
The first Sabbath-keepers were not Jews or any nation. In Eden there were only people and God. Thus Jesus could say, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
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7. A Personal Window: Romania
Friday evenings of my childhood in Communist Romania remain luminous in memory. Electricity often failed, but as my mother lit Sabbath candles, peace filled the room. The hectic preparation—shopping, cooking, cleaning—ceased at sunset. Whatever remained unfinished simply waited.
Winter Sabbaths were long nights of tea and reading; summer Sabbaths stretched into quiet afternoons of walks and conversation. We built holiness in time, not space. While the Orthodox Church raised cathedrals of stone, we learned—again with Heschel—that “God is not in things of space but in moments of time.”
Sabbath is a rehearsal for eternity. “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath,” Heschel wrote, “one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.” Each Sabbath plants eternity in the soul.
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8. Call to Delight
At Bethesda, Jesus restored a man’s health and the Sabbath’s joy. The Pharisees saw only a mat carried on the wrong day.
Today many see only rules or loss of productivity, missing the gift of God’s presence.
Sabbath is God’s weekly invitation to freedom:
• Freedom from frantic schedules and endless acquisition.
• Freedom to worship, to love, to be whole.
• Freedom to taste eternity now.
The question Jesus asked that man echoes still: “Do you want to get well?”
Will you step into this sanctuary of time and meet the Master who still heals?
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Six days we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth.
On the seventh day we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul.
The world may have our hands, but our hearts and hours belong to Someone Else.
Come to Jesus. Receive His Sabbath rest.
Taste eternity—today.
