WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES!
(Exodus 20:8-11)
The newspaper editorialized:
The world is too big for us. Too much going on, too many crimes, too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race, in spite of yourself. It’s an incessant strain, to keep pace.…and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is news seen so rapidly you’re out of breath trying to keep pace with who’s in and who’s out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can’t endure much more.
That sounds like something from today’s Press Enterprise. It actually appeared in the Atlantic Journal on June 16, 1833. Life goes on at a breathless pace, constantly accelerating. I read about an elevator manufacturer attempting to reduce the seconds spent waiting. Lasers count the number of people waiting on any floor and a central computer determines how many elevators to send to that floor. Sensors near each door determine whether people are moving toward it as the elevator stops. If no one is approaching, the doors close quickly, saving several seconds.
One of my favorite Baptist preachers, Vance Havner, said, “We all need to come apart to rest before we come apart, period.” God established the Sabbath because He knows our need for rest and worship. He created it for our delight. It is His word of grace for those who are driven and harassed. It says to housewives and to account executives, to welders and to attorneys, “You may stop now—no you must stop now—at least for a day.”
God intended the Sabbath for blessing, we’ve turned into burden; meant for enjoyment, we’ve allowed it to enslave; created for our pleasure, we corrupt it into additional pressure. The fourth Commandment, like the others, is designed not to limit us, but to liberate us.
I. GOD’S PURPOSE IN THE SABBATH
The Sabbath had its beginning in the great creative week described in Genesis 1 and 2. God created for six days, and then sanctified the seventh day by resting from His productive work. Genesis 1:31-2:3 describes it:
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
The word “Sabbath” doesn’t occur in that account but it is clear that God established a weekly sacred day. Exodus 20:11 explains, “The LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The word “Sabbath” comes from a Hebrew root word meaning “to cease, desist or rest.” God was not exhausted or tired out from His creative activity. In love, He established a pattern for humanity because He knew we need a “stop-what-you-are-doing day,” a time set aside for rest and restoration.
Important as rest is, that is not the only reason for the Sabbath.
Another goal for the Sabbath is identified in Deuteronomy 5: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (v. 15). God knows our need for peace and withdrawal, but He also recognizes the necessity of praise and worship. We should remember our redemption and delight in our deliverance. A day for rest and worship will make a major difference in your life and productivity. “There is no day of rest for a driven person. Everyday can be a day of rest for the called person.”
II. HUMAN PERVERSION OF THE SABBATH
The Sabbath was perverted even before it is mentioned in the Ten Command-ments. Humanity needed times for relaxation and reverence to be set apart. From the creation people were to “Remember the Sabbath.” The word is first used in Exodus 16:23 where God instructs the people about manna. They could gather and prepare as much as they needed each day, but they were not to store it. Greedy by nature, some hoarded extra supplies, only to find it rotten and stinking. Yet, on the sixth day they were to gather double portions be-cause the seventh day was the Sabbath. Moses wrote:
“This is what the LORD commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’“ So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” (Exodus 16:23-26).
Some tried to get a head start on the new week. They wanted to get a jump on their neighbors and to build a stash. So they gathered manna on the Sabbath. God said, “How long will you refuse to keep my com-mands and my instructions? Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out” (vv. 28-29). Obviously the Sabbath was known prior to the Ten Commandments, and God’s people neglected what He commanded.
Later Israel kept the Sabbath but reduced it to a form with-out meaning. God said, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies…your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them” (Isaiah 1:13-14). God defined sincere Sabbath-keeping in Isaiah 58:13-14:
“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 or speaking idle words, 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.”
When God has first place in our hearts and our delight is found in Him, worship is genuine. When our own pleasure and comfort is preeminent we cannot experience the blessings He wants to pour out upon us. He urges, “Don’t do as you please on my holy day, but call the Sabbath a delight!” We so quickly pervert our worship, but there is great delight in God. David expressed this in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
The Sabbath was a day of delight to be observed with rest and worship. Work was forbidden and the special day was to be free from ordinary drudgery. The law did not forbid pleasure, so the day became one of feasting and delight.
By the time of Jesus the Pharisees had lost all sense of delight in God. They surrounded His law with over 1500 rules and regulations. The problem was not with what God said, but with what they said about what He said. Rabbis drew up lists of rules regulating everything. Some were ridiculous. If an ox fell in a ditch the owner could pull it out, but if he fell in the ditch he had to stay there until the end of Sabbath. Eggs laid on the Sabbath could not be eaten, because the hens had worked. If a fly bothered a man, he had to let it gnaw away, for any attempt to catch it would be hunting on the Sabbath.
Jesus argued with Jewish prejudices about the Sabbath. In His view the Sabbath was for human benefit, not rigid legal requirements. The rabbis taught that healing could take place on the Sabbath only to save a life. If death was not imminent the healing should be postponed. Jesus thought healing an act of mercy. In fact, He so often healed on the Sabbath that it seems that He deliberately chose provoked the Pharisees. In John 5 He healed a disabled man and then told him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (v. 8).
Paul Jewett writes:
One must be careful to avoid what has been called a moral misunderstanding of the Sabbath issue, as though Jesus and the Pharisees clashed simply over the question of doing good on the Sabbath Day. This issue was there, no doubt, but beneath the surface was a deeper question, the question of Jesus’ lordship over the Sabbath. He was acting in a way that implied more than a disregard for purist scruple. When He healed, He always acted as though it were a matter of life and death, the good in the most ultimate sense, which brooked no delay. When one who was ill appeared before Him, God’s moment had broken into that person’s life. Hence every healing was an “emergency” healing.
Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sab-bath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28). Steve Rexroat explains,
Declaring himself to be Lord of the Sabbath, he spoke against their ritual-centered understanding of the day and argued that the day was for man rather than man being made for service of the day. God’s instructions about observing the Sabbath were for our benefit, not just another burden to bear. Take hold of that truth and the observance of a day of rest will become more a delight than a matter of duty. The special day set aside for unhindered fellowship with God was intended as a gift. Those who try to turn it into a guilt trip simply don’t understand God’s positive purpose.
III. OUR PRACTICE OF THE SABBATH
A nomadic people recently escaped from Egypt received the commandment to keep the Sabbath. For them a good day was a day they survived. Life was a constant struggle to keep body and soul together. Few of us think in terms of mere survival today, and yet this commandment is relevant in a culture that coins new words like burnout and workaholic.
Though the Sabbath commandment is not to be enforced legalistically it involves principles applicable to us. We still have a basic need for a weekly day to restore and refresh physical and mental energy. We also need to worship the Creator and should set apart a day for spiritual devotion and instruction.
Many today are buried in their work. Loaded boxes and briefcases are carried home daily. Problems are seldom left at the office and the pressure is unrelenting. Our families and marriages bear the brunt of this stress and strain. 1967 testimony before a Senate subcommittee predicted that by 1985 people would work just twenty-two hours a week, or twenty-seven weeks a year, or that they could retire at thirty-eight. Time magazine said then that the great challenge would be how to enjoy all that leisure. In fact, the average American’s leisure time shrunk 37% since 1973. The average workweek, including commuting, has jumped from under 41 hours to nearly 47 hours. In some professions the demands often stretch to 80-plus hours a week.
Every pastor, no matter the size of his congregation, has a sense of the inconclusiveness of ministry. The job is never-ending. One pastor with twenty years of service left the ministry to become a funeral director. Asked why he changed, he said: “I spent three years trying to straighten out John and John’s still an alcoholic. I spent six months trying to straighten out Susan’s marriage and she filed for divorce. I spent two-and-a-half years trying to straighten out Bob’s drug problem and he’s still an addict. Now, when I straighten people out, they stay straight!”
Our pursuit of leisure is often frenetic. We seldom refer to leisure without add-ing the word, “activity.” Regular respites are needed from both work and play. We need seasons and places for private meditation. We need to renew our spirits through prayer and meditation.
Judith Viorst shows how we twist fun into work, and make federal cases out of simple plans. She calls this her “Self-Improvement Program”:
I’ve finished six pillows in Needlepoint,
And I’m reading Jane Austen and Kant,
And I’m up to the pork with black beans in Advanced Chinese Cooking.
I don’t have to struggle to find myself
For I already know what I want.
I want to be healthy and wise and extremely good-looking.
I’m learning new glazes in Pottery Class,
And I’m playing new chords in Guitar,
And in Yoga I’m starting to master the lotus position.
I don’t have to ponder priorities
For I already know what they are:
To be good-looking, healthy, and wise.
And adored in addition.
I’m improving my serve with a tennis pro,
And I’m practicing verb forms in Greek,
And in Primal Scream Therapy as my frustrations are vented.
I don’t have to ask what I’m searching for
Since I already know that I seek
To be good-looking, healthy, and wise.
And adored.
And contented.
I’ve bloomed in Organic Gardening,
And in Dance I have tightened my thighs,
And in Consciousness Raising there’s no one around who can top me.
And I’m working all day and I’m working all night
To be good-looking, healthy, and wise.
And adored.
And contented.
And brave.
And well-read.
And a marvelous hostess,
And bilingual,
Athletic,
Artistic.
Won’t someone please stop me?
Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests that burnout is not the result of hard work but of a sense of futility. He says, “People can work hard for long hours if they feel that they are making a difference. But if they feel that their efforts are being wasted, that no matter how hard they work it won’t make any difference, then any task becomes too hard.”
Something more than relaxation and respite from work is needed. There is a spiritual dimension to our lives and we neglect it to our peril. Worship is not a painful obligation imposed by an an-gry God. It is God’s design to recharge our spiritual batteries and give a sense of sacred meaning to our lives. So many Christians neglect their worship privilege. They try to rest and play and recharge themselves physically and mentally while going through the motions with dead spiritual batteries.
No specific day is magnified above another. The Seventh Day people insist that Saturday continues to be the day for rest and worship. Others argue that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, and that Jesus intended to perpetuate the Sabbath and extend its application to all nations. It is true that the early church gathered on Sunday because that was the day of Christ’s resurrection, but they never regarded that day as the Sabbath. In Colossians 2:16-17 Paul says, “do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sab-bath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath by giving His people rest, and Christians are no longer bound to keep the Sabbath Day. The Augsburg Confession taught that no day is observed by necessity, but that a certain day should be appointed that people might know when they should to come together.
A fixed time is set for public worship. It may be on Sunday morning because that is our tradition. It could be on Thursday night or Saturday afternoon. But we must choose a time to come together for worship, instruction and inspiration. Scripture says, “let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
A hundred years ago the great American preacher, T. DeWitt Talmage said:
The Sabbath comes, and it bathes the soreness from the limbs, quiets the agitated brain, and puts out the fires of anxiety that have been burning all the week. Our bodies are seven-day clocks, and unless on the seventh day they are wound up, they run down into the grave. The Sabbath was intended as a savings bank; into it we are to gather the resources upon which we are to draw all the week. That man who breaks the Sabbath robs his own nerves, his own muscle, his own brain, his own bones. He dips up the wine of his own life, and throws it away. He who breaks the Lord’s day gives a mortgage to disease and death upon his entire physical estate, and at the most unexpected moment that mortgage will be foreclosed, and the soul ejected from the premises. Every gland and pore and cell and fingernail demands the seventh day for repose. The respiration of the lungs, the throb of the pulse in the wrist, the motion of the bone in its socket declares: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
Do that not as a driven duty, but as a priority of privilege.
Fifth Message in a Series on the Ten Commandments
