Sabbath

My Life Experiment of living out the 10 Commandments continues!  Up this week:

"Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  For 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 - you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it."

Last night, as I was packing up my desk to get ready for another week, I glanced at my commandment for this week.  I read the above and muttered aloud, "Uh Oh."  I have a feeling this will be a hard one for me.  When am I going to get to the simple ones like "Do not murder"?

But I have committed myself to this experiment and will see it through.  Failures and all.

So, to get my thoughts rolling on the subject of sabbath, I pulled out my Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church circa 1958.  This is a hand-me-down from a good friend and mentor and something I dug out of my storage unit last night (not practicing sabbath apparently) as I prepare for a summer of preaching once a month - unusual for me.  Anyway, here is what this tried and true resource has to say on sabbath:

"It was to be sanctified by the complete abstinence from work (Ex. 20:10) and marked by the doubling of the daily sacrifices (Num. 28:9ff)...The Sabbath served the twofold purpose of being a day set apart for the worship of God (Ex. 31:13-17) as well as for the rest and recreation of man [sic], esp. slaves, and cattle (Deut. 5:14)...One of the Pharisees' chief grievances against Christ was that he declared the Sabbath to have been made for man [sic] and not vice versa (Mk. 2:27), thus freeing men [sic] from an obligation which had become intolerable."

 The definition goes on, basically saying because the Resurrection and Pentecost both happened on a Sunday, early Christians chose that day to be the Sabbath.

What I think I want to reflect on this week is Christ's teaching that the sabbath was made for people and not people made for the sabbath.  I have never really understood what that means and I intend to give it some thought.

But, despite my trepidation of trying to find time and space for sabbath rest, something I have never been good at, what is important for me to remember is sabbath rest is not some new age spiritual discipline, coming in and out of fashion.  The ancients of my faith took it seriously and thus so should I.  I am curious to see where my week will lead me.