Blueprint for living #4: Right Rest or Sabbath Blessings. by Alan Golton Exodus 20:8-11 & Luke 6:1-11

Come with me in imagination to the wilderness of Sinai. It is six weeks after the Israelites have left Egypt – leaving behind their harsh slave-masters and endless toil. However, here in the desert they now have little food left. They recall the abundance of Egypt, There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted. But you – they said to Moses and Aaron – you have brought us out into this desert to starve us to death!

The LORD’s reply to Moses was, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days... (Exod 16:3-5)

Apart from what was gathered on the sixth day, in anticipation of the seventh, none was to be kept overnight – it would go bad. On the seventh day – the Sabbath – there would be no manna to gather. The LORD has given you the Sabbath, said Moses. So the people rested on the seventh day.(Ex 16:29,30)

However you may try to explain this provision in some natural way [and we probably know what manna was] – the provision remains miraculous. It reminds us that in the midst of troubles and trials, God is at work – and calls us to the obedience of faith, without grumbling. In fact God foresees our needs and plans ahead for our welfare. Trust him at all times – and see in what he ordains his loving concern for us, his people. (Ps 62:8)

When a little later, God spoke audibly to all his people at Sinai, they therefore already had practical experience of his loving care in this weekly rhythm of six days work and one day of rest. (Neh 9:13-15) Now with regard to this weekly rhythm, and to the fourth commandment, I want you to see – and receive – six blessings that God had, and has, for his people.

1. Remember [call to mind, take heed to] the Sabbath day, by keeping it holy.

The word sabbath means something which ceases or makes an end. Israel was given other occasions to cease an activity – such as leaving the fields to lie fallow every seventh year, so that the soil could recover, the poor could harvest freely what grew spontaneously – and even the wild animals could enjoy a break! (Exod 23:10-11; Lev 25:1-7)

But the weekly break in Israel’s routine was the most important Sabbath – a day to be made holy – that is, set apart from ordinary days, so that it might be a delight to observe, a day to find joy in the LORD. (Isa 58:13-14) To a people who had known only unbroken toil under the lash of taskmasters – this was the first blessing that God wanted to give them – the blessing of rest. I know that I never valued the rest-day more than when I was doing my military service!

At the end of our Exodus reading (Ex 20:11) a reason is given why we should observe this day – namely, that God himself rested the seventh day, after his work of creation. It ought to be a mark of his people that they do as he does! In fact keeping the Sabbath was a sign of their loyalty to God’s covenant, and distinguished them from other people, as it still does. (Exod 31:13,16-17)

By pointing to Creation, we understand that this weekly rhythm was God’s intention for all mankind. We ignore it with detriment to our physical and mental health – as people discovered in wartime – or do today when they are driven, or drive themselves, ‘to work every hour God sends’. Revolutionary France thought decimalisation in all things would characterise the ideal society – and legislated for a 10-day week, partly to spite the church. But the reduced rest angered workers, and it was not long before France returned to a 7-day week!

2. Six days you shall labour and do all your work.

The Sabbath has little meaning if we lack work to rest from. So the second blessing I associate with this weekly rhythm, is the blessing of work. We were not created to be idle – but to do worthwhile and fulfilling work, to bless ourselves and others by our labours, to be creative with the imagination and powers God has given us. (1 Thess 4:11-12; 2 Thess 3:6-13)

The subject of work demands, of course, more than this passing mention today. But the Biblical mandates to be good stewards of God’s creation – to love our fellows as we love ourselves – and its assertion we are made in God’s image – should make it clear that work is a God-given blessing, despite man’s fallen sinfulness making it so often drudgery and hard work, lacking all creativeness, and depriving others of work altogether. Pray therefore for those who seek work – and for those who are over-worked!

3. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.

Plainly this command is addressed to God’s own redeemed people – as the repeat version in Deuteronomy makes plain: 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. (Deut 5:15)

As his own people this is a day set apart to praise and express our love for our Redeemer. Of course, all our time, all our life, is God’s gift to us. “My heart is filled with thankfulness.. For every day I have on earth is given by the King. So I will give my life, my all, to love and follow him.”

God’s request, that his people devote one day in seven to be a day set apart for him, is not therefore unreasonable. The third blessing then, is the blessing of consecrating that day to the LORD who gave it, and I will say more of this later. For many Christians, down the years this has meant keeping the whole of Sunday as the Lord’s day. And God has blessed those that have done so. One 18th-century Englishman’s story was passed down appreciatively through four generations:

This man was in business in Kendal [in the north of England], when one Saturday morning he discovered his partner had absconded with papers and money. So he started in pursuit. He reached Lancaster that evening by coach and had to wait there, for he would not travel on Sunday. He used to say he never spent a happier Sunday. Next morning he went off to catch the coach to Liverpool, for he felt sure his partner would try to escape the country by the nearest port. He was running round a corner of the street, fearing to miss the coach, when he ran straight into a man and almost knocked him over. It was his absconding partner, with all the papers and money upon him.

4. On it you shall not do any work – neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor (any) of your animals, nor the alien within your gates (so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do). Those added words come from the version recorded in Deuteronomy – but we could have cited later words from Exodus, ...so (they) may be refreshed. (Exod 23:12)

This commandment looks both to God – as do the first 3 – and to our fellow men – as do all the rest. God, in his love for us, gives us blessings – so we love and honour him – and he asks of us that, you shall love your neighbour as yourself (Lev 19:18; Rom 13:9,10; .1 John 4:20). As we do so, we bind ourselves closer to one another. So the fourth blessing is sharing that day and doing good in it.

This was the very thing the Jewish teachers of Jesus’ day had lost sight of. They were so concerned to observe the Godward aspect of the day. They defined what they considered work very meticulously. They made it a day of scrupulous outward observance – and lost sight of its manward application. But Jesus taught that, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27)

And went on to say therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath – and, by his example, demonstrated how the day should be used. Yes, for worship of God and learning about him, but also for recreation, free from man-made rules, and above all for doing good, as he did by healing the sick. It is a day for exercising hospitality; a day perhaps when we may give priority to loving our family and sharing with them or others what God has done for us. (Deut 6:5-9;11:19)

Sadly the pharisaic-spirit of legalism has blighted for many the delight this day should be, and prevented some from doing good.

I had a delightful Christian friend who had been crippled by polio as a young man. But this did not stop him taking himself and his family on adventurous holidays, on one occasion to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. One Sunday he travelled by car to church – where, as it happened, the preacher expounded the healing of the paralysed man brought to Jesus by his friends, not omitting that Jesus first forgave the man his sins. After the service a man came up to my friend and, supposing it was my friend’s car that he’d seen with a flat tyre, said he would be glad to help – tomorrow!

5. This leads me to the fifth blessing we must as Christians associate with this day – the blessing of freedom from regulation on this day.

There is no doubt that the first believers in our Lord Jesus Christ – who were all Jews – continued to observe the seventh day largely as their fellow Jews did. But they were already set free in two ways with respect to Jewish Law and custom:

(1) As followers and imitators of Jesus, they no longer felt obliged to obey the man-made regulations that Pharisees had imposed. Thus in Acts 10 we read of Peter’s vision, in which he hears, Do not call anything impure that God has made clean – so he eats a meal with Gentiles, and stays at a Gentile home. When he does so, he finds that the Holy Spirit falls even on uncircumcised believers, and that before they are baptized.

(2) As those for whom Jesus had died, to set them free from the guilt and power of sin – they knew themselves free from the demands of the Law, as a way of earning their salvation. We are to enter a rest from all self-striving in this respect, because Jesus has done everything on our behalf. (Gal 2:16-21) Yet in Acts 15 we read men come from Judea to Antioch saying, Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.

Paul and others saw this as a vital issue: Are we saved by keeping all the Law – or are we saved through Christ’s sacrifice alone? To be circumcised was to become a Jew and so take on all the requirements of the Law – undermining the sufficiency of what Christ has done for us – and denying the freedom God has given us. (Gal 5:1-6,13-14)

In fact the Law – as Jesus had taught – is far more demanding spiritually than any outward observance can satisfy. Instead it reveals to us our failure and sin – and drives us to seek the forgiveness God offers us freely in Christ. (Rom 3:19-24) Thereafter his Spirit opens us up to a positive love of God and neighbour that no legislation can provide for. And we begin to observe the Law’s righteous, inward and spiritual demands. (Rom 7:6;8:1-4; Gal 5:18,22-23)

Because Peter and Paul saw that God accepted Gentile believers apart from the demands of his Law, it was clear to them that the letter of the Law often no longer applied. The circumstances of the earliest Gentile converts – many of whom were slaves, or at least employed by pagan employers – meant that they could not abstain from work on the seventh, or any other, day. So Christians would gather for worship and fellowship very early in the day and again at night.(Acts 20:7)

The New Testament itself shows that very early on Christians regarded the first day of the week as special – no doubt because on it the Lord had risen from the dead, twice meeting with the Twelve on that day. The Day of Pentecost that same year had also been a Sunday. And when the church consisted largely of Gentiles they began to meet exclusively on the first day of the week.

This transference of the church’s worship from Saturday to Sunday shows in itself how the Sabbath regulations were, and are, no longer binding on Christians. But Christians still need, and should want, to worship the Lord together, celebrate the Lord’s Supper and learn from God’s Word (as the disciples did with Jesus) – and to do so weekly, if at all possible. (Heb 10:25)

It may not be possible on a Sunday – in Muslim-majority lands, it’s likely only to be possible on a Friday. But this is still in keeping with the spirit and intention of the fourth commandment. But our day of worship is not to be turned into another Jewish Sabbath. And, although some Christians disagree with me, I say this on the strength of what the NT teaches about the OT food laws:

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters... One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God...(Rom 14:1,5,6)

Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival,.. or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col 2:16-17)

6. This brings me to the sixth blessing, and the heart of the matter. For if such things as the Sabbath day foreshadow a reality to be found in Christ, let us all discover that reality! When Jesus spoke about some of the later commandments, he urged his hearers to consider their inward implications, and not just to stop at satisfying the outward behaviour required by the Law.

With regard to the fourth commandment, we have already pointed out some of its manward implications – that Scripture itself makes explicit – like our care for the well-being of our employees – and that can be extended far beyond a weekly rest-day – and the reaching out to do good in whatever way we can, out of a real love and compassion, to those in need of our help.

But have we begun really to appreciate the Godward implications? The author of the letter to the Hebrews was deeply concerned about his readers, that their Christian belief and commitment should not just be outward, which might hide a rebellious heart and attitude towards God, like their forebears in the desert on their way to the Promised Land.

He quoted from Psalm 95:7-11 Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did that day in the desert when your fathers tested and tried me... so I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest”[i.e. the Promised Land]. The writer to the Hebrews deduced from this that there is still a rest of God, a Sabbath-rest, that can be entered ‘Today’ – a rest we enter when we rest from our own work, just as God did on the seventh day of Creation. Let’s make, he says, every effort to enter that rest. (Heb 3:7 – 4:11)

Let’s make sure our Christian devotion and trust in the Lord are real – not just going through the motions of church attendance, singing hymns, even reading the Bible and praying – but a true casting of ourselves on the mercy of the Lord, asking him to fill us with his Spirit, so we may have hearts filled with grateful love to him, and compassionate, self-sacrificing love to others.

What then, is my sixth blessing? It is the blessing of knowing the overflowing love of our Saviour-God in Christ, which will reach its final expression in his eternal Sabbath-rest [the final Promised Land] which we shall enjoy forever with God, for his seventh day (Gen 2:2-3) has no evening, no ending.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev 22:3-5)

The darkness, sorrow and wilderness of this world will have given way to the Day that has no end, God’s eternal Sabbath-rest. Hallelujah! May every one of us be there! Amen.

You may like to read what Michele Guinness, a Jewish believer, has written:

With my husband’s encouragement I began to reassess my childhood experience to try and discover which traditions would work for us. I rejected the complex Judaic system of laws, including the dietary laws. There were far too many and they were much too complicated to observe with any accuracy. And besides, I felt they were obsolete. Because of Christ’s death, God’s favour is a gift, not a reward. But I did realise how much I valued the Sabbath as a family night and what it had cost my parents to refuse many interesting invitations out. Relying on their time and presence for that one evening, a special meal, familiar rituals and candlelight were part of the security and rhythm of our existence. Despite our hilarity, the festivals, with all their richness and colour celebrated around the mealtable, filled me with a sense of awe and wonder. We never closed our eyes or folded our hands in the formal way the Church often teaches children to pray, but somehow I knew God was there, in the laughter, the singing, the familiar stories and symbols, the God I was determined to discover as I grew up...

At home we have started to celebrate Kiddush [the Sabbath prayers] on Friday evenings. It is our family night, sometimes on our own, sometimes with others joining us from the wider church family. I light the Sabbath candles as my mother did, and hers before her, and sometimes I catch that unmistakable glimpse of wonder in the children’s faces. We sing, eat chollah [the Sabbath loaf], drink from the Kiddush cup and read the familiar blessings, thanking God for weekends, but most of all that those simple symbols, bread for man’s labour and wine for his rest, now remind us of Jesus. Most Jewish blessings begin reverently, “Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe.” The disciples must have been devastated when Jesus taught them they should call God, “Abba: dear Daddy.”

Ideally I want my children to grow up with a Jewish sense of awe for God, and the Christian joy at his nearness. I hope they will be able to express what they feel for him freely and without inhibition, not restricted by rules and formalities, either Jewish or Christian, but praying as they breathe, instinctively, because the Almighty God who made heaven and earth is also their Father.

• From “Child of the Covenant: A Jew completed by Christ” by Michele Guinness, published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in 1985.