The Sabbath
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the September 13, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping
it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is
a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you,
nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals,
nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the
heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the
seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Exodus 20:8-11, NIV
When my son
was little, I worked for a few years as an independent contractor for a major
financial planning firm. The days were very busy and could run late into the
evenings as I helped others develop financial security for themselves and their
families. In order to make sure that the needs of my family did not get lost in
all the hustle and bustle involved in making a living, I would sit down with my
wife and my son, and I would block out days in my daily planner that were just
for them and whatever they would like to do. For my son, this could mean a day
at the lake during the summer, or making a snow fort together in the winter.
For my wife, this often meant a day shopping at fabric stores. The point was
not about what I liked doing most. It was about being there for them while they
did what they liked most. In the process, I got something I liked as well. I
got to spend time with them.
This is
something God likes, also. When we read in Genesis, chapter three, we discover
God liked to take walks in the “cool of the day” with Adam and Eve.[i]
It may be hard to picture how God, who exists at every point in space and time,
could make Himself specially present to walk in the garden like this. However,
when we consider the special presence of Jesus beginning in Bethlehem and
ending on the cross outside Jerusalem, perhaps we can understand the extent of
God’s desire to be present with us. Maybe it is that desire that caused Him to
sit down with us with His planner and set aside a day each week where that
could happen.
We are told
that God did this at the end of His work week when He rested for a bit and “blessed”
a day and made it holy with His presence. That day was known as the “seventh day.”[ii]
Since then, those who were willing would meet Him for that weekly appointment,
often making preparation as they would for a special visitor. Just as they
might if the President of the United States or the Queen of England were coming
for dinner, they do a more thorough house cleaning, put on special clothes, and
make sure all the preparations for the meal are complete. Why? Because they
want to make sure that nothing distracts from the time they spend with their
visitor. They also want to show respect so that such an important guest might
feel comfortably at ease in their home.
In homes
that seek this special time with God, we find such preparations taking place
the day before. That day is even often referred to as “Preparation Day.” In our
modern world where people seem to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week, this might seem strange. It might even seem impossible to accomplish.
After all, what employer will let his employees have the same day off each
week? And how can one prepare for that day if they are working? But hundreds of
thousands around the world have found that it can indeed work. They have found
that when they commit to this weekly appointment, God also works from His end
to make it happen.
Some might
ask “How can we know when the appointment is since the events of the Creation Story
are so remote from today?” Perhaps Jesus can give us that answer. That seventh
day is also known as the Sabbath. The Bible tells us that Jesus kept that
weekly Sabbath appointment,[iii]
so He must have known when it was. Apparently it was the same day that Jews
normally come to the synagogue for worship. Today, we call that day Saturday,
and the Jews still worship on that day. But we might wonder if the day has
changed or been lost track of since then. This is not likely as the Jews
reverence the day as much as Christians reverence Easter, maybe more, and we
have certainly not lost track of Easter. In the account of the crucifixion, we
are told Jesus was buried on the Preparation Day, which we call Good Friday,
today. He rested in the tomb over the Sabbath. Then He rose on Easter Sunday,[iv]
an event many Christians celebrate annually with special sunrise services. If
we know what day of the week Easter is, we must also know which day Sabbath is.
When we keep
this appointment, when we make time in our busy lives for God, we are
recognizing that He sat down with mankind at the very beginning to make this
possible. It is a response of love from us toward a God who would make such a
special effort to be with us. It is also recognition, as the commandment cited
at the top of this commentary reminds us, that God is the Creator of our world
and everything in and above it. It may be significant that the commandment
urges us to “remember.”
Today we
live in a world where science and technology have enabled us to learn a great
deal about biological and geological processes. These processes point to vast
eons of time in pre-history. We have also unearthed the remains of
civilizations that appear to be much older than the Bible account might
indicate.[v]
There are those who feel threatened by such knowledge as though their whole
edifice of faith would crumble. However, it may be as Bob Dylan sang in “Positively
4th Street,” “You say you lost your faith, but that’s not where it’s
at. You had no faith to lose, and you know it.”
Faith in God
is not shaken by science. If anything it should become stronger as we draw
closer to understanding this marvelous universe. Faith continues today, even
though we abandoned the idea of the Earth being the center of the solar system
for a heliocentric understanding. We at some point understood that Psalm 19 was
poetic metaphor and that the Sun was not really a “champion” running across the
sky, but remained in place in the center of our planetary system. The planets
instead circled Sol. However, this did not decrease one iota the magnificence
of Creation or destroy the joy of our relationship to Him.
Should we be
able to understand the Genesis creation account as Hebrew poetry of ascents and
see it as metaphor for the miracle of life contained in strands of DNA, paired
and ascending together, we may develop a deeper and more profound understanding
of our universe and the marvelous power behind its creation. Perhaps many of
these things have been shrouded from our understanding due to our fall from
grace. If so the Bible may not only be about our return to grace through the
special intercession at Calvary. It may be also about a restoration of
knowledge long lost but returning over time, with a more complete restoration
of that understanding to come at the Parousia.
Maybe in
those long walks in the “cool of the day” in Eden, God shared knowledge with
our forebears too profound for us to grasp today. If so, perhaps our keeping
that weekly appointment with Him now will introduce us to vistas currently
beyond our comprehension. It may awaken a hunger to not only know more about this
enigmatic God, but also about the marvelous universe he has surrounded us with.
Perhaps God
is like a father who buys his child a bicycle that the child is not old enough
to ride yet. Every day the child will think about that bicycle and wonder when
Father will let him ride it. Eventually the child will grow as all children do,
and the day will come when the invitation to ride is given. There may be
training wheels and Father will certainly run alongside until the little one
has the hang of things, but finally the child will launch out and discover the
thrill of exploring the neighborhood by bicycle.
Similarly,
when we look into the night sky, we see a small portion of the billions of
galaxies spread across our universe. From our vantage point, we may even see
the Milky Way, the thick band of stars from our own galaxy. Perhaps they, too,
are waiting for the day that our understanding is mature enough to launch out
into our stellar neighborhood and discover the gifts God has waiting for us. We
are making the first baby steps in that direction now. Will we remember to take
the appointment book with us?
