Stephen
Terry, Director
The Ultimate Rest
Commentary
for the September 25, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for
the people of God." Hebrews 4:9, NIV
In the New International
Version of the Bible, the word rest occurs 508 times. The word Sabbath, often
equated with rest, occurs 154 times. Despite this, rest all too often is not a
part of many Christians' experiences. Instead of finding peace in Christ, they
find never-ending warfare over jots and tittles that have little to do with salvation
through Christ. From experience, I know that some may
already be seething, ready to fight, because I did not quote from their
preferred version of the Bible. It reminds me of Mary and Martha when Jesus
came to visit. Martha wanted to make everything perfect for Jesus and immediately went to work. But Mary chose instead to sit at
Jesus' feet, hoping he would instead make everything perfect for her. Martha
grew more upset by the minute and finally requested Jesus to order Mary to help
her. Jesus did not respond as she expected. Instead, he replied, "You are
worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed--or indeed only
one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."[i]
While we are tempted to fill our lives with trivial matters, we often fail to
see what is profoundly important. We do not see the forest for all the trees.
When we visit the Creation narratives
in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, we find ourselves in another anxiety provoking
squabble. For some, whether the accounts, despite their differences, are
literal, is a proverbial hill to die on. They do not see how their faith in God
can survive without a literal Creation Story. Some even go as far as to claim
the Sabbath becomes meaningless without a literal understanding of Creation. However,
such shaky theology implies a house of cards that all support one another but
cannot survive the slightest breeze. That seems ironic when Jesus placed so
much emphasis on firm foundations of rock rather than sand.[ii]
We may like to think that dogma is that rock foundation that we all must be built
upon, but instead, Jesus is the rock, our sure foundation.[iii]
When we, like the Pharisees of old, go down the path of creating rules to force ourselves to obey, those rules continue
to multiply until they become a heavy burden, removing the peace and joy from our
religious experience. The Pharisees felt that since their rules were founded on
biblical principles, their obedience was drawing them closer to God. Many feel
the same today. But creating such rules to catch people out for violating them
does not glorify God. And it certainly does not bring rest.
When we focus on literal
understandings and draw from those understandings reason to exclude others from
a relationship with Christ, we miss the point, and we misrepresent the character
of God. Genesis, chapter one, is not about literal twenty-four-hour days. It is
a poetic narrative describing two ascending spirals, the first through the
third days, intertwined with the fourth through the sixth days. Like a strand
of DNA, the two sides are vitally connected. The first day provides what is
needed for the fourth day. The second day provides what is essential for the fifth
day. Then the third day provides what is necessary for the sixth. It is not coincidental
that this poetic model mimics the double-helix of DNA. That is the foundation
for all created life on our beautiful planet. But the story does not end there.
A capstone unites both strands with a common experience -- rest. Without rest, our
DNA degrades.[iv]
Some researchers have also claimed that a circaseptan
rhythm is hard-wired into our biology.[v] As
a result, we are not dependent upon a literal understanding of Genesis, chapter
one, as foundational for understanding the rest set up at the beginning of
chapter two. A biological necessity would indeed make a day of rest a blessing
and even sacred to our existence.
Established at the beginning
according to the Genesis account, rest is a major theme throughout the Bible
and receives particular emphasis three times. Each of those times are when the
concept of rest had been almost entirely lost or misunderstood. The first time
was when the Israelites toiled as slaves in Egypt. Slaves are unable to dictate
the terms of their enslavement and likely were pressed into service daily, with
any opportunity to rest entirely at the whim of their masters. As the generations
came and went, the memory of a weekly rest, the Sabbath, would have become very
dim. Hence the exhortation in Exodus, chapter 20, to "remember" the Sabbath rest.[vi]
The parallel passage in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, likely written
later after they had already begun resting each Sabbath in the Sinai
wilderness, does not call for remembrance, only observance. Unfortunately, humanity
being what it is, unhappy with the simple instructions in the Decalogue, people
began arguing about what "rest" meant, sometimes in great detail. Therefore,
the Pharisees confronted Christ about his disciples for picking heads of grain on
the Sabbath. The Commandment has no such proscription, but instead of enjoying
the liberating idea of a weekly rest and filling the day with joy. Men had
loaded it down with so many rules, it became a burden. One could see how instead
of a blessing, it could be a curse to the hungry who were prohibited from even
plucking a few heads of grain to ease their hunger pains.
What a welcome message it must have
been when Jesus announced that he came to lift those heavy burdens.[vii] However,
the religious institutions of the day did not take such an announcement
lightly. This was because all the rules they had crafted, though biblically
based, allowed the Pharisees to exercise control over the rest of the people
and secure their positions of authority. Arguing against dogma was blasphemy
and heresy, allowing them to take extreme measures against those challenging
their authority, as they did with Christ. We often think that because of the
message of righteousness by faith, we are free from the Pharisees, but among some
Adventist circles it is breaking the Sabbath if a child goes wading with rolled
up pant legs and makes the mistake of allowing the water to come up and wet the
edges of those pants. It is hard to not find this just as ridiculous as the
controversy over plucking a few heads of grain. As Moses
called the people to remember the liberating joy of the rest given at Creation,
so Jesus reminded the people that the rest, the Sabbath, was a gift, a
blessing, not a burden.[viii]
The Sabbath rest continues to shine
as a gift by God to humankind. But we often face a different kind of slavery
today that causes us to forget the blessing. Our debts keep us working whatever
days we can to service our desire to have things earlier generations did
without but have become necessities to us. We lament that both parents must
work an exhausting schedule to have what we need and wish we could have a
single income as in earlier generations and still buy a home. But we forget
that those homes were much smaller. Children usually shared bedrooms, while now
each child has their own room. Many of those homes had a single bathroom where
everyone waited in line for their turn. While some homes had single car
garages, many had none. Single car garages were the rule as most made do with
one car for commuting to work and running family errands. Instead of walking or
riding bicycles to school and after-school events, children now ride in motor
vehicles to everything. Sometimes that includes the three blocks between home
and the school bus stop. We have decided that all those things that made a
single-income household possible are no longer acceptable, but the costs keep
us from enjoying the rest we might otherwise have. Our lives have become more
frantic as a result, so we long for the idyllic image of a stress free past.
The rest offered has not gone away. It is still there. We have simply decided
we are better off without it. It is like a birthday gift, given with love, but
pushed to the back of the shelf in a little-used closet. We keep it in case God
ever visits to show we still have it, but the rest of the time we do not even
think about it.
We are not forced to enjoy the
gift. No one gets zapped by a thunderbolt for not resting on Sabbath. Some modern-day
Pharisees might want to see that, and their ancient ilk reflected that line of
thinking, especially in the Old Testament, but that is a misrepresentation of
the character of God. Jesus set that record straight with his disciples. They
wanted to bring down fire on a town that disrespected him. But Jesus rebuked
them for not understanding the character of God.[ix]
Those who think that God is guarding the edges of the Sabbath with a stopwatch,
so he can catch people and find a reason to exclude them from heaven are
representing their own characters, not God's. We read from the prophets that the
Sabbath blessing will be enjoyed in heaven.[x]
But that Sabbath will not be the Sabbath of oppression and heavy burdens that
men create. Instead, it will be a delight and a joy. As Isaiah wrote under inspiration,
"if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable...then you
will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the
heights of the land" (Isaiah 58:13-14) But we do not need to wait for heaven,
as our verse at the beginning of this commentary said, the rest remains even
today simply waiting for us to claim it. It can be life changing, bringing
blessings we never knew possible.