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THE FIRST SABBATH
First Things, Part 4
September 30, 2007
Pastor Graig Flach
Today we are talking about Sabbath rest. Let me reduce the message to its simplest form to help you navigate the next twenty minutes or so: Sabbath is about renewal and rest. It’s about plugging into our Source for recharging from the inside out, and it is also about resting, taking some down time for our body to rest, too, sort of an outside-in recharging. Here at the outset I’d like to ask you, just for today, to forget about the Ten Commandments. Well… maybe not all of them, but for the next few minutes anyway, forget about the Fourth Commandment, the one about remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.
The reason for ignoring the Commandment is that we are in Genesis, not Exodus, long before the Chosen People and their leader Moses get the Ten Commandments. So I want you to free yourself of the residual commandment-power that has persisted these thirty-five-hundred years since the Mosaic Law was given. Free yourself from the guilt you occasionally feel because you don’t “remember the Sabbath,” let alone “keep it holy” very well. And try to consider this idea of Sabbath afresh. We’ll do that by looking at the first Sabbath, as well as by thinking about the final Sabbath.
So let’s look together at the very end of chapter 1 and just the first 3 verses of chapter 2, free of “thou shalt” pressure, just looking to the Scripture for healthy input. Remember where we are in Genesis: God has just completed 6 stages of creating the universe from scratch, with the final stage being the creation of human beings.
Genesis 1:31 - 2:3
1:31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
This is the fourth in our series called “First Things,” messages on the book of Genesis. I am loving it! There are such foundational things here. (I hope I’ll be able to continue loving this series today… and I have the same hope for you.) We started with the poetry of Genesis 1, a song of creation magnificent in its simplicity and profundity, a song that points to a loving, purposeful Creator. Two weeks ago Bob taught about the image of God and showed us clues to our human identity in that image, as workers and thinkers, creators and lovers, care takers and respecters. Then last week we learned that being stewards and care takers of the planet home God has given us is more than an option for followers of Christ: all God’s people ought to be “greenies” to some extent. So: after all the creating, working and thinking, loving and taking care, what comes next? REST! – God’s rest and ours.
This concept of Sabbath-taking is not complicated. There are only two main purposes for it: rest and renewal, and although we sometimes use these words interchangeably, they are not the same thing.
Rest
We do need rest. We need it for our bodies, minds, emotions, spirits. God knows this, and this is one important reason the Genesis account has God modeling rest for us. God probably doesn’t need rest the same way we do. The text does not say, “and on the seventh day God finished His work and was really tired, so He rested,” does it? We bring fatigue into the text because of our own 5 or 6 day work week during which we get tired and we want to relax. And we figure, God made the heavens and the earth, all the planets, the roaring seas, the jagged mountains – that’s a lot more work than writing a sermon or meeting with people all week, or managing financial accounts or even taking care of kids all week. Whew, God must have been tired! And we insert tiredness into the text. But God’s rest is different. After all, aren’t we told that God is all-powerful? Why would He be tired? This is has always been a niggling question for me when I read this passage. How about you? Why would a few waves of the divine hand be tiring? (motioning) “Let there be light… gather the waters together.” Scripture doesn’t even show THAT level of exertion. God just SAYS it, THINKS it, and things come into being. What’s so tiring about that, if you’re omnipotent? Even if it were somehow draining for God, it would probably be offset somewhat by the energy-giving joy and the satisfaction of seeing the good and beautiful creation come into being.
But here’s the clue that really persuades me. The Hebrew word translated “rested” here really means “stopped, ceased.” Look at verse 2 again: “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he stopped from all the work that he had done.” This is not resting in the sense of “taking a nap.” It’s more like a musical rest, a pause. For those of you who read music, you know that a rest does not mean, “Take a break and relax.” It means stop singing or playing your instrument and wait for the next note. One of you sent Bob a Max Lucado devotional recently, which Bob shared with me. In it Max recalls how he struggled with piano lessons as a child. “I hammered the staccatos – belabored the crescendos… but there was one instrumentation I could never learn to obey properly, the ‘REST’. It is the zigzagged command to do nothing. What sense does that make to a ten year old? I would rather sit and pound away. But my teacher patiently explained to me that ‘music is always sweeter after the rest.’” That fits here: God rested – paused – and His appreciation of Creation made it all the sweeter.
So perhaps we are misled by our limited language and translation. “Resting” can be more than “taking a break to relax.” But if God doesn’t rest to recharge depleted energy, why does He rest? There are at least two reasons: one for us, and one for God. For us, God sets an example because He knows we need such rests. The benefit for God can be inferred from clues in the other six days of creation, after each of which God looks at what He has created, and says, “That’s good. It’s very good.” At each stage God assesses the day’s work and notes its goodness. And now that the creation is complete, ready to roll, God takes time – maybe a long time, because the seventh day does not say “there was evening and there was morning” like the other days do – God takes time to appreciate the sum of the many parts, all the dimensions, multiple facets, and eco-systems of this incredible creation. God “stops to smell the roses,” if you will. A time of watching in wonder. Unprogrammed time. A time of joy at what has been done, and a time of anticipation at what this living creation will do. God looks forward with anticipation to how the creation will unfold. Appreciation and anticipation belong in our Sabbath rest. German theologian Jürgen Moltmann says that God’s rest indicates God’s blessing and sanctification of creation. In resting from the work of creation, God now chooses to be present to and for creation, allowing it to be what it is and enjoying full communion with it as such. God rests after all the creating work, but Sabbath is not the end… it is the beginning of the world that has just been birthed. Sabbath is simultaneously end and beginning.
So God rested – ceased work – and enjoyed the fresh world and universe just created, and thereby set an example for us. “Rest” is clearly in the passage. But what about “renewal” – where’s that word in the passage? It’s between the lines in verse 3 of chapter 2. Look at it with me.
Renewal: Connecting With God Despite Busy-ness
“So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it…” God blessed the seventh day so that we could be blessed. God set apart a regular, weekly down-time from work not only so that we could physically recharge, but also so that our spirits could be recharged, renewed. And for human beings created in God’s image, made for relationship with God, renewal is incomplete unless we connect with God. Like those over-used words from Augustine: “Our hearts are restless until we rest in God.” Connecting with God, both in active worship as well as in a less active openness to God’s influence at other times… these are crucial for our renewal.
There are lots of ways to “plug into” God, and each of us will have Sabbath habits that look a little different than those of others. But generally, our Sabbath time will include both an intentional worship component – like what we are doing now – and some quieter time when God can get into our consciousness. You see, just coming to church Sundays is not a complete Sabbath time. God bless you for being here… but there’s more blessing for you if you set aside more down time outside the input of a worship service like this… time during which, as John Calvin said, “We not only lay aside our works, we also let God work within us.”
Intentional worship, too, can come in different forms than a church service. There are as many ways of worshiping and being open to God as there are people in this room. I strive for quiet time with God every day of the week, not just on one day of the week. And I augment my worship time here with other forms of worship when I am out in God’s creation. Praising and thanking God during my everyday schedule, sometimes in the quiet, sometimes with a beautiful music in the background, sometimes while doing a menial task in the garden or in the home. You don’t have to be doing NOTHING. You just want to ensure that there are blocks of time when your spirit is not too distracted, when you are open to God’s nurture and guidance.
But the problem is, many of us are so busy! We don’t always give ourselves enough quiet. Eugene Peterson noted this several years back, when he wrote:
“Odd, isn’t it? We have more leisure hours per person per year as a country than anyone could have guessed a hundred years ago. But we are not leisurely. We are not relaxed. We are anxious. We are in a hurry. The anxiety and the hurry ruin intimacy and sabotage our best intentions in faith, hope, and love – the three actions in which most of us set out to do our best.”
Peterson, who was pastoring a church at the time, went on:
“That is why I as your pastor want you to keep a Sabbath. I want you to live well. I want you to live whole and mature, with appreciation and pleasure, experiencing the heights and the depths of God’s glory in your bodies and in your work, your friends and your gardens, your minds and your emotions, at the ocean and in the mountains. You can’t do that if you are ‘on the run’. You can’t do that if you are watching the clock.
“Sabbath is the biblical tool for protecting time against desecration. It is the rhythmic setting apart of one day each week for praying and playing – the two activities for which we don’t get paid, but which are necessary for a blessed life. A blessed life is what we are biblically promised. A blessed life is not a mere survival life, but a bountiful life. Praying and playing are warp and woof in the bounty.”
I love how Peterson frames the Sabbath in terms I can understand: it’s about praying and playing.
You may know that we pastors can be the most guilty of not taking Sabbath. Most Christians consider Sunday the Sabbath. Well, guess what: not for us! I try to take Friday and Saturday as a weekend, but often they are as full as my work days, just with different activities. And often as not, this is due to the schedule of church life, when important things happen on Fridays and Saturdays. And I never seem to take back the time I give up for events like, say, a session retreat, which is what I gave up my family days for yesterday and Friday. When my leisure time is filled with activity, I don’t really cease work, I just trade one kind of work for another. If I also drive with the radio on, and turn on the TV when I get home, I end up filling even my “down” time with noise and images, so that my mind is often occupied to a degree that being open to God for spiritual renewal is difficult. That word “occupied” is fitting. With our schedules fully booked and our minds occupied, we are not unlike an occupied country, held captive by the tyrannical oppressor called “busy-ness.”
Let me say a little more about TV, specifically sports on TV. Listen: it is extremely difficult to be open to God while watching the game. Sometimes you are REMINDED of God when watching a game with others, because they are always mentioning His name, but that doesn’t count. During football season I go home and watch a little football Sunday afternoon. (Remember that Sunday is not Sabbath for me.) Watching football doesn’t count as God-focused rest! How are you supposed to hear God when the Ducks are playing – and LOSING? The prayers of you Duck fans were not answered there at the end of the game, were they? Now, there is nothing wrong with watching football, but we are cheating ourselves if we count that as God time.
Sometimes I think that full schedules – not just racing around in your car to do errands or meet appointments – crossword puzzles, reading, and chit-chat are schedule-fillers, too – sometimes I think our full schedules, our drivenness, our need to make productive use of our time, our commitment to something like the Protestant Work Ethic, these are not only not virtuous, they may be signs of lack of trust in God’s grace and promises. Track with me now: Could my driven schedule be a sign of wanting to hedge my salvation bets by trying to earn God’s favor, even though I intellectually know that my salvation is based on grace, not works? Or is my full, performance-based schedule just an indication that I want your approval? I want to meet or exceed the expectations of the people in my circles, right? In a society where we generally agree that we need to slow down, what is it that keeps our calendars so full?
God’s Eternal Rest
“Rest and renewal,” “praying and playing,” all with an attitude of “appreciation and anticipation.” Let’s zero in on that anticipation for a moment, and then I am done. I told you I was ignoring the Ten Commandments because we are in Genesis and they haven’t happened yet. But there are other reasons:
- Jesus transcends the Mosaic Law in His fulfillment of it. We are not bound by the Jewish Law but by the newer covenant Law of Love, more flexible and all encompassing than the old Law..
- Also, the most useful Scriptural hints about Sabbath are not in the passages about the Jewish law.
For me, the most enlightening passages are here at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis – the Creator’s example, then in the Gospels – the Son’s example. And finally there is an intriguing passage that helps us understand Sabbath rest toward the end of the Bible, in Hebrews. There we are told about “entering God’s eternal rest” – the rest we enter on the other side of this earthly life. Look at Hebrews with me for a moment, won’t you? Turn to chapter 4, and while you are doing that, remember that Hebrews is about the absolute supremacy of Jesus Christ, and His superiority to God’s old revelation in the Law. Hebrews starts out by reminding us that after speaking in many ways through the prophets down through the centuries, God had now spoken in a better way through the ultimate revelation, Jesus Christ, “whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom He created the world” (Hebrews 1:2), words fit with the beginning of Genesis and with the beginning of John’s Gospel, as it declared how Jesus was at the center of the Creation. In Chapters 3 and 4, we read repeatedly about “God’s rest,” climaxing in verses 9-11: “So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from His. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest…”
The book of Hebrews cleverly weaves together themes of rest: God’s ceasing work after creation, Israel’s promised rest from enemies in the Promised Land, a weekly Sabbath time, and spiritual rest in Christ. “Let us make every effort to enter God’s rest,” in Christ. Our Sabbath-keeping today is an anticipatory, weekly rehearsal and reminder of our eternal rest in Christ. Calvin said that “the purpose and fulfillment of that true rest, represented by the ancient Sabbath, lies in the Lord’s resurrection.” The resurrection of Christ foreshadows and secures our own resurrection. In a sense, He is our Sabbath rest: “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). A regular maintenance routine of Sabbath is a preview of that rest. It should be in a form that fits YOU, of course. But when you do it, in this process of taking a break from work and being quiet unto the Lord, you will rest your body and renew your mind, your emotions, and your spirit. And life will be better.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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