Warning: This is a lengthy post, but the topic of Sabbath keeping has been so distorted in so many interesting ways, that I feel the length is necessary.
The first mention of Sabbath is found in the first pages of Genesis. Close your eyes and imagine the new creation, in all of its unblemished beauty and wild goodness: busy, and full of the noise and energy of new life. There, in the center of our fresh and unbroken world, God completes His work in the masterpiece of man and woman- image bearers of Himself, bright, clean souls with unbroken minds and strong bodies, ready to start the work for which He had created them. But before their work even begins, God does something interesting. He rests.
“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” Genesis 2:2-3
God established the first Sabbath as Creator, in order that His creation would know and rest in His accomplished work as sovereign, loving Lord over all. He established this Sabbath rest as a gift for Adam and Eve, His image bearers, the “workers” put in creation to work and tend to its good and fruitfulness. Before beginning their work under His Kingship, in His world, they had a day of rest in which they acknowledged His sufficiency and authority, and all that He had made. A day of orientation. From that day forward, they and their offspring were to rest on the seventh day of each week, remembering that God accomplishes His works, and that their power to rule over creation is rooted in God’s already accomplished work in the creating and ordering of their world.
Sadly, Adam and Eve lost sight of this freeing foundation, and took things into their own hands. Not trusting God’s goodness, not desiring His Kingship and order, they undermined the gift and responsibility of stewarding within His already completed work, by conspiring to become gods themselves, able to rule and redefine as they pleased. They desired to possess His knowledge and power. By taking the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they attempted, for their own glory, to produce from their hands the work that could only come from Him, rather than resting in the work He had done for them and for His glory. But the story doesn’t end there.
Many generations after the heart and creation breaking catastrophe in the garden, we see the Sabbath mentioned again. God hasn’t forgotten His people. The rest that He had given them in the first week of creation has not lost its relevance. Although mankind distorted the order of creation, damaging their world, minds, and bodies, the true Lord of creation remained in control. The people of God are enslaved to ruthless oppressors in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh claims them as his own- he dictates their actions, their heritage, and their worship. They are completely at the mercy of his whims and wishes, however destructive. The offspring of Adam and Eve are in no garden of Eden. Ironically, far from the freedom of being stewards working in the accomplished work of the one true God, Israel finds itself toiling in never ending tasks under the never satisfied expectations of a man who considered himself a god. The god that Adam and Eve have become. It is only after the plague of the death of the firstborn, in which God shows mercy to Israel through the blood of the Passover lamb painted on their doorposts, that Israel is able to break free from Pharaoh’s power. God leads them out of slavery, through the red sea, and into the wilderness where He gives them the Law. In it we read:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (9) Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, (10) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. (11) For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:8-11
Here God’s people are, weary from labor with no rest, labor to a man-god. The God of creation shows up, shows mercy, and brings salvation from slavery in order that His people can live freely, worshiping and serving Him as they were created to do. He gives them the Ten Commandments, reminding them of who He is, and who they are, and in the midst of these commandments He reminds them to rest. Weekly. Forever. Why? So that they will not forget the work that He accomplished. So that they will not look to their own strength and abilities to accomplish the work required. This ritual is to the Lord. It is focused on Him and what He has already done, but it is for God’s people (vs. 10), a weekly releasing from slavery to self, slavery to man-made righteousness and self-produced good works.
Jump ahead several generations, and we meet the man named Jesus. God in flesh, fully God, and fully man. Creator, King, and Lord of the Sabbath. The Pharisees are hounding him with their word snares and lies, eager to condemn this Son of Man that heals, forgives, and feeds the people on the Sabbath day of rest. They hate Him. He is not chained to their oppressive demands of self-achieved righteousness and rule keeping: works dependent on the powers and knowledge of man. Jesus has a few things to say about their distorted view of Sabbath keeping, one of which is: “if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:7-8
Jesus is giving His broken people rest: rest from hunger, rest from physical ailments, rest from striving. He is bringing in the broken and ostracized (Luke 8:43-48, Matthew 8:1-4, etc), and forgives the sins of those who believe, many of whom he found, healed, and forgave, on the Sabbath. God did not institute the Sabbath as a day of sacrifice, or as a day of righteous endeavors. He did not establish it as a day to focus on physical and mental rest and good health, or as a day to focus on developing good habits. He most certainly did not give it to His people to be a day on which to measure the holiness and failures of others, a day on which to oppress His flock with unattainable rules and required works. Our Lord of the Sabbath is a Lord of rest for the weary, a Lord of freedom for the enslaved.
Jesus accomplishes His work. The Jewish Sabbath is only a few hours off. It is a Friday afternoon, and a body hangs on a cross. The King of creation, the new Adam, dies. He completes His work and rests with the Father as Sabbath begins. He is Lord of the Sabbath. It is no coincidence that the Passover landed on the Sabbath that year. In the tradition of the Passover, the feast that remembered the final plague on Egypt when the LORD showed mercy on His people and rescued them from bondage, Israel’s salvation, their lineage and heritage, the life of their first born sons’, depended entirely on the substitutionary lamb. The blood of that lamb, smeared on their doorposts, saved them from the angel of death- from the doom of their oppressors. This was a feast that remembered how God set His people free from the tyranny of Egypt so that they could enter rest in the promised land. Fast forward to the Crucifiction, which took place during the celebration of the Passover. On this Passover day, we see the Lamb without blemish, killed in place of God’s people, the ultimate substitute, God’s only Son. He died in our place so that we could escape ultimate death, so that we could escape the tyranny of sin, and enter into God’s promises.
Jesus rose the morning after the Sabbath ended. He manifested and fulfilled the Sabbath as the Substitutionary Lamb. He rose again as the First Born of all creation and successfully brought life to His New Creation, to those who believe in Him. He initiated the new Sabbath as Redeemer, a gift from Redeemer to the redeemed, in order that His redeemed creation would remember and rest in His accomplished work as sovereign, loving, King.
The Sabbath remembered the accomplishment of the work of God in creation, and pointed towards the coming of the One who would fulfill the work of His new creation, delivering his creation from slavery to sin. The Sabbath now remembers the accomplished work of Christ in the redemption of His people and of creation, and directs our gaze towards the One who has secured the day of ultimate rest when His people and the new creation will finally live in complete restoration, free from bondage and brokenness, free to work in rest.
Come with me this Sunday, and let's Sabbath together! Let’s rest from past and present self created “good” works. Let’s rest from man-made laws, expectations, failures, and bitterness. Let’s rest from hoping in and looking to our own strengths and the strengths of other people. Let’s rest in God’s goodness and providence, in His finished work. In our Lord of the Sabbath, we can rest from anxiety and fear of present and future failure and expectations, and instead rest in the knowledge that Jesus’ work is eternally reaching. On this Sabbath, let’s remember that He is working out all things past, present, and future to His glory and for His good purposes, until the day of full Sabbath rest and celebrations arrive!
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