God’s Design for Sabbath

Cassie and Alex introduce the theme of Sabbath throughout scripture and its importance as we bear witness to the Kingdom of Jesus.

Introductory thoughts

The Genesis poem tells us that the Creator of the Cosmos spent six days bringing order from chaos and shaping reality as we know it. Then on the seventh day He rested from His work, observing the first Sabbath. This first day of rest set a precedent, echoed throughout scripture, that the people of God would set aside a day of the week for prayer and worship. Jesus exemplified this throughout his life with a regular rhythm of prayer, retreat, and rest. Following the example of Jesus, we commit to a sabbath rhythm that sets aside a day of the week for worship and rest. In doing so we trust that the Spirit will shape a life of worship and restfulness set against a world of hurry.

In the first century Palestine that Jesus occupied, the Sabbath was an important practice differentiating the jews from their gentile counterparts. At sundown on Friday night until sundown on Saturday, the Jews ceased all work going as far as creating a robust tradition of  regulations to govern their Sabbath. In their honest zeal to be faithful to the instructions of God, the Pharisees had failed to recognize the weight they placed on the back of their communities. In a brief confrontation over picking grain on the Sabbath (considered work), Jesus says to the pharisees; “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27–28 ESV). This is to say, that the Sabbath is a gift to humanity under the Lordship of Christ. 

This is to say that Sabbath is both a discipline and a gift meant for humanities betterment. 

Sabbath and Sacred Work 

The irony of practicing a day of rest is that it places a higher value on our work than the workolatry (the idolatry of work) that rules our day. We learn to trust that God can do more with our six days of work and a day of rest, than we can do with seven days of work. 

Sabbath was established by God who does not subscribe to our culture’s idea of what work is. So, what is God’s idea of work? God establishes work in the Garden. In Genesis 1:26, God creates man in his image and man follows God in His work example. God gives humans the responsibility to rule over the Garden. Work starts out directed by God for God’s purposes. Adam and Eve subscribe to God’s structure for Sabbath. There is a measured time of work and a measured time of rest. 

 When we subscribe to this divide of work and rest, we are subscribing to living a life in the Garden; one where we are working under God’s direction not the direction of our culture which can drive us to restlessness and an overindulgence in achievement. Our identities can get carelessly mixed in with work threatening the merging of identity with our accomplishments. 

 God’s picture of sacred work lets us maintain our identity which resembles His image and lets the power of who He is permeate us in our work. Now that humans are not in the garden, there is more difficulty in our work. The idea of sitting down and not touching the plow would have been scary for ancient Israelites just as it is scary today. 

 The risk factor associated with Sabbath is supposed to create a practice of trusting God with His provision towards His children. 

Sabbath as Resistance

Sabbath is a merciful gift protecting us from the objectification of workolatry and exploitative labor practices. Narratives of hustle, hurry, and grind permeate our feeds and capture our calendar. These prevailing cultural norms teach us that the product you create, the value you bring, or the hours you work are your value. In a world built on these exploitation stories  sabbath offers us an alternative. In subtle ways, the Sabbath insists on our own creature-ness; we are not a limitless commodity or tireless machines, we are human. Thus, in stepping away from our work, once a week,  we gain perspective on our own identity as creatures. In embracing the practice of Sabbath, we resist any culture that value is tied to work. The sabbath insists that we are created in the Image of the Creator infused with value; we are worth treasuring regardless of our performance.