Honoring the Sabbath

Our Creation story is a fascinating thing. Some may have learned that the Jewish-Christian Creation is very similar to other Near/Middle Eastern creation stories, and certainly only one among many creation stories. But there are some major differences. I'll keep things simple here. First of all, our Creation is rare among creation stories in that it does not claim that the world was created out of some conflict or chaos. Genesis claims that God controlled the chaos in order to create, rather than that the chaos led to creation. And so, our Creation has an incredible order to it than other creation stories lack. Take a look at Genesis again and you'll see that each of the first three days corresponds to one of the days four, five, or six. That's only the beginning of the order created, and the order inherent in the story. There are lots of other examples of how tightly ordered the story is, including a whole bunch of weird patterns with the number 3, the number 7, and the number 10. Beyond that, though, our Creation is, as far as I know, the only creation story that does more than try to explain the origins of life and why things are the way they are. Our Creation tells us how to live.

Here's the deal. God rested on the seventh day. That simple fact gets repeated later in Exodus to tell us that, since God rested on the seventh day, so should we rest on the seventh day. But why? You can be the way I used to be and answer that question by saying, "We should rest on the seventh day because God told us so." Or you could answer, in a somewhat similar vein, "We should rest on the seventh day because, since God rested in the seventh day, resting every seven days is part of the natural fabric of the universe." I'm not even sure what that answer means, but both are very deterministic. If we don't do what God tells us, or if we don't follow the order of the universe, then something bad will happen to us. I don't think that's what God has in mind for us.

Read Genesis again and you'll see that the refrain we know so well, "And there was evening, and there was morning. The nth day..." does not show up on the seventh day of rest. It's as if the seventh day never ends. Rob Bell points out that it's somewhat interesting that before God even creates the sun and moon there is evening and morning. How could that be if the things we record day and night, the very measure of our days, are not yet created? Perhaps credence to the argument that, indeed, God's time is not our time... Anyway, you can say that God's rest day not ending is a sign that God has created and God has stepped away from His Creation. Sure, you can say that, but then what about Genesis 2, with God's walking around the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve talking to them? What about God's coming to Moses in the Burning Bush? What about all the other jazz that signals God's being in this world with us throughout the Bible? Probably better to think of Genesis 2, God's walking around and talking with Adam and Eve, is the reason why God's sabbath day never ends.

I firmly believe that God created the world to be in relationship with us. That essentially means that God's sabbath never ends so that He can rest with us, in relationship with us. Many people think that there are two Creation stories in Genesis, the first being Genesis 1, the second being Genesis 2 and 3. I believe that Genesis 2 and 3 is simply an explanation of why God's sabbath day never ends. It never ends because He wants to spend as much time as possible among and with us in relationship, loving us and being loved. What I'm trying to get at is that Genesis shows us that God's whole being is geared toward being in relationship with us. God so wants to be in relationship with us that, from the beginning as we see in Genesis 1, He tells us to spread and multiply. Spreading and multiplying is a theme repeated again and again in the Jewish Bible. God wants us to spread and multiply so that He can be in relationship with as many of us as possible to bring joy to Himself and to His Creation, but also so that we can share in the joy of creating and in the multiplying blessings of God's creations, God's children. You see, to create humans God breathes His spirit into us, so that every human we meet is a vessel of God's spirit, God's presence. The more of us there are, the more opportunity we have to be in relationship with God and vice versa. The fabric of life is ordered so that loving relationships with God and God's children can abound.

When God tells us to honor the sabbath, then, I don't think we should consider it a command that must be followed. Rather, I think we need to consider honoring the sabbath as necessary to remember how special our relationship with God truly is, that everything around us was created so that we can have the ultimate joy of spending time with God and so that He can have the ultimate joy of spending time with us. The harm of not honoring the sabbath is that you're missing out on something truly incredible. You can work and work and work to accomplish a lot, and you probably will accomplish a lot, but if you don't take a sabbath you won't remember how special that relationship is, you won't have the right perspective on why you're working, you won't have the joy of life that God so dearly wants for us. Without rest we can't properly reflect on our lives and God's presence in that life. Without reflection, we lose the sense that everything we do, we do it intentionally. Then, whether we like to admit it or not, we become machines, stuck in a routine of living that doesn't leave room for God's presence and doesn't leave room for God's potentially radically changing our path in life to more fully fill us with hope, peace, and joy.

It's no coincidence that memory is also a big theme throughout the Jewish Bible, and is still a major practice in the Jewish tradition. God knows that without remembering, without reflecting, we'll lose the sense that God's presence is here with us, here in us, and we'll lose that great joy that only comes with being in relationship with God, and in being in real relationship with God's children. Not only that, but clearly resting for an entire day is the best way to really have fun with God and His children. Take a Saturday and Sunday to spend outside and watch squirrels chase each other, you can't help but laugh and giggle.

I encourage us, then, to honor the sabbath. Let us not honor the sabbath as a command, but as an acknowledgment that God knows what is best for us. Remember, Jesus says that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The sabbath is for us. Honor and remember the sabbath and rest, and in so doing we will see God and see ourselves with much more clarity, much more love, and we'll be able to go out into the world with a deep peace.