Sanity for Humanity

Great Sabbath Passages

Genesis 2

1 The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed.

2 On the sixth day God completed all the work that he had done,

and on the seventh day God rested from all the work that he had done.

3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,

because on it God rested from all the work of creation.

Exodus 20

8 Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy.

9 Six days you may work and do all your tasks,

10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.

Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters,

your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you.

11 Because the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them

in six days, but rested on the seventh day.

That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Deuteronomy 5

12 Keep the Sabbath day and treat it as holy, exactly as the LORD your God commanded:

13 Six days you may work and do all your tasks, 1

4 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.

Don’t do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants,

your oxen or donkeys or any of your animals, or the immigrant who is living among you

—so that your male and female servants can rest just like you.

15 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, but the LORD your God brought you out of there

with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

That’s why the LORD your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day.

Isaiah 58

 6 Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints,

   untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated,

   and breaking every yoke?

7 Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry

   and bringing the homeless poor into your house,

   covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family?

8 Then your light will break out like the dawn, and you will be healed quickly.

Your own righteousness will walk before you,

   and the LORD’s glory  will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

   you will cry for help, and God will say, “I’m here.”

If you remove the yoke from among you,

   the finger-pointing, the wicked speech;

 10 if you open your heart to the hungry,

   and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted,

   your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon.

11 The LORD will guide you continually and provide for you,

even in parched places. He will rescue your bones.

You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water that won’t run dry.

12 They will rebuild ancient ruins on your account;

   the foundations of generations past you will restore.

You will be called Mender of Broken Walls,  Restorer of Livable Streets.

 13 If you stop trampling the Sabbath, stop doing whatever you want on my holy day,

   and consider the Sabbath a delight, sacred to the LORD, honored, and honor it

   instead of doing things your way, seeking what you want and doing business as usual,

 14 then you will take delight in the LORD.

   I will let you ride on the heights of the earth;

   I will sustain you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob.

   The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Mark 2

27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. 

28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Resources for Enriching Your Experience of Sabbath

• Lynne M. Baab, Sabbath Keeping

• Dorothy Bass, Receiving the Day

• Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God

• Marva Dawn, Keeping Sabbath Wholly

• Wayne Muller, Sabbath:  Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Busy Lives

RememberIt's an interesting word to begin a commandment with.  As significant as honoring our parents, the property of others, the commitments people make to each other, the truth of our words, and even life itself - is the need for time to remember what it real, and then to allow what we remember to calibrate and shape our lives. 

Sabbath is designed to make sure we don't forget -- so that we don't discover that we have exchanged the life of God's Kingdom for our own.  It is a pattern of life that helps us remain sane in a world that is too often anything but that. 

Too often, Sabbath keeping is misunderstood as something done out of blind obedience, or in an attempt to ensure favor with God, or as a legalistic hangover from the kind of distortions that Judiasm suffered during the time of Jesus.  Some see it as something that weighs us down that we can now be set free from.  Instead of seeing the good news of the Gospel is embedded deeply in the practice of Sabbath keeping, they find something that seems more confining than freeing.

But as we listen carefully to scripture, something very different begins to surface.  It is the picture of the Sabbath as part of a pattern of life that reflects a rhythm of work and rest . . .  of finding value not in what we produce but rather in our identity as God's children . . . of discovering that everyone is included in God's blessing - not just those closest to and most like us.  Those that might sometimes be cast in the role of servant, immigrant, or outsider, through the lenses of the Sabbath are seen as family.

On Sabbath we are intentional about setting all those distinctions aside, and seeing them for what they really are  Even creation itself is included in the blessing of remembering that Sabbath encourages.  Sabbath is part of what gives sanity for humanity. In an increasing virtual  world where technology and "progress" continually contribute to the collapse of space and time, Sabbath helps protect and restore both.  In fact, in the declaration that worship God both as Creator and Redeemer, not our own "productive" activity, we find clear reflections and expressions of the Gospel.

Understanding this rich picture of Sabbath is what Pastor Jon explores with us this week in his sermon.  If you would like to listen to it again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library by clicking here.

To the right you will find just a few of the great passages that speak of the rich meaning of Sabbath as it is experienced as a part of the life of the followers of Jesus.  Below, you will find some music that reminds us of the kind of patterns and rhythms that we fall into when what Sabbath is all about slips away from us.  Finally, there are also a few additional resources for further study and reflection that you might find helpful as well..