The Sabbath is one of the recurrent themes you will find on this blog, for it is one of the recurrent themes we continue to explore in our own lives. (A few weeks ago, Nathaniel wrote a wonderful post on the Sabbath. The post that here follows is a mere footnote to a much better one, so if you haven’t read his, your time would be better spent reading it than this). Many more posts will come from each of us delving into different facets of the Sabbath and what this means for us today. But as this current Sabbath is coming to a close, I wanted to take a moment to discuss what it might mean for the Sabbath to define our workweek, not just our Sundays. What does it mean to be not merely a Sabbath-keeping people but a Sabbath People?
We are living in the land between: a time of celebration and anticipation, of work still to be done and of rest in the work already accomplished through Christ. As we wade through the waters of the already/not-yet reality of the Church Age, we must now decide how we will Sabbath. For many, their lifestyle determines how they Sabbath, but I propose a radical reversal: let Sabbath determine our lifestyle. For is not our whole life bound up in the Sabbath rest accomplished and promised in the work of Christ? Are we not Sabbath people in a Sabbath age? Do we not daily enjoy the benefits of resting in Christ’s work on our behalf? If this is so, then we are truly a “Sabbath People.” And as Sabbath People, we must learn to live Sabbath lifestyles.
Whole books have been written on how to do the Sabbath, so I don’t presume to be able to cover the entire application of the Sabbath in only a few paragraphs. But I do want to propose a vision for what a Sabbath lifestyle might look like Monday through Saturday, as well as two ways we can particularly celebrate the Sabbath on Sundays.
The first thing to realize is that Jesus as Sabbath-fulfillment does not mean the Sabbath does not apply to us as believers. It actually means the application is bigger and broader! In Christ, the Old Covenant is fulfilled and expanded. What was one day extends to all the days, just as the Spirit abides in all believers and the law is written on our all of our hearts. It is a fuller realization—not an undoing—of the Old Covenant. What was in the Old Covenant becomes deeper and more meaningful in the new. The ceremonial law wasn’t abolished—it is fulfilled. So, Jesus is our Sabbath rest, which applies to all the days in some way. I propose two ways the Sabbath can apply to your everyday life: relationships as Sabbath rest and work as Sabbath rest.
In our fallen state, relationships can be some of the most painful and messy parts of our lives. And while nothing can be done in this life to fully mitigate the damage of sin, a theology of Sabbath calls us to consider how the work and rest of God might define how we do relationships. Often, our relationships can become coercive, merely functioning as a self-serving way to gain approval, advancement, pleasure, or a host of other things we think we need and can gain through relationship. But the heart of the Sabbath speaks to the need to look to no one but our Creator and Redeemer to meet our needs. It speaks of a resting in the approval of the Father, a contentment in the work of Christ, a delight in the Trinity, and an overall goodwill that leaves us with an abundance of blessings we need not work for by selfish, coercive relationships. People then become those we can serve and bless rather than take from. For indeed, service and blessing are the heart of the Sabbath, as seen in Christ’s Sabbath works during his three year ministry.
In the same way, we often set high expectations for those around us and find it difficult to forgive when others have not met our standard. And yet the Sabbath tells us that the standard has been met and our sins have been forgiven: we are called to rest in a relationship already won, not work for a relationship needed to be earned. So we are called to pattern our relationships after God’s relationship with us and remove the burden of expectations and resentment so often intrinsic to our friendships and family relationships. To be a Sabbath People means to have restful relationships where there are no expectations and where people are enjoyed as they are, just as God enjoys us as we are, secured in the work of Another on our behalf.
Work, too, can be done in the pattern of the Sabbath. It is obvious that our Western culture has made an idol of productivity. Like the slavery in Egypt, our culture is one of anxious productivity in which our whole identities are defined by what we can produce and offer. And yet, even in the Old Covenant, God declared that work must only be done within the context of a cycle of rest: one day in seven and one year in seven (Lev. 25:4). As Israel entered into the fruitful land of Canaan, it would become a temptation to be lost in prosperity and productivity, and forget that everything comes from the hand of the Creator: “prosperity breed amnesia,” says Brueggemann. Sabbath was made to remind Israel that their benefits come not from their labor but from the Lord, which cuts through both anxiety and pride. Hence, the Psalmist can say: “Do not eat the bread of anxious toil,” for unless the Lord builds the house, it is built in vain (Ps. 127:1-2). The God of Sabbath gives to his beloved rest (Ps 127:3), for they rest in God, not in the work of their hands. So as we work, we work in the rest that all has been accomplished and that our Creator is the one who sustains us. We work not in anxiety or pride, but in humble gratitude for the work done and in anticipation of the final completed work to come.
Once our work is done for the week, God has granted a special day set aside for “ceasing” from our labors. Because most books on the Sabbath focus on the need to cease work, worship with believers, and perform acts of mercy, I want to focus on two other ways to Sabbath on Sunday. Clearly, the Sabbath should be spent worshipping in celebration of the work of Christ; in the same way, it should be spent resting from normal labor as a sacramental participation in the accomplished work of Christ in his resurrection. Sadly, if we only see Sundays as a day to “go to church” and not make money, we have missed the larger practice of Sabbath-keeping. I propose that the Sabbath should also be spent in embracing and feasting as an outgrowth of Sabbath relationships and Sabbath work.
Often when we think of the communal aspect of Sunday, we think of corporate worship—and well we should. Yet this is not where our Sabbath relationships should end. In anticipation of the glorious future community of the Kingdom of God, we embrace each other through our hospitality and mutual enjoyment. Often Monday through Saturday provides a deep tension between work and relationship, and many times family and friendships suffer because our work consumes our time and our minds. And so, as a boon, God has given us the Sabbath as a way to relieve this tension and provide a day set aside to embrace family and friends in love through joyful hospitality. In this we act out our Heavenly Father’s own hospitality, welcoming us into his eternal abode and making us a permanent part of his own family.
What better way to practice relationship and hospitality and celebrate the completion of our work than through feasting? Sabbath since the creation of the world has been a time of celebration. After looking upon his accomplished work, God rested and enjoyed what he had made. He savored the work accomplished and He savored it with Adam (have you ever realized that the day after he was made, Adam celebrated the first Sabbath with his creator?). And so how much more should our Sabbaths, filled with the marvelous truths of Christ’s redemptive work accomplished and applied, be a time of celebration and enjoyment of the Jesus’ work accomplished on our behalf? Not only this, it is also an “eschatological party” anticipating the final feast of the Lamb in the New Heavens and New Earth, a new creation celebration with our Creator (Rev. 19). Our Sabbaths should be filled with feasting on food and drink with good Christian friends as an anticipatory and celebratory gathering—a foretaste of Canaan. It should make our Sabbaths so good that we should be sorrowful when the day ends and long for the coming Sabbath in seven days, for in this longing for the temporal Sabbath, we instill a deeper longing for the Sabbath yet to come for which we all should yearn, yet all too quickly forget during our busy weeks. And so with embracing and feasting, we participate in the act of “remembering” the Sabbath day and keeping it holy (Ex. 20:8).
Through the way we live our daily lives and celebrate our weekly Sabbath, we must do this very thing: remember and anticipate. The One who has created in us a new heart and redeemed us from the slavery of sin and the law calls us to remember his redemptive work and anticipate the final consummation of his redemptive story at the end of the age. Let us learn to be ever more a Sabbath People as we anticipate the beautiful words at the end of time: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your rest.”
de ambigua 