Prepare to Listen. The LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Prayerfully Read Exodus 20:8-11 8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect “For the most part, contemporary Christians pay little attention to the Sabbath.”[1] Do you agree/disagree and why? I grew up in a Christian home that paid little attention to the sabbath. A day of rest, work-stoppage for all members of the community, animal and human, slave and alien never crossed our minds. We went to church and then did our own thing, even if that meant doing work. Ignoring the sabbath isn’t a smart idea. True, we’re not saved by keeping the sabbath, or any of the other commands. We’re saved by grace, through faith in Jesus. Yet, in a sense, sabbath rest is salvation. It saves us from becoming workaholics, getting caught up in greed for more money to buy more stuff. It is, writes Brueggemann, “the most difficult and most urgent of the commandments in our society” because it’s a summons to defy contemporary society that is driven to make more, have more, be more.[2] Sabbath rest is far more than defying cultural norms or giving us time to refresh for the coming workweek. That’s not why God commanded the sabbath. God blessed and consecrated one day a week because “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day.” Our God is not a workaholic! God is a Sabbath-keeping God and made restfulness not restlessness the center of life for creation. When we rest in a weekly rhythm, we’re choosing to side with the God of rest; we’re choosing life over death, for ourselves and for our world. How can you take a weekly rest, work-stoppage, despite the cost? Plan to do it. Prayerfully Respond Lord I want to be like you and make rest a weekly rhythm in my life so that I reflect you and your restfulness to the world. Amen. Live obediently. Remember the sabbath and keep it holy. [1] Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath as Resistance. 2014, p. ix. [2] Brueggemann 2014, p. xiv.
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