Should Christians still honor the Sabbath?

By Heath A. Kirkwood, Lead Pastor, FBC Lorena

 

July 2021 was an inconvenient time for this small-town pastor to take his first sabbatical. Our church, community, and family were dealing with many difficult problems. All these were compounded by our world’s challenges related to COVID-19. Still, there I was trying to “Sabbath” during an extended time called a sabbatical.

I could share the details of what I experienced during that time, but I will address the question in the title of this article. From my own time in the Bible, my listening to good teachers, and my reading of various authors on the subject, I concluded that, “Yes, Christians should still honor the Sabbath.” But never had I ever done so, and July 2021 became my training ground to learn how to practice Sabbath.

Full transparency compels me to tell you that I learned to practice Sabbath with God much like a foal learns to walk after birth. I was stumbling up and down, back and forth, while God stayed near but did not act like a “hover parent.” He allowed me to flounder while he was fully present, just as he is every day, all day. 

After a day or two, I finally came to the question that still guides me to honor Sabbath, and most importantly honor God every day: “Well God, what do you have in mind for today?” Since Sabbath is a time of ceasing myself or anyone else setting the agenda, God’s agenda is all that matters that day. And while he is kind to include my desires, I look to him first and above all.

My hope for you and me is that we not only learn to honor God by practicing Sabbath; it is that we will also learn to honor God on each day, including the Sabbath, and even because of our set apart (holy) time with him on Sabbath. I can personally attest that God really does bless the Sabbath as he has since the beginning. 

 

Sabbath is God’s Creation

A good reading of Genesis 1-2 reveals how much God cares for his creation. Your opinion or mine cannot and will not take away from this fact. He loves his creation and his created ones, which includes you and me. The bridge between these two chapters highlights that God created Sabbath, practiced it, and he blessed it (Genesis 2:1-3).

Be wary of joining the argument that the Old Testament has less value than the New Testament. All of Scripture is God’s words, therefore it is all his creation, and of course, you must consider how Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s words. Sabbath is mentioned more in the Old Testament, but that does not lower its value. Sabbath is God’s creation. If Sabbath is important to God, it should be important to you and me.

In August 2023, our church dove into this topic via a 4-week series exploring these passages: Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 16:11-30, Leviticus 25:1-12, Psalm 92, Matthew 12:1-14, and Hebrew 4:1-11. There are many more to read and meditate on, yet these paint a clear picture that Sabbath is one of God’s original plans, and we must respond by practicing his plan.

Submitting to God, which we should agree is our response, includes submitting to his plan and his words. Sabbath’s address in the Ten Commandments is a call for us to surrender to God (Exodus 20:8-11). It is also a gift from God to us and all creation.

 

Sabbath is for People

In case you are reading this and thinking that practicing Sabbath is another religious obligation, please let me refer you to Jesus’s own words in Matthew 12:1-14. Jesus healed a man in the congregation, stared down the religious leaders and their legalism, and said squarely, “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 

Sabbath’s practice in the Jewish faith incurred additional rules, so Jesus pointed out that caring for people matters more. Jesus healed a man’s shriveled hand and allowed his disciples to pick and eat food on that sacred day to prove that Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Sabbath is a gift for people.

Lieberman’s The Gift of Rest shows Sabbath as a beautiful gift from God, from a modern Jewish practitioner’s view. “The Sabbath is a gift from God to all people. In our time…it is a gift that is desperately needed” (Lieberman, 7). Salvation is the greatest gift we need from God. Sabbath may be a secondary gift, yet it is necessary because Sabbath calls us to live for God in resistance to the world’s dominion.

Let’s keep it simple: God made Sabbath and he continues to create it for his creation. For you to choose to honor God and his Sabbath, you must view it as a gift to you from him. Like any present, you receive it by taking it from the Giver’s hand and using it.

 

Sabbath Reveals God with People

My mind was blown when I realized that practicing Sabbath is an earthly taste of eternity! Hebrews 4 is a passage I did not consider so deeply until my own Sabbath journey, and it is chock full of vision for Sabbath. Even a view of Jubilee in Leviticus 25 points to God’s design of Sabbath as a step towards something bigger.

When I practice Sabbath, I am reminded that as good as one day might be, eternity with God is bigger and better. Eternity with God is set in a creation made completely new. While confined to earthly kingdoms, practicing Sabbath is resistance to a workaholic world, but in God’s Kingdom we will take pleasure in Sabbath delight naturally.

Before the fall of creation, Adam and Eve were with God in a Sabbath-like world. When God fulfills his Kingdom one day, all his children will be with him in a new “Garden of Eden” setting. As you practice Sabbath with God in the time and space we occupy, you are getting a small taste of what it will be like in eternity with God.

As Heschel said in The Sabbath, “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come” (Heschel, 74). Practicing the Sabbath reveals God with you, in this world and beyond.

 

What is your next step?

My understanding and practice of Sabbath have grown significantly since July 2021. I am glad to tell you that it has grown greater than a concept or religious practice. Each Sabbath day looks different from another, and yet all begin with the question I learned earlier: “Well God, what do you have in mind for today?” Sabbath begins and ends with God, just as it is preceded and succeeded by God. 

It would be better to pose a question for you rather than give an application statement. So here it is: What is your next step? If you desire to both honor Sabbath, and more importantly the God of the Sabbath, what is your next step? Likely possibilities might include reading Bible passages, praying, reading various qualified books, listening to good podcasts, and seeking guidance from others who practice Sabbath faithfully.

The strongest urge I offer from Scripture and personal experience is this: take your next step. Do not settle for consuming information or conceiving a fully fleshed plan. Talk with God about it, set a time to begin, and get started. You will flounder or stumble a bit. Your practice will change and shift. The only changeless part of Sabbath is God because he is the same and he is present when you labor and when you rest.

Surrender to God’s command to practice Sabbath and keep it holy. At the same time, receive the gift of Sabbath from his hand and put it to good use. Sabbath is good and holy just as God said. I can attest to that as I write these words onto a page during a Sabbath day that is fading away. Today is a gift that God will use to sustain me until next Sabbath. I am ready for it. Are you?

 

 

 

*The views expressed are those solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Pastor’s Common