"Rest"

Scripture Passage for Today

Exodus 35:1-36:38

Scripture Focus


“You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day must be a Sabbath day of complete rest, a holy day dedicated to the Lord.” (Exodus 35:2 NLT)


Observation


At the end of chapter 31, in the middle of chapter 34, and again at the beginning of chapter 35, are commands regarding the Sabbath. (They’re found a number of other places, as well—I’m only observing that exhortations regarding the Sabbath have shown up in every daily reading for the last three days, at least!) I have a couple of observations about that observation.


First, when I was a kid (yep, long, long ago), observing the Christian Sabbath (Sunday as a day of rest) was still taken pretty seriously. I grew up in Missouri, near the Kansas state line, and still remember how “blue laws” in Missouri forced “shopaholics” to drive into Kansas for Sunday shopping. My recollection is, though, that people perceived “Sunday stillness” as much more *restrictive* than it was *liberating*—that is, that “observing the Sabbath” had more to do with what you *couldn’t* do than with what you *got* to do—rest.


Second (and a more general observation), isn’t it funny how when we’re forbidden to do something, we insist on doing it?


To these Hebrew people, who had been forced to work like pack animals every day of every week of every month of every year—to a people brutalized as slaves—God says, “You’re *my* people now, and I’m giving you rest. Devote one day a week rest for yourself and to strengthening your relationship with me.”


The Sabbath Day had to do not with restrictions, but with freedom—freedom to rest! Indeed, it uniquely identified this people as those whom *God* would care for…whom *God* would provide for…so that they would not have to work like pack animals any longer!


And yet what did they do? The first Sabbath after manna from heaven was supplied, some went out looking to collect it, even though God had given explicit instructions otherwise!


Now, before I wrap this up—I understand: I’m not living under the Mosaic covenant, but under God’s New Covenant of abounding grace in Christ. Still—hear this: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:9- 11 NIV)


Three questions: Why do I see God’s invitation to Sabbath as restrictive instead of liberating? Why do I embrace this culture’s frenzied, frenetic pace instead of God’s invitation to rest? Could neglect of Sabbath rest have anything to do with those days when I ask myself, “Why is my body so weary…and my soul so empty?”