The Good News of Sabbath

Greg Reader

Ever since I can remember, my father has talked about the importance of Sabbath. But for many years the idea of a weekly day of rest didn’t make much sense to me. I was a young man on a mission – I worked hard and, if I did take a day off work, I played hard. It was all about “seizing the day” and rest seemed like a waste of time.

Over the years, however, I have not only come to appreciate the importance of rest in my own life, I have begun to discover how powerful and subversive a symbol the practice of Sabbath can be in the world around us. We live in a 24/7 society in which busyness, and even drivenness, have become virtues. We revere people who are always on the go; the more difficult it is to book an appointment, the more important they must be, and the more pressure we feel to emulate them. But our drivenness begs the question: Driven by whom? Driven by what? And to what end?

Sabbath slices through all of this. Stopping our work for a full day each week is a way of declaring that we are not captive to the treadmill of our society. Sabbath is a tangible expression that our trust is in God, not in ourselves, and that he is able to accomplish his purposes with us and with his world whether or not we get everything done that we think we need to. It allows us to experience the reality that everything which really needs to get done can be accomplished within the time that God has given for it, without frenzy or rage. It lets us experience his faithfulness, and demonstrates that we are dependent on God and that he certainly is not dependent on us. And that is clearly a reality with which our world desperately needs to come to grips.

I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about how there just didn’t seem to be enough time in a day to get everything done. I expected to get the usual reply: “Yeah, I’m really busy too.” Instead, he asked: “Who’s setting the agenda?”

That’s the question which Sabbath poses us. Jesus said that we can’t serve two masters – God and the power of money. It’s either one or the other – poignant words in our present context. And money is only one of the powers which imposes its demands on our time and energy every day. Technology, comfort, power, success, reputation, destruction, death – these and many others captivate us and drive us day after day, week after week, year after year. But in the death and resurrection of Jesus, all the powers have been defeated. We have been set free, and the practice of Sabbath allows us to remember and experience that reality in a regular, God-given, life-giving rhythm. By ceasing our involvement with each of these powers for a whole day each week, we demonstrate that Christ has broken their hold over us, we experience the liberation from them which Christ has given us, and we are enabled to re-engage them throughout the rest of the week without becoming enslaved by them once again. The freedom of Sabbath then overflows into the rest of the week and becomes a shalom-filled way of life rather than merely a weekly exception to the norm. In the words of Marva Dawn, the grace of Sabbath enables us to “work out of rest rather than in order to deserve it.” It provides a double-dividend of liberation in relation to the powers: it allows us to identify the impact specific powers have on our lives and, at the same time, it subverts the power of time and the drivenness associated with it. 

In her book The Sense of the Call, Dawn suggests practicing Sabbath with a rhythm of ceasing, reflecting, celebrating and re-engaging. We begin by simply and completely ceasing to pursue whatever agenda we have embraced throughout the rest of the week, even if we’re convinced that agenda has been God’s. In the quiet space which results we reflect on the intersection between our life and God’s, on the story of the Gospel, and the ways in which we are incorporated into that story. In other words, we allow our life and our world to be further shaped by Christ. We then celebrate Him and the life of freedom he has opened up to us. Finally, refreshed and renewed, we re-engage the world around us, primarily through our work, with vigour and purpose.

Rightly entered into, then, Sabbath brings us into God’s rest so that we can be brought back into tune with the shalom of God’s rhythms, and with the rhythms which he has woven into his creation. It is therefore essential to every aspect of our health, individual and communal, especially during times of high demand and stress. And it can be seen as at the very heart of our calling as God’s people because it is a rich, resonant symbol of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the claims of the powers. As such, it is an important aspect of our gospel witness and the service of hope we have to offer the world.

Dawn offers practical suggestions as to the types of things we can do to so that a weekly Sabbath will not only be a cessation of work, but also an intentional embracing of God’s grace and a joyful celebration of his in-breaking reign. These include:

 Beginning and ending the day decisively with some sort of symbolic action or “ritual”
 Developing specific practices for various parts of the day
 Moving work equitably over other days of the week. (Pre-planning)
 Including some form of personal and corporate, public worship
 Not worrying about imperfection
 incorporating play into the day

I must admit, though, that my own practice of Sabbath falls far short of the ideal. And even as I write the last few lines of this article, I feel the pressure of the powers in my life. I am stressed and frenzied because there is still so much more which “needs” to be done before the end of this week. But then I hear my friend’s question once again: “Who sets the agenda?” And I realize that even if I don’t get everything done, it will still be right for me, together with other followers of Jesus, to stop, to reflect, to celebrate, and then to re-engage once again. Sabbath, after all is grace. It is good news. It is Gospel. It is not rest which we have earned, but rest and renewal which God lovingly invites us to enter with him. The day, in the end, will be seized, but now it will be for God’s purposes and not my own.

I join with Marva Dawn in her hope that we all might “enjoy these gifts thoroughly and model them to all the overworked and frenzied persons in our congregations, so that the whole Church offers Sabbath as a Kingdom present (and presence) to our stressed-out world.” 

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. Hebrews 4:1