As I have been meditating on this idea of waiting on God, there is one more angle I wanted to dissect, the concept of Sabbath. Sabbath has its origins in the Creation story as God creates everything from nothing for 6 days and then rests on day 7. Sabbath is a part of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions as a time set aside as Holy and restful as the word is literally translated “Rest.”
I wouldn’t call myself an expert on really anything, but I know basically nothing about the Muslim religion so I’m just going to leave that topic for another time. I have, however, spent some time studying the history behind some of the Jewish and Christian sacraments or customs and can share some insights. For the Jewish culture, and therefore Jesus, when He walked the earth, Sabbath starts on Friday night at sundown. Anytime Jesus refers to the Sabbath, this is what He is talking about. As the years after Jesus’ resurrection continued to grow and the Church became more distinguishable from the Jewish culture it was birthed from, in many people’s minds, the Holy day was moved to Sunday, to remember or keep as sacred the day Jesus rose from the dead.
I am sure that there would be people who would like to engage in an argument about which one is more “right” but that would miss the whole point. God gave the Sabbath to the Israelites as a way to teach them about Himself and to provide for them what they truly needed. In Deuteronomy 5, the Lord gives the people the Ten Commandments. The third one is to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. The New Testament is filled with stories of the religious leaders of the day totally misinterpreting what this meant and the countless ritual things that people were not allowed to do on the Sabbath because those things were considered work. To this day, if you are in Israel during Shabbat, the elevator doors will open and shut on their own at every floor so that no one has to push a button and therefore break the Sabbath.
I’ve recently started listening to a podcast called The Bema Podcast. Bema is the title for the stone that the Torah or other manuscripts were read from in synagogues. This tradition has been carried through until present day and would look like a raised platform where worship and preaching happened in modern day churches. The layout has changed as the Bema stone was typically in the center of the room.
The podcast goes back to the beginning of the bible and looks at the ancient Hebrew and reads the passages from an eastern mindset. I won’t go deep into it all, please go and take a listen if this intrigues you, but story telling and teaching and learning are all very different from Eastern culture to Western culture. We tend to look at the text with a scientific, give me the facts, mindset and that’s really not how it was written because that’s not how Eastern truths are passed down through the generations.
But one of the biggest takeaways for me so far has been this topic of rest and Sabbath. For example, if you read back through the creation story, you will see that after every “day” of creation, you hear, “there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” This is the way the Jewish day was counted. It starts in the evening. Their day starts with rest. They don’t work themselves out then rest from it, they rest, then work from a place of fullness that gets spent in their work.
The way that we have the Bible written, it is easy to forget when it was actually written down and first given to the people. Moses is actually the one that first gives the Torah to the people. They have just come out of slavery in Egypt where they have never had any rest. They have been told their worth is dependent on work and God immediately sets forth the idea of resting in who He says they are, His children, not what they can do. They are to trust in Him, His provision and get their worth and value from Him.
Sabbath wasn’t given to them to add more rules about what they could and couldn’t do, more rules about what was work and what wasn’t. Jesus affirms this when He says in Mark 2, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Sabbath was never meant to be a burden, it was meant for freedom. It was meant to help us release our tendency to try and earn or work for our goodness. It was supposed to help us remember where our worth came from; being a child of God. Jesus again exposes the heart of the matter. Are you “obeying” the sabbath to try and prove your goodness, your godliness, your worth? Or are you taking the gift of rest that the Lord offers to enjoy your place as His child, trusting Him to provide all that you need?
I’m quoting Rich Villas here when he said, “Sabbath is one of the clearest signs of the gospel of grace. You intentionally accomplish nothing and God still loves you. Such good news.”
As I look forward to the next season of my life, my main goal is to factor in a real time of weekly Sabbath. I don’t think it matters what specific 24 hours it is, mainly just a time set aside every week where I refrain from anything that is me trying to earn God’s love or gain value or worth. A time to sit back and enjoy the blessings around me. A time to take a big inhale and exhale. A time to experience the overwhelming joy of the presence of God.
When we do this, we affirm our trust in God’s provision, in His ability to fulfill His promises. We say again that we trust His timing, His path, His strength and power. We lay down our desire to work and work to make whatever we want happen.
When we do this, we live out our trust in God’s goodness and grace. We say again that we cannot earn or work for our salvation but wholly trust in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for our redemption.
We are constantly lied to about our worth and value coming from what we can earn and accomplish, even “for the Lord.” When we choose to first rest in who He says we are, we choose His love to determine our worth.
When we can fully trust all things these to God, we find the true peace, joy, and fulfillment that we are desperately searching for in everything else. We have to let go, stop striving, rest first, trust Him and let Him fill us so that we can more perfectly love the world around with with the overflow of our hearts.
Your Fellow Traveler
lacey
Find True Joy 