A Sunday REST? Some will remember the alliterative song, “It’s Just Another Manic Monday.”Now we rush through our senseless Sundays no differently than a ‘manic Monday.’
In that sense, recalling when everything once CLOSED ON SUNDAY, now we long for those Sundays when the supermarket wasn’t overcrowded and our mail carrier didn’t deliver our latest online purchase to our door.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Today’s sermon was so good I took two naps! (That was after I returned home, Pastor.) I needed that Sunday rest.
Don’t you?
Jesus invites us to rest, actually inviting the weary (and who isn’t?) to come beside Him in life. Unfortunately, Christians and Jews seem to do no better at rest or taking a day off for the Lord God.
In today’s Summer Scriptural Rerun the Messiah points us to the LORD’s Commandment given to Israel through Moses that we so easily disobey.
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.
Leviticus 23:2 KJV
Holy Holidays
We’ve lost something of the holiness of the holidays in the translation. Worldliness seeps steadily into our daily lives and we don’t necessarily relate to what some versions of the Bible call, ‘sacred assemblies,’ or ‘holy feasts.’
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.
Even though raised in the church, I didn’t until I looked it up during my college years. A convocation מִקְרָא is a sacred gathering, a called public meeting for the reading of God’s word.
Perhaps you’ve noted our digression from holy worship to a more culturally palatable feast of entertainment at church.
Priests and religious officials would have taken all sorts of rules (and definitions of work) from Leviticus, which we recognize as the Sabbath Commandment. Yet what many contemporary gatherings may miss or dismiss from Exodus and Deuteronomy is holiness.
Seasons and celebrations between the sabbaths may be designated as holy convocations; days for feasting — neither a time for fasting, nor ordinary work day.
The sabbath of the LORD, which Christ points out it is ‘made for man,‘ is, never-the-less, set aside by the LORD for Holiness.
So what are these convocations? And more importantly, how do their principles apply to us today?
Note that these seven prescribed seasons of holy rest do not include certain notable minor holiday observances.
Hanukkah חֲנֻכָּה and Christmas??
Christmas and Hanukkah both focus on light and God’s faithfulness in helping men (and women) of faith to be restored to holiness.
The minor celebration of Hanukkah began during the second temple period, about 200 years before Christ and was also known as the feast of dedication.
The minor convocation of Christmas points to the holiness of God, humbly descending to us as the Son of Man; a baby like all others, yet without sin, like no other man.
This, too, is nothing new, as you can see from the rebuke of the Lord through the prophet Amos. His complaint sounds much like that of contemporary unbelievers, when Christians most of all ought to be questioning our own Christmas traditions.
God deserves worship שָׁחָה, not occasions of excess and entertainment.
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.”
Matthew 2:2
Religious Convocations
Without drilling down to the detail of ancient worship to the Lord called for in the Law, let’s briefly examine these other Sabbath rests. I invite you to research these scriptures and celebrations further, since I will only comment on each briefly.
The seventh new moon or the feast of Trumpets (Num 28:11-15; Num 29:1-6)
The Sabbatical year (Exd 23:10-11; Lev 25:2-7)
The year of jubilee (Lev 25:8-16; Lev 27:16-25)
“The Passover was kept just before the harvest commenced, Pentecost at the conclusion of the corn harvest and before the vintage, the feast of Tabernacles after all the fruits of the ground had been gathered in.
As previously mentioned, Jews celebrated additional feasts after destruction of the first Temple.
The feast of Purim
The feast of Dedication (Hanukkah)
The Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev 16:1; Lev 16:34; Lev 23:26-32; Num 29:7-11).
Christians cannot overemphasize God’s requirement of holiness, achieved by atonement for our sins.
God presented Christ Jesus as an atoning sacrifice in his blood, received through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.
The Sacrifice and death of Christ, made possible by the incarnation of God in the flesh of Jesus, exceeds the importance of our holy celebrations.
Traditions of Sabbath Rests
Contemporary worshipers may not relate to cultures of the times of these designated rests from the Lord; however, hear the Lord’s purpose in these additional Sabbaths made for man.
On each of these occasions every male Israelite was commanded “to appear before the Lord” (Deu 27:7; Neh 8:9-12).
The attendance of women was voluntary. (Luk 2:41; 1Sa 1:7; 1Sa 2:19.)
The promise that God would protect their homes (Exd 34:23-24) while all the males were absent in Jerusalem at these feasts was always fulfilled.
“During the whole period between Moses and Christ we never read of an enemy invading the land at the time of the three festivals. The first instance on record is thirty-three years after they had withdrawn from themselves the divine protection by imbruing their hands in the Saviour’s blood, when Cestius, the Roman general, slew fifty of the people of Lydda (Joppa) while all the rest had gone up to the feast of Tabernacles, A.D. 66.
A few details of worship
Of the new moon festivals the Lord commands: “this is the burnt offering of every month throughout the months of the year‘And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work.’
All men worship the Lord and all men have rest for this worship.
Of the Sabbatical year the Lord commands rest for the field, the vineyard and orchard.
Celebration of the year of Jubilee each fiftieth year: “In the Year of Jubilee each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors…Be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce a crop large enough for three years…
‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.
Leviticus 25:23
“You are to allow the redemption of any land you occupy.
We walk with the Lord: our land, a temporary possession of sojourners in this temporary world where we work. The Lord grants redemption to us, the ability to repurchase what He has rightfully given to us from all that is His. Our worship returns but a portion of His abundance to our Lord.
The Lord’s laws are unlike our own unbalanced views of righteousness and justice. His ways are higher than our ways. Though the birth of our Redeemer is important, Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection challenge the sinners of this world with consequence for our worldly ways.
Are you caught up in the restless rush of the holidays?
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
Christmas defines the beginning of the life of God Incarnate, His gift to us: “new birth into a living hope…”
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance.
15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.
“Be holy, because I am holy. – 1 Peter 1:15b, Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7
Christ-mass: ‘because I am holy.’
Be holy, because I am holy. – This is our promised rest, through a babe in a manger, a sinless Savior born for the Cross.
We were making plans for Sunday shopping after church, but then we missed church. Some Sundays we hurry out of time-extended gatherings at our church to join the crowds in local restaurants. This week we had no Sabbath and no rest.
As Christians we were raised to know that actually Saturday is the Sabbath – שַׁבָּת – shabbath, the seventh day of the week; however Christians call Sunday, our ‘day of rest.’ Yet when was the last time you felt like you had ‘a day of rest?’
Closed on Sunday – Rest in the Lord (it’s a Commandment).
So what’s this “rest day” all about?
And what does the Sabbath have to do with God?
After all, when we attended church last week for more than three hours, it seemed alright to slip out early (before the music and worship mercifully concluded).
Lot’s of rules, but little holiness
You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.
You must not do any work —
Exodus 20:10
—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates.
So who’s working?
We are shopping… and we have to eat. It’s all those kitchen and superstore slaves who are working, not us.
Isn’t a day off a sort of ‘Sabbath?’
The Bible seems to have a lot of old rules that don’t apply to Sunday.
Rest from Above
“Observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Whoever profanes it must be put to death. If anyone does work on it, that person must be cut off from his people. – Exodus 31:13
Imagine anyone, even devout Christians and most Jews, calling for capital punishment for someone profaning the Sabbath. Yet the Lord established this holiness of routine for a set-aside culture to make us different.
שָׁבַת shabath: Rest, when no one else rests; worship, when no one else acknowledges the LORD.
Holiness and rest require separation. These are more than a command, but a gift from the Lord to set us apart from the world.
LORD, who is like you among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders?
Exodus 15:11 CSB
The One True God is unlike any other god!
He is not like the angels nor is the LORD like a man. We were created in His Image from the dust of the earth and the Lord breathed spirit into our lowly being. GOD is above all, separated by the glory of His holiness, and He commands us to rest, making the Sabbath holy.
An archaic common understanding was that the LORD is like a King, therefore man is a common subject of this heavenly King or Kings. Mankind is separated from the Eternal Highest by His own holiness.
We are commoners, yet made in His Image.
Chaos reigns in the life of man, while in the creation of God righteousness will reign, providing rest in our purpose and meaning.
Rest requires our holy separation from the chaotic fallen daily drudgery of this selfish failing flesh.
23 On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry — 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence —which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests —and also gave some to his companions?”
27 Then he told them,
“The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Mark 2:27
A Sabbath for mankind
Dear sojourner through this difficult life,
Are you not famished for the bread of heaven?
Jesus journeyed from town to town with good news for all and as he does so, even on the Sabbath, the Lord and His disciples snack on the grain of the fields.
(You eat on the Sabbath, right?) It is no sin, according to Jesus.
In fact, the Lord refers to a time when David, anointed King of Israel, fled Saul and was fed by a priest, who replaced the Bread of the Presence set aside for worship with warm bread.
John 6:51
“The Sabbath was made for man,” Jesus assures us; but rest a little.
It is the Lord’s will that we separate this day of rest from our week, dedicating our Sabbath-rest to Him.
Lord of the Sabbath
Jesus also assures us that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
In another place in scripture Jesus refers to Himself as the manna – the bread of heaven. Jesus IS the bread and wine, the body and blood Present on the altar of Sacrifice. He IS the manna of life sent down from heaven, that we might have eternal life.
The Son of God IS the Son of Man, He who commanded us to rest on the Sabbath. He IS Lord of the Sabbath and the rest of your week.
Will you set aside a time of holiness to worship the Lord?
Consider the Lord of שָׁבַת [the Sabbath] this Sabbath. Set aside a time of rest.
