The rhythm of Sabbath: Why Sabbath?

In my last post we covered the idea that what we call spiritual disciplines or spiritual rhythms are a way of experiencing God's grace. We said that the word grace means more than forgiveness and is better defined as, "receiving from God exactly what we need exactly when we need it." That means that God gives us gifts of peace, wisdom, guidance, comfort, and so many other gifts of grace. We also said that as much as we wish we could receive those gifts from God, we often don't. The primary reason we don’t receive these gifts is because we haven't learned how to come to him to receive them because we're so busy and preoccupied with trying to accomplish our own will.  So in this post, we are going to look at developing a spiritual rhythm of practicing Sabbath. 

Sabbath is a universal principal, not simply a command

There will be some who struggle when they hear the word “Sabbath” because their gut reaction goes something like this. “We're under the new covenant and not under the Old Testament law!" They struggle with the concept of Sabbath because it feels like a form of legalism.  My response to that would be that Sabbath was actually a rhythm that God intended to be part of life, long before Sabbath ever became part of the Old Testament law. 

In reality, Sabbath is a pre-law universal principal. Way before God came down on Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus, God established the rhythm of Sabbath back in Genesis.  He didn't start by commanding Sabbath, but he simply engaged in it and invited humanity into it with him.  We read in Genesis 2:1-3 that, "…the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed.  On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.  And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation."  In Genesis 1 we learn about God creating everything that exists. He created each part of creation and then gave them their work. The lights in the sky were created and then they were given the work and purpose of governing the day and the night skies. He created plants and trees and gave them their work of being fruitful and multiplying through seeds. He created animals and gave them the work of being fruitful and multiplying through having offspring. Then he created humanity and gave them their work and purpose. He gave humans the same commands that he gave the plants and animals; to be fruitful and multiply. 

However, he goes beyond that and says, "Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” (Genesis 1:28) God is giving them control and influence over his creation. “Manage it well. Build civilizations, make culture, expand the garden to cover the whole world, and do it in a way that honors me.” That's quite a bit of work to do. However, before humanity can even start this huge task, God says, “Rest with me and let’s enjoy together what I’ve created.”

Humanity was given work to do, but God's first desire was to be together and enjoy each other's presence. They were to celebrate the Sabbath by delighting in life together. This flies in the face of everything western culture teaches us. We're taught from a very young age that our purpose is to achieve, strive, and pursue the good life. Work hard so that you can play hard. Apparently, God wanted us to play hard before we got down to working hard!

You will either choose Sabbath or be forced into Sabbath

Over the years, I had read a large number of books on spiritual disciplines. However, the disciplines didn't really become something that I truly valued until I slammed head-first into exhaustion, burnout, and anxiety. I had spent 15 years in full time ministry pushing hard to get things done and accomplishing goals. All of a sudden, my body began to physically shake. I had been surviving on adrenaline and sheer willpower (and even on God's grace of endurance) for so long that eventually it caught up with me. My body needed rest. My soul needed rest. God graciously let me run my race without me observing Sabbath, but he designed me to live well only when I embraced it.  We wear busy like a badge of honor when it's actually a sign of sickness.

In Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath he says, "If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath- our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us." That was certainly true for me. The idea is that if we do not embrace the gift of Sabbath, then we will get one anyway, but it will usually come in the form of sickness and inability to keep going at the previous pace of life. 

Not observing Sabbath is a sign of our sickness because it means we are unwilling to admit that we are created beings with finite energy and abilities. It is a sickness because we struggle to believe that God is capable of keeping things going without our endless efforts. Eugene Peterson says that, “Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing.  It’s filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s action. It’s taking charge. The word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective “busy” set as a modifier to “pastor” should sound to our ears like “adulterous” to characterize a wife, or “embezzling” to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront. Hilary of Tours diagnosed our pastoral busyness as ‘irreligiosa solicitudo pro Deo,’ – ‘a blasphemous anxiety to do God’s work for him.’ ”

I agree with Peterson in that it's actually harder to embrace rest than it is to go with the flow and keep working ourselves to the bone. It's hard to take time to notice God and rest. It’s hard to cease our striving and be stuck with ourselves and others, with nothing to accomplish or keep ourselves distracted. It's much easier to keep pursuing our dreams than to stop and see what God may have for us. However, if we don't embrace this gift of Sabbath, our bodies will rebel and will quit being our ally to our rebellion.

Embracing and imagining a day of joy

Now that we've wrestled with why it's important and why it's dangerous to avoid it, let's turn our imaginations to what Sabbath might look like. I believe much of the reason that we don't embrace the Sabbath is because we get stuck in the list of things we shouldn't do. I've also found that personally, it's difficult to sit and think about how we would fill an entire day with things that fill our souls. We get stuck trying to think through details instead of jumping into joy. We settle for waiting for vacations or numbing out with entertainment. Deep down there is something inside us that knows that life was meant to be more than endless striving and stressing. We know that life was meant to be enjoyed. So if you're ready to return to the intention God had for us at the beginning of creation, then we'll explore how to Sabbath in our next post.