Sabbath - stop

Sabbath • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 36:22
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· 5 viewsTo follow after Jesus is to adopt his overall lifestyle as our own and arrange our daily life around his presence and peace. This does not begin with doing, it begins with stopping.
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As we begin a new year, it seems like a good time to pause and think for a while about the various rhythms of our lives. Some of us have very busy lives always rushing from one place to the next. Others of us have fairly slow lives with plenty of free time in our days. Either way, the daily routines of our lives tend to follow a pattern of rhythms that make up our days and weeks and months.
These rhythms are not accidental or random. Neither are they completely of our own making. The Bible tells us that the flow and pattern of our time is something built into the creation itself by God. We see it clearly with things like the changing of the seasons or the flipping of the calendar to a new year. In particular it is the new year that prompts us to think of things like summarizing the highlights of the past year, and plan ahead into what goals or accomplishments we might like to experience in the coming year. All this plays into our interaction with the daily, weekly, and monthly rhythms of our lives.
ideas of sabbath: day of rules to follow, day to catch up, day off for fun, day for rest, day to stop
There is one rhythm in particular I want us to think about in the coming weeks. That is a pattern which the Bible calls sabbath. The idea of sabbath may evoke all kinds of thoughts and reactions. Maybe you have childhood memories of various things you were not allowed to do on Sunday, resulting in an idea of sabbath being about a list of rules to follow. Maybe sabbath has more the feeling of a day to catch up on everything you have fallen behind on completing during the week, resulting in an idea of sabbath being a buffer-zone to make sure everything on your list gets done. Maybe sabbath holds a rhythm of events that only happen on Sunday: going to church or gathering with family for a big meal. Sabbath itself seems to be a loaded term packed with all kinds of things that may-or-may-not belong. That should come as no surprise. After all, we see over and over again in the gospels that Jesus gets in trouble with the Jewish religious leaders primarily for breaking their idea of the sabbath commandment; it was a loaded term for the people of Israel back then too.
So, as you consider what the rhythms of your 2025 are going to look like in the year ahead, let’s take some time to be reminded of what the pattern of sabbath is all about and why it is such an important part of our rhythms for living. I am starting this series by pulling a few verses from the Old Testament that give us the establishment of sabbath, when it first shows up and when it first becomes a pattern to follow.
Genesis 2:1–3 (NIV)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Exodus 20:8–11 (NIV)
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Sabbath first shows up in Genesis as part of the creation story. We note there that God himself observes a sabbath. Later, in Exodus it comes as part of the ten commandments. The people of Israel are also instructed to observe a sabbath pattern. Let’s use these two passages to give us our first glimpse into not only what sabbath is, but more importantly why it is established.
Hebrew sabat “sabbath” = stop, cease
In the creation account of Genesis sabbath first takes place on the seventh day when God had completed the work of creation. Genesis 2 tells us that God rested from all his work on the seventh day. The Hebrew word is sabbath. Verse 2 reads, on the seventh day [God] sabbathed from all his work. “Rested” is not the most accurate English translation to use there because our English word “rested” carries several meanings. The better English word for understanding sabbath is “stop” or “cease.” All that Genesis 2:2 is telling us is that God stopped his working on the seventh day.
practice of sabbath needs to begin with stopping
I think it is worth us spending our time in the first message of this series on sabbath simply considering what it means to observe a pattern of stopping in our rhythm of life. These first two messages will bend in that direction; today considering what it means to stop, and next week considering what it means to rest. Then I will come back later in the last two messages of this series to look at how we fill the space carved out by sabbath. But it all begins with stopping. We cannot talk about things like worshipping, Bible study, prayer, or any of the other faith practices until we first talk about what it looks like to make room in our lives for these faith practices. Many of us are already busy people. Piling more things to do into our calendars is not necessarily helpful, even if the things we pile in are good things like worship and prayer. It is critically necessary to establish a rhythm that makes room for these sabbath activities. This is why sabbath at its very core is about stopping everything else.
The fourth commandment in Exodus 20 extends this observation of sabbath as a regular pattern into our lives. It creates a structure in which we regularly stop everything else for a period of time. Yet more important than the ‘what’ is the ‘why.’ I could end the message right here if sabbath ceasing was just about the ‘what.’ I would say, so just take a day to stop everything else you normally do on the other seven days of the week. The fourth commandment is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but an example of the kinds of things that the people of Old Testament Israel were to stop doing in observation of sabbath. It focused upon their normal daily routines of work. But that does not get us to the ‘why’ of sabbath. The only thing that leaves us with is a bounded set of rules. Anything that might qualify as working should stop for a day—however it is you go about defining “work.”
we cannot answer, how do I keep sabbath?
until we can answer, why do I keep sabbath?
why does God take sabbath?
I think a better understanding of why we stop in observation of sabbath is more helpful. Understanding why we should stop gives us greater clarity understanding what we should stop. So, let’s talk about why sabbath exists in the first place. The simple answer might be that we observe sabbath because God tells us to. That does not seem like a satisfying answer to me; it doesn’t really answer why. Take it one step further and we recognize that God commands his people to observe sabbath because God himself observes sabbath. That gets us a step closer, but still does not really answer why. But it does get us right to the doorstep of the real question that needs to be asked. Why does God observe sabbath? If we can answer that question, I think we can understand why sabbath stopping exists as a pattern we build into the rhythm of our lives.
Genesis does not explain how God created, but why God created
So, why does God take a sabbath? To understand that, we need to spend a little time noting the way in which the seventh day of creation fits in with the previous six days in Genesis 1. I’ll put it up on the screen, but you might want to flip open a Bible to see the big picture of Genesis 1 at a glance. It is the theologian Walter Brueggemann who writes that the book of Genesis as a whole is a book of ‘why’ not a book of ‘how.’ In other words, the creation account in the opening chapters of Genesis are not intended to tell us how God created the world; rather, it is an explanation of why God created the world. This is especially helpful in understanding what has become a debate between those who insist the six days of creation in Genesis were literal 24-hour days, and those who say the creation account encompasses an expansive period of time in which God set into motion billions of years worth of evolution. That debate hinges on an assumption that Genesis is meant to tell us how God created the world. I agree with Walter Brueggemann that Genesis was never meant to tell us how God created the world; it is meant to explain for us why God created the world.
This is the reason why the official position of the Christian Reformed Church on the literal 24-hour days verses expanded evolution is that the Christian Reformed Church has no official position. It could be either one. It doesn’t matter because it is not the point of Genesis to tell us how God did it. The author of Genesis is more interested in explaining why God did it. To understand that, we need to take a closer look at these seven days which will make clear to us that the sabbath is not simply a tack-on at the end of the week. It actually fits into the overall pattern of why God did what he did in creation.
days 1-3 — separation
days 4-6 — filling
The first six days of creation work like a grid. Days one, two, and three form one side of the grid. And days four, five, and six form the other side of the grid. The first three days are all about separating spaces. And the next three days are all about filling in those spaces. The days correspond together in that way. Follow along by first looking at days one and four.
Genesis 1:3–5 (NIV)
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Genesis 1:14–19 (NIV)
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Day one shows a separation between light and dark. And day four fills those spaces—the sun to fill the space for light, and the moon and stars to fill the space for dark. Notice the pattern repeats on the other days.
Genesis 1:6–8 (NIV)
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Genesis 1:20–23 (NIV)
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
Day two shows a separation between water and sky. And day five fills those spaces with fish and birds. One more time we see the pattern with the next set of days.
Genesis 1:9–13 (NIV)
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Genesis 1:24–31 (NIV)
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Day three shows a separation between the land and the sea, with the land producing vegetation. And day six fills the space on the land with living creatures, including people.
God’s purpose in creation: to set aside separated spaces, and then for those spaces to be appropriately filled
You see the pattern. The entire creation narrative is presented as a series of separation and filling. Spaces of separation are set aside, and then those spaces are filled. And in the end God passes off the ongoing maintenance of these spaces to the people he creates. This pattern displays for us the ‘why’ of creation. It is God’s purpose to set aside separated spaces, and then for those spaces to be appropriately filled. We should not forget the context for this. Genesis was written for the people of Israel during the time of wandering in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan. It was written to a group of people who were on their way to the promised land. The promised land of Canaan represented for them a special space that God was separating just for them. And it was God’s covenant promise to lead his people in to fill that land. The creation story in Genesis is itself filled with purpose for God’s people.
day 7 — sabbath follows the same pattern of separation and filling
sabbath (stop) creation vocational mandate for a time
And on the seventh day God stops. This again follows the pattern with the same purpose. In establishing sabbath, God sets a separation—a separate time. Six days of the week are set for the work God mandated for his people, to “fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28) All that we do as our god-mandated vocation to be caretakers of this world has its own separate time and space for that to happen. The seventh day is separated apart from that. On the seventh day the vocational creation mandate we are given by God stops for that time on that day.
We are not legalistic about this. After all, we don’t close hospitals on Sundays. We still have first responders and law enforcement officers providing protection on Sundays. And for that matter, Sunday is not even the sabbath; it’s Saturday. Which specific time you carve out and set aside is not the issue. The issue is that there ought to be a rhythm in which a time somewhere is separated in your life to stop for just a bit.
we cannot fill our lives with sabbath activities unless we have first separated the space in our time by stopping all else
In the coming weeks of this series we are going talk more about what we fill into that sabbath space. After all the creation pattern is one of separating and filling. Sabbath is no different. It is a sacred time that is separated from all the rest; and it is meant to be filled. But for this week it is enough for us to begin by noting that we cannot fill our lives with sabbath activities unless we have first separated the space in our time by stopping all else.
one — identify distractions
Let me end with just a few practical suggestions for setting up a separated space in your weekly rhythm. We are not talking yet this week about what you do to fill those spaces of time. That is coming later in the series. For now we are only thinking about how we can best embrace a practice of stopping. One. Identify the distractions that simply need to be put away. I will tell you a big one for me and maybe for many of you is the cell phone. I have set times when I my phone goes into do-not-disturb mode so I am not alerted to calls texts and voicemails. During that time, I am not checking those things even if I am using my phone to listen to music or read an article or something like that. What is it for you that simply needs to be put away in order to break apart from your regular weekly rhythm?
two — mark beginning and end
Two. Think about a beginning and ending ritual of some kind. Some traditional Jewish people mark the beginning of their sabbath (sundown on Friday) with the lighting of an oil lamp which they continue to keep lit until the ending of their sabbath (sundown on Saturday). Might there be some kind of special little practice or ritual you can do that physically marks the beginning and ending of your sabbath time? My grandparents marked their sabbath around their church community. For them, sabbath began on Sunday morning when they went to church and gathered with their church family. They would spend the day after church visiting with family and friends. And then they would end the day by going back to church for an evening service. Their sabbath marked a beginning and ending with communal worship gatherings. Whether it is lighting a candle, eating a specific meal, or gathering with church family, what is one thing you might do that physically marks a beginning and end to your separated sabbath time?
Our goal and purpose as followers of Jesus is to become more complete disciples of Jesus. That process of sanctification which the Holy Spirit works into our hearts does not begin by doing more; it begins by doing less. Jesus says,
Matthew 11:28–30 (NIV)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus invites you to a rhythm of life which includes a sacred time separated out from the week for stopping. Jesus himself says he will meet us and give us rest in those moments.