When I was pastoring a small church in Ohio, I led a small group that consisted of a number of older members. The church was about forty years old at the time, and many of the people who founded the church still worshiped there. The church had a history of following“ every wind of teaching”( Ephesians 4:14) but had finally come around to adopting a broadly evangelical set of doctrinal commitments.
I don’ t recall the overall topic of the Bible study, but after several weeks, we had stumbled upon the topic of Sabbath. One older gentleman winced as soon as I mentioned the word.“ Sabbath?!?! Why are we talking about the Sabbath?” he inquired brusquely. Being the young, snarky pastor I was, I remarked,“ Because it’ s in the Bible, Michael.” He smiled, because he knew we were going to get into it.
“ We’ re under the New Covenant. I don’ t need to follow the Sabbath. That’ s legalism,” he said quickly.
“ Don’ t you think there’ s something about the rhythm that God tried to instill into the Israelites,” I asked gently.
“ No, that was for the Israelites. I’ m not Jewish.”
We went back and forth for a few minutes. I tried to explain to him that the Sabbath is rooted in creation and that there’ s something about it that carries over to the people of God today. He wasn’ t having it, so we moved on to another topic.
Michael’ s thinking on the Sabbath has stuck with me throughout my ministry. When we talk about Sabbath, the charge of legalism usually comes up. By legalism, I mean attaching certain practices or behaviors to your faith in order to attain a special standing before God. In other words, a legalist“ adds to salvation.” Such charges aren’ t wrong. Folks like Martin Luther and John Calvin thought that encouraging Christians to honor the Sabbath day was akin to asking us to disregard our freedom in Christ and return to the days of Mosaic law.
The New Testament never says you need to honor the Sabbath day; it’ s the only one of the Ten Commandments that isn’ t repeated. However, Jesus also never says,“ The Sabbath is over,” and neither do the apostles. The apostles simply changed the day set aside for honoring the risen Lord from Saturday to Sunday; they didn’ t do away with having a special day included in the rhythms of every week. Yet, keep in mind that keeping the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments; this puts it on par with“ Don’ t cheat on your spouse,”“ Don’ t idolize things that aren’ t God,” and“ Don’ t murder.”
" Creation itself is structured around cycles of work and rest."
So what should we do with Sabbath? I contend that Sabbath is a means by which we can reclaim our status as God’ s image bearers by finding rest and resisting our culture’ s push for productivity and dehumanization. Sabbath is a key component of tending the divine image in us and can have a powerful effect on our own self-image and relationship
57