“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).
We are in a series of devotions about the Ten Commandments. Last week we took up commandments 1-3, in which God spoke all these words specifically to tell us how to worship. Jesus summed them up by telling us in Matthew 22:37 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” The last five commandments are the famous “shalt nots:” Do not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie or slander, or covet. We will take these up in a future Chaplain’s Corner.
Today we take up the fourth commandment, and next week we will take up the fifth. I think it is instructive that God starts with the verb “Remember.” I realize that our minds are very active, and thoughts race unbidden about so many things and people and events from the distant past up to the present. In a sense, we are passively remembering all the time. But in Exodus 20:8, we are commanded to intentionally remember, or as the Oxford Dictionary states it in this case, “to not forget to do something; to actually do what you have to do.” We are to intentionally observe the Sabbath.
Again, going to the Oxford Dictionary, Sabbath means “a day of religious observance and abstinence from work.” Sabbath is traditionally observed by Jews on Saturday and by Christians on Sunday, but the command is not specific to a particular day of the week; it is to follow God’s example and to rest one day each week. As the Scripture states: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:9-11)
Just as we looked to the New Testament to see what Jesus had to say about the first three commandments, it is important for us to understand Jesus’ teaching on this fourth commandment. To the Jews, the command to remember the Sabbath means to remember the rest. The Jews in Jesus’ day became very legalistic about what it meant to rest and do no work. But when the Pharisees criticized Jesus for working on a Sabbath by plucking some grains to eat, “Then he (Jesus) said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)
The writer of Hebrews gives us even more insight. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:9-11) *.
Under the Law, the Jews entered into rest by ceasing from their work. Under Christ, we enter into rest by receiving the grace of God for our salvation. When we remember Jesus’ finished work on the cross, we remember that Jesus is our rest. Now here is where we are encouraged to honor the spirit of this law rather than the letter. Paul teaches: “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. “(Colossians 2:16-17).
Under Christ, the idea is not that Sabbath has been abolished, but that every day is a day to remember to rest in the finished work of God.
In Christ,
Judy
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