When I was a child, Sunday was my favorite day of the week. Being a pastor’s daughter,
I got to get up early with Dad, get dressed before the sun rose, and begin the day setting up for
Kid’s Church, or brewing coffee or setting up a puppet stage with my friends. I loved Sundays
because they seemed to overflow with activity.
It wasn’t until sixth grade that I realized Sunday was supposed to be the Sabbath. This came
with the shock that if this was indeed true, I had failed to keep the Sabbath holy nearly every
week of my life. Furthermore; how would I keep it now that I knew? Should I stop volunteering
altogether on Sunday? What about my father, or my grandfather, who is also a pastor? Breaking
the fourth commandment seems simply part of their jobs.
What does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy? If you’ve taken Foundations of Christian
Thought, you may remember that the most basic definition for holiness is being “set apart.”
What does God mean in Exodus 20:8 when He tells us to “keep the Sabbath holy?” He means we
must intentionally take a day or a time and set it apart from our other days and times – it must be
separate from the rest.
Exodus 20:9-11 recognizes the “seventh” day to be this assigned resting period and that no
work should be done on this day, not by anyone. God has given us an example in the creation
narrative in Genesis; He created the world and everything in it in six days, and set the last aside,
making it holy, for a day of consecrated rest. The seventh day in Jewish tradition has commonly
been thought of as our Saturday, but the Sabbath would commonly move, as it was dependent on
annual Jewish festivals, and would sometimes even take place twice in a row. Early Christians
attempted to separate themselves from the Jewish church and celebrate the resurrection so they
choose the first day of the week, our Sunday, to be “set apart” for corporate worship and rest.
This tradition has lasted centuries and is still practiced in churches around the world.
The day that our culture set aside for this time, following church tradition, and being
obedient to scripture, is Sunday. We worship together as a church in the morning, afternoon or
evening, and the remainder of the day is understood to be a time of intentional rest for
individuals before the work week begins. But notice I said culture – not God.
Please hear me, I am not saying that Sunday is the wrong day for rest. But it is better to still
have a Sabbath, a time of intentional rest set aside for you in obedience to God, on another day
of the week then to forsake one all together.
God created the Sabbath for us. He even provided a schedule for it in Scripture and creation,
and it might be easier to intentionally rest on the day dedicated to Him in our culture. But for
some of us this is not possible. Whether you are a pastor preaching and caring for a
congregation, a nurse working long hours through the weekends, a student working as much as
possible to help pay tuition, or simply an active member of your church, although observing the
Sabbath on Sunday may not be possible for you, you still must set aside time to rest
intentionally, as God commanded. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
