Skip to main content

And on the seventh day...

Figure 1http://www.montreat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mountains-2-400x250-300x187.jpg

We think of “Sabbath” as a time to NOT DO something.  We stop.  We wait.  We rest.  We sit.  However, that is a lot of work!  I think of Sabbath as “making a space.”  It is an active choosing, remembering, and prioritizing a holy space for God.  It is less about “letting go” and more about “leaning in” to the Breath of the Holy Spirit.  In this context Sabbath is a return to our making.  You see, in the beginning “the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). It is the breath of the Lord God that stirs dust into human.  It is the breath of the Lord God that makes us living and gives us a life.  Therefore, “Sabbath” – a time for rest and renewal, is an opportunity to reach for that breath of God which gives us life and through which we have our being. 

Jesus tells us that the Sabbath is a gift, “Sabbath is made for man not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).  Exodus reminds us that the commandment was given, and all were asked to “celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations” as “a perpetual covenant (Exodus 31:6). Covenants are Holy Promises that tell us who and whose we are; so it follows that a Sabbath is a celebration of whose and who we are. We are filled with the breath of God and the ones who celebrate that gift. As a covenant, Sabbath is not just a 24 hour period during which we must refrain from action; it is a touchstone of identity and refreshment.  “…2By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it God rested from all God’s work which was created and made” (Genesis 2:2-3). 

As I write this, I am doing the hard work of preparing for Sabbath time.  I am sending emails, writing articles, confirming arrangements, and cleaning behind the refrigerator.  My children say that I do more housework in the day before going out of town than I do in a month of just living. You see, for me, Sabbath time is preceded by days of chaos and creation of the Sunday School/everyday sort.  When there is finally a moment to listen and to “lean in” to the breath of the Holy Spirit, whether in the mountains or at the beach, I may be fully present.  This listening is sometimes VERY active. This year I am heading to Montreat, NC for the Arts, Recreation and Worship Conference where we like to say, “On the 7th day, God played.”

Peace, friends! 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What shall I give Him, poor as I am...

We made it! Christmas is over!  Well, not quite yet, it isn’t.  There are those pesky twelve days of Christmas.  The celebrating could go on and on, if we let it! Goodness, the tree is looking dry and empty without a load of boxes and bags underneath it. The ornaments that were hung with surprise, joy, and fondest memories now look somehow out of place.  Can we for one moment stop, and think about this?  Think about that first rush of joy when a new child is born, when you first really felt the presence of the living God in your life?  What about the first time a young Sunday School class looked at you in awe of the wonderful stories you were telling them?  That moment sparkled with hope that was bursting with possibility!  Here and now in the “ bleak mid-winter ” of post-New Years, to borrow from  Christina Rossetti and hymn 144 in the Presbyterian Hymnal Glory to God , we find ourselves in the sleep deprived, post-adrenaline rush, vi...
Post a Comment
Read more

This summer be a FIG and DIG

Be a FIG and DIG This is one of those days when you think you are doing one thing, and you end up doing another.  I thought I was going to be writing about “BALANCE,” you know—“to everything there is a season.”  Instead, I have spent the morning doing some study about fig trees in the Bible.  Yes,  I said “fig trees,” those things that cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and signs of  the Hebrew People’s abundance and plenty during King Solomon’s time (Genesis 3:7 and 1 Kings 4:25).  The stories most often retold about “figs” in the Bible are the account of Jesus cursing the tree that does not bear fruit, and the parable of the gardener bartering one more year during which he will work diligently to make a fig tree produce fruit.  I looked at 44 instances of “figs” which are medicine, food, abundance, sweet, shade giving and a long lived symbol of peace,  and  I found the parable of summer.  How did I miss this figgy morsel?  It...
Post a Comment
Read more