God blessed the seventh day
On Christmas Day 2019, 3,000 tax returns were submitted over the Internet. On Boxing Day the number went up to 9,200. The adverts tell us we can bank any time we want to. The BBC News channel promises news all day, every day. It is possible to be drawn into a world that is never silent, never still, with no space for the most important things of all.
The Bible makes clear that there is a place for us to stop. From the time of creation onwards God has ordained a weekly day of rest. We need to consider what a great blessing this is.
The Lord Jesus taught and showed by example the great blessing of the Sabbath. The miracles of Christ shouldn’t be passed over too quickly: they are very instructive for us. On one particular occasion the Lord healed a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years (Luke 13: 10-17). She was in great agony and distress, unable to straighten her back. Jesus saw her, spoke the word, and laid hands on her and immediately she was healed and glorified God.
This all happened in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and the synagogue ruler was most indignant. He said to the people: ‘There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day’.
“If you...call the Sabbath a delight & the holy day of the Lord honourable...then you shall take delight in the Lord & I will make you ride on the heights of the earth”
Now this woman had been sick for 18 years. We could very easily agree with the synagogue ruler - why not wait for another day? This wasn’t a matter of life and death, and the Lord could have avoided upsetting the religious establishment.
But Jesus said this ought to be done. It wasn’t just permissible, it was necessary – ‘ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?’ He affirms that it is right that she is set free, that she is healed on the Sabbath.
Christ deliberately healed her that day for He knew it was a day for God to be glorified, and for His children to be helped. On that Sabbath this woman would experience a liberty and relief she hadn’t known for 18 long years.
The Lord didn’t abolish the weekly Sabbath, instead He taught its blessing: ‘the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:27). He challenged the Pharisees on the heavy burdens they had imposed on the day.
Where the 4th Commandment is recounted in Deuteronomy 5 reference is made to the children of Israel’s slavery in Egypt. ‘You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt… Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day’. As slaves in Egypt they weren’t able to enjoy a Sabbath rest. What a difference - having been delivered from there they were able to enjoy that day God had given them. What a blessing it was for them! Rather than being a burden it was a reminder of the freedom they had, and the provision for them as God’s people to worship Him.
Are we thankful for the joy and privilege of worshipping the Lord, hearing His word, enjoying the fellowship of His people? For having the space to be apart from the things of the world that can press in on us? God has given this to us for our good.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of calling the Sabbath a delight (Isaiah 58:13). However, not everybody in Israel saw it that way. Some people in Amos’s time asked when the Sabbath would be over ‘that we may offer wheat for sale’ (Amos 8:5) – they couldn’t wait to get back to the market-place. One day in seven was too much to give up. It’s easy to think there are other things which are a greater priority.
J.C. Ryle writes ‘Experience shows there is the closest connection between Sabbath sanctification and healthy Christianity’. This is a vital matter in our own time: traditional Sabbath observance has very steeply declined. At times the church may have been guilty of presenting it in an overly negative way. But we want to use what God has given us for our good, follow the Saviour’s teaching and example, and make the most of this great blessing.
‘This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it’ (Ps. 118: 24).
