BY DR. AGONSON
On the seventh day, God rested, and those that die in the Lord are blessed, for they rest from their labors. From Genesis to Revelation, man has wrestled with the Sabbath; from those who went out in search of manna to the pharisees who had to hurry up murdering Jesus so they could properly keep the Sabbath, humanity seems to be the drunken rider who, after falling to his left, was so keen not to fall again that he leaned over and fell to his right. Yet, in the midst of all our foolishness, Jesus declares that he himself is lord of the Sabbath.
As Christians, our hope is for the rest described in Revelation, that eternal rest which is from God and juxtaposed to the permanent restlessness of those marked by the beast. It is first seen in creation: the good order of things is set in place, and the crown of God’s labor is rest; is later codified when Moses goes up to the dark, foreboding mountaintop where God gives him this law, the Sabbath is to be kept holy; and is thereafter the source of much consternation as the Hebrew people live out the continued rebellion to God which is the rebellion of all mankind.
In the Old Testament, we see Nehemiah reinstituting proper Sabbath observances, and yet, before that, in Isaiah’s day, God rejects the people’s Sabbath gatherings as meaningless. So, when Jesus is in the grainfield defending his disciples with an allusion to Hosea, mercy is wanted and not sacrifices, we might remember the second, parallel half unspoken in the gospel that the knowledge of God is wanted over offerings.
Like anything good, the law, even the law which is given by God, can be perverted. Not only can it be, once given over to the animal known as man, it will be. Jesus declares that the Sabbath was made for man, because the proper order of things had been inverted. True adherence to the Sabbath lies not in the neglect of the openly rebellious, neither does rest belong to the calcified traditions which are easily seen by men: The Sabbath was made for man, and man for God, and God, uncreated, made all things good. The Sabbath, then, is not a rule, though we need rules to see it; it is a small glimpse of Heaven’s promise given to us, a relief from the curse of labor instituted when we rebelled against the good order of creation. So, we tried to be God, and thorns and thistles grew; now God gives us a chance to rightly imitate him.
The Sabbath is hard to get right. I feel myself to be like Nicodemus talking to Jesus in the night: I don’t know what is spiritual or what is literal, and like all men, am liable to confuse the two. It must come down to knowing God and recognizing His presence; for it is no use resting without the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will be no use to those who can’t see the wind in the trees.
Tale Told 