"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour 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 manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20: 8 – 11 NIV)
Yesterday I phoned up the office and asked my manager for the day off
“I’m not sick, just feel very tired.”
He agreed but told me he was a bit concerned about me as on Monday I’d been very quiet. I assured him that I’d be fine Wednesday. “I just need some time off that’s all”
So spent a leisurely day in bed, ate up all the leftovers in the fridge and ice cream from the freezer. Finished reading Terry Pratchett’s ‘Reaperman’ ( I’m still trying to figure out this one– Death supposedly retired, a new one appeared to take his place, there was a combat which somehow the old Death won?). I later on watched TV reruns online of Cupid and Dirty Sexy Money – but gave up on that when my Internet connection kept dropping, causing the video to freeze and buffer. I finished off the day by pampering myself with aromatherapy bath oils and a face mask package called Drift Away – a present from St Bs from two years ago (so it did come in handy after all)
This morning I felt quite refreshed and ready to take on the world again.
There’s something to be said about Sabbath. God knew that work work work with no rest leads to major problems like stress, depression. In today’s profit driven society business is 24/7, licensed trading hours for shops has been steadily increasing – when I first came to this country in 1998 on Sunday trading hours were 11 – 4, and now an extra hour has been added to this. I always wonder at people who complain about shops being closed on Sundays. They claim that they are not Christians, so why should they be subjected to observing the Sabbath. If only they could get over the whole ‘everything-Christian-must-be-bad’ hang up, they’d realise that Sabbath is for their benefit. It's funny how they would rather hear it from some secular self help guru (who's probably borrowed it from the Bible anyway- just not using the same jargon)
As human beings we get bogged down in the technicalities of things, and never look to the reason why they were instituted in the first place. I know Christians who don’t take Sabbath either– the ones always involved in ministry at church the whole of Sunday. You know the ones... they have full time jobs 6 days of the week, and then volunteer at church on Sunday. I used to be one of those Christians and I burnt out big time
The whole point of Sabbath is a day of rest from your labours – to give your body and mind a chance to recoup. It doesn’t have to be on a Sunday or a Saturday (depending on your denomination). Mine yesterday was a Tuesday.
Perhaps if God had explained Sabbath a little better… maybe we wouldn’t misinterpret it so. Look at Orthodox Jews – dating back to Jesus days. They turned their observation of Sabbath into a burden. To the point that when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath – they moaned about the fact that he’d done something unlawful, totally missing out on the miracle that had just taken place in front of their very eyes.
Jesus told them "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2: 27 NIV)
This is not rocket science.
