The story’s told of a wintry Sunday evening in a village (we might easily imagine it being in Scotland) when the river that ran alongside both the minister’s house and the church was completely frozen. To the great surprise of the congregation, the minister arrived clutching his skates, flushed from the exercise but otherwise ready to conduct the evening worship.
The elders wasted no time in responding. Immediately after the service, they began to debate whether it was legitimate for the minister to have skated on the Lord’s Day. The argument raged over the question of whether the practicality of the conveyance took precedence over forbearing from recreation on the Sabbath. At last, somebody hit on the vital question: “Pastor, did you enjoy skating up the river?”—the implication being that pleasure and the Lord’s Day must be mutually exclusive!
The dourness of some observers of the Sabbath (also called the Lord’s Day in Christian contexts, where it refers to Sunday) would be humorous if it weren’t so sad. And yet the total ignorance of Sabbath observance by many people today is equally sad. Both groups make the same mistake by thinking that to observe the Lord’s Day means to forgo all things joyful for a twenty-four-hour period. How might they feel differently if they thought about it the way the Bible treats it?
In confronting this question, we will be helped to approach the Sabbath with a due sense of both joy and reverence by considering three overarching biblical truths.
The Sabbath Is a Gift
First of all, we should always remember that the Sabbath is—despite the reputation it has in some circles—a gift. God has provided the Sabbath for our benefit. And if many today are bewildered by the idea of a Sabbath, it is likely because this gift has largely remained unopened.
The Sabbath is, first of all, a gift for remembering (Ex. 20:8), designed to help us recall all the great blessings that God has wrought for our sake throughout history. We can remember it in relation to the wonder of creation: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (v. 11). We can remember it in relation to redemption: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 5:15). Further, John Murray helps us to understand that since Christians observe the Sabbath on Sunday (rather than Saturday, as the people of Israel did), “the resurrection in its redemptive character yields its sanction to the sacredness of the first day of the week.” So the Lord’s Day acts as a memorial, pointing us to God’s great acts from the beginning of the world to the raising of Christ—and, indeed, beyond.
Along with that, the Sabbath is also a gift of rest and worship. Yet we should bear in mind that this rest is one neither of idleness nor of self-indulgence; it is the rest of relaxation combined with consecration—the separation of something dedicated for a sacred purpose. This gift of consecration is what sets the Sabbath apart from other holidays. In refraining from our normal labors, we are able to offer our undivided attention and devotion to God. In the same way that a couple might set aside a date night, a time into which other matters should not intrude so that they might relax with and for one another, so God has set aside this day for His people to be together with each other and with Him. The goal of the Lord’s Day is God, and everything about it is subservient to and serves the purpose of knowing Him and drawing near to Him.
And ultimately, the Sabbath is a gift of hope. God gives it to us to whet our appetite for all that heaven will mean. If we do not constrain the events of the Lord’s Day in such a way that they are heavenly in their orientation, then we miss the opportunity to enjoy the foretaste of our eternal, blessed rest. In heaven, we will know the purest joy in God’s presence. On the Lord’s Day, we have an opportunity to glimpse what this joy will be like in the corporate worship of His people.
The Sabbath Is a Priority
Because the Sabbath is a gift, given to us by God, then it should be a priority. Just as a date night is purposefully set aside for a spouse, so should the Sabbath be for God and God’s people.
It’s not simply a temporal priority, in the sense that we could put our worship tasks at the front of the checklist, rush through them, and seize the remaining hours of the day for ourselves. It would be a shame to rush through a dinner date so that you can leave your spouse with the dishes and go read a book by yourself. Nor should we honor the Sabbath on the basis of an emotional surge, whereby, if the Spirit moves us on Sunday morning, we get up, and we worship—but if not, we’ll give our attention to something more pressing. No, even if you did not anticipate enjoying date night, it would still be your duty, for the sake of your spouse and your marriage, to do it, to repent of your dread, and to seek joy in it. And so, too, with the Sabbath.
If we treat the Sabbath as a priority, setting it apart from our other concerns and forbidding them to intrude, then we create the opportunity to enjoy the relaxation and consecration of the day: “This is God’s day! This is fantastic! What a delight to have the day to spend with someone I love!” As soon as we establish it in our minds in that way, other preoccupations will quickly become secondary to this overarching priority.
The Sabbath Sets a Cadence
Finally, if and when we prioritize the Sabbath, we should find that it sets a meaningful, even life-transforming cadence. We live in a time of overwork, overcommitment, and overstimulation. One of the reasons many of us find ourselves overwhelmed is on account of the absolute absence of regular, healthy rhythms in our lives. But in the Lord’s Day, God has given us an anchor in the week as we cast off our anxious toil and consider what is most important. It’s a day for recentering and spiritual refreshment, preparing us to return to the new week with the reminder that we were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In His amazing grace and wisdom, He has set within the framework of our humanity this opportunity and privilege for a unique enjoyment of Him.
The Lord’s Day shouldn’t cast a shadow over the week; it ought to illuminate it. If we can learn to accept it as a gift and treat it as a priority, we will enjoy the spiritual drumbeat it sets for our lives and reap the benefits that God offers us in and through it.
This article was adapted from the sermon “The Gift of the Sabbath” by Alistair Begg.
