Sabbath

Delight doesn’t require a journey thousands of miles away to taste the presence of God, but it does require a separation from the mundane, an intentional choice to enter joy and follow God as he celebrates the glory of his creation and his faithfulness to keep his covenant to redeem the captives.

Sabbath rest is entered when we refuse to be bound by complexity or drowned by despair. We enter delight only as we gaze equally and simultaneously at creation and redemption, in spite of the darkness that surrounds us and constantly clamors to be truer than God.

God commands us to obey him because he is our Creator, and he has authority to set the parameters of how we will live in his creation. If we violate his normative structure, there will be consequences that spiral through all dimensions of life.

If we could only see the ramifications of our rebellion, we would flee from our sin. But seldom is breaking God’s law experienced as foul; it seems either necessary and/or beneficial. We seldom see sin, at first sight, as what it truly is—ill and deforming.

The dark side of pride is that the work addict secretly believes he can outmaster the fates and find a way to achieve what others have failed to do. Somehow he will get his dream to remain on the top of the mountain and not slip from his grasp.

Are we doing what brings us delight, or are we merely doing what is expected if we are to keep our lives on the path we are on—the path that, honestly, we don’t want? If asked at any one moment, “Are you experiencing joy?” most of us would be befuddled or irritated.

Delight stands counter to grief. There is so much uncertainty and loss in our lives, from the death of a parent to the rising cost of gasoline. To consider what delights us is to stand accused by the countless moments of onerous obligation and unfulfilled dreams. Instead, we would rather settle for distraction than open our hearts to what seems beyond our wildest dreams. We have learned to manage our disappointment with God, and we don’t want our desire for delight to seduce us again.

We are driven because our work brings us power and pride that dulls our deeper desire for delight.

What intrigues, amazes, tickles your fancy, delights your senses, and casts you into an entirely new and unlimited world is the raw material of Sabbath.

Delight requires the courage to be attentive, intentional, and diligent. It will not happen without planning and preparation. It requires I ask myself, and my spouse, and my children, and my friends, and others: What will bring us joy? We must be guided by creation to engage creation.

We need time, as if God has not allotted to us all that we are meant to have. We make time, as if we had the power to create it. We steal time, as if we could add more to our lives. We spend and use time, as if it really were a commodity.

Sabbath remembers creation and anticipates re-creation. It is an eschatological event that prefigures a sin-free, glory bound world. As we remember Eden in the Sabbath celebration, we also imagine and anticipate the renewed and redeemed garden that is to come.

All too often we approach the Sabbath like a forced conversation at a social gathering. People mill around on the deck, cup in one hand and snacks in the other; idle chitchat allows the time to pass. Seldom in a thousand gatherings have I had a meaningful or delicious conversation at a milling-about event. It is simply not the nature of the social beast. Chitchat is like junk food—it is quickly filling and often causes bloating. It is best handled in small doses.

We are not to work on the Sabbath because it takes us out of the play of joy. It is as bizarre as making love to your spouse, but getting out of bed during the process to cut your lawn or wash dishes. Such an offense would do far more than spoil the mood; it would be a direct assault on the integrity of joy, announcing that a mundane chore is more pleasurable than sexual joy with your spouse.

God knows our frailty and our courage and never confuses one for the other and knows how to comfort and call forth when we would prefer God to simply answer us as we desire. More than any other purpose, God plays for the victory of union. We seek and hope to be reunited.

The deepest delight is to participate with another in a delight that we have had a small hand in bringing to pass. To create opportunity for another to know joy is regenerating both for the giver and for the one who receives, and the combined joy is a gift we return to the Creator for offering us such bounty in his creation.

There are two categories of destitution that are real for the middle class: 1) the emptiness of an uncertain future and 2) the emptiness of the unrealized present. These issues are not the sole domain of the middle class, yet they are often uniquely felt by those who are neither poor nor rich.

preaching was like taking a bucket of water and pouring it into the thimbles of those who hear, only for them to spill their water on the way out of church.

Gladdening is a word for intoxicated self-forgetfulness. There are many words for intoxication in the Bible, and the phrase “gladdening the heart” implies a sweet, slight rounding of the edges, a warm, gentle buzz. A

For Christians the Sabbath is the day we play in the light of untrammeled freshness.

Sabbath is not an escape from death. Instead, Sabbath is the promise that death doesn’t win. Sabbath is not a turning from death and pretending it doesn’t mar us; instead, we are to act before death as if has no ultimate power.

Our joy in Sabbath is almost entirely bound to those with whom we spend the day. I simply wouldn’t want to spend the day with anyone who does not consciously and intentionally mock death by not giving into the gravitational pull of despair. Choose carefully your company on this one, most holy day. There is no one on this earth with whom I have more joy than being with my bride of more than thirty years. She reflects the Sabbath courage to weep in the other six days and to laugh at death’s claim to be the final word.

We are to clear away on this day all the debris from the past week and the week ahead—and turn our ears to his delight. We are to labor, not work, to stretch ourselves out on a couch with a soft pillow and quiet our heart to ask, “What do you wish to say to me, King of kings, Abba Father, Daddy?” It is not presumptuous to ask, “What is it that you see in me that brings you delight?”

The drama of silence is that it is the stage where God shows up more frequently than in the bustle of our busyness. It is foolish to say that God doesn’t show up in noise—God can show up whenever the Father, Son, and Spirit wish to do so. Yet if there is a time and place for us to hear the voice of God, it is in the midst of quiet.

Grief is similar to vomiting. At its deepest convulsion it exhausts, nauseates, and relieves. It empties us, weakens us, and prepares us for food that in due season will strengthen us. But in its immediate aftermath, we need rest.

Prayer is a conversation with mystery. I could rightfully say prayer is conversation with God, yet it seems there are times where if God hears, he doesn’t answer, or even seem to be present. Prayer is no less than a conversation, but sometimes it is so one way that it seems best to call it an encounter with mystery. Sometimes my words are all I hear as they reverberate in an empty room and against a gray, silent sky. There are other times my cry is muffled against God’s chest, and I feel surrounded by strong arms.

It is not wrong to petition God on the Sabbath, but the heart of the Sabbath is to delight in all he has given us, rather than to ask for what has not yet been fulfilled.

We don’t see our economic assumptions—the necessity to send our children to college or the presumption of the divine right to retirement—as indications of our enslavement to systems that have little to nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

The truest fruit of repentance is always hope, even in the face of overwhelming and unrelenting dour circumstances. Hope is not mere optimism; rather, it is moving forward in anticipation of redemption in spite of the improbability of rescue.

The Sabbath, therefore, is not merely a day to stop working; it is a day to renounce all activity that impoverishes, enslaves, or demeans others. It is a day set aside not to take or to procure, but to nourish and to give. Indeed, it is a day to dream and to hope.

Every human being is in some kind of a weekly war. We strive, fight, retreat, negotiate, and surrender. We crave rest; we thirst for joy. Even those who know the pleasure of Sabbath are seduced to forget the oasis of play that awaits those who give their hearts to Sabbath.