Sabbath Celebration

“Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8–11)

God is a God who honors His own work. When He had finished six days’ labor, He “rested” the seventh day. Why? Because He was tired? Rather, God “hallowed” the Sabbath, turning it into a holiday (“holy-day” is the origin of this word) on which He enjoyed and celebrated the wonderful creation He had brought into being.

God invites us to do the same. When Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, the day changed from Saturday to Sunday, but the celebration is the same, only ratcheted up to a much higher level. Instead of merely celebrating and honoring and worshiping God the Creator of the World, we are now celebrating and honoring and worshiping God the Savior and Re-Creator of the World—we are celebrating His salvation and transformation of us in and through Christ.

Many Christians have gotten hung up on what they “can” and “cannot” do on Sunday. The best solution is to treat it for what it is, a holiday—the truest of holy-days—and do those things appropriate for such. You don’t make your employees work on holiday, and you certainly don’t work yourself on a holiday. You spend time with your family—and on Sunday especially this always means gathering with the family of God. On holidays you conscientiously remember and observe what the holiday is set aside for: Sunday is set aside to commemorate our salvation through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection; to observe His worship; to remember and celebrate the covenant God established in His Son’s blood. Holidays are for feasting, and so on Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Lord’s Supper (which traditionally is normally followed by a big “Sunday dinner”!).

A lot of Christians in our day, however, treat Sunday as any other day, arguing that “the Sabbath command is no longer in effect.” Or, if they do have the day off from work, they treat it as a day centered on themselves: on their rest, on their play, on their family. While it may be true that the Sabbath per se is no longer celebrated (the seventh day, that is), 99.999999% of Christians throughout all of church history—including those mentioned in the New Testament—have treated the first day of the week, Sunday, as the most fundamental holy day, gathering in worship together, centered around all that God has done for us and who we are in Christ. Do we have less to celebrate in the New World Christ has given us? Less reason to worship Him together and give thanks? Rather, no one has more reason to holiday every week than us!

“Heavenly Father, thank You for Sundays. Thank You for setting aside a special day for us to gather together with those who love You, those whom You love, that we might celebrate all we have in You and glorify our Lord and Savior. Teach us how to “keep it holy,” and give us the desire to set Your day and Your worship apart as the most important time of each week. Help us to take the trouble necessary to prepare for Sundays, and teach us also how to give goodness and rest to others as You have brought rest and goodness to us through Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”