rest.

(Seinne River, Paris, France)

Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

Psalm 37:7 (NKJV)

It is hard to feel at rest in a world that is constantly moving. After bringing into existence all that is, the God of the universe decided it was time to take a pause .

In Deuteronomy 5:14-15, the Hebrew translation of Sabbath is shabbath, meaning, “intermission.” In the same context, these verses make use of the word rest, which in this instance translates to nuach, the Hebrew word which communicates settling down, ceasing, withdrawing, or giving comfort, (among other things) (Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries). In this context, in which God gave to Israel the Ten Commandments, God was setting up a sort of social code of conduct for the Israelites (ISBE), as they had just come away from a life of harsh exploitation beneath the Egyptians. By commanding the Israelites to take an “intermission” from their work week, he was giving them a system by which all people involved - Israelites and their workers and their livestock - would be treated fairly, allowing them to live healthy lives in which they could relate to their God, rather than making their work into something more important than the God with whom they were created to relate.

It seems as though Israel went through two different extremes with the Sabbath; at times they completely brushed off the requirements of the Sabbath, working themselves, their workers, their land, and their livestock to exhaustion, while later they began to over-observe the day of rest with an overzealous sense of self-righteousness. “The prophets found fault with the worship on the Sabbath, because it was not spiritual nor prompted by love and gratitude. (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia).” By the time Jesus came onto the scene, the Sabbath had become something extremely legalistic, and devoid of the original meaning with which it was created. Humans had allowed a law come to stand in the way of the God it was meant to point them towards. Jesus proclaimed, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also LORD of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28).

Paul professed a Christian liberty that existed in every day, or every season (ISBE). In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul states, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” Paul is not deeming a Sabbath day as unimportant; rather, he seems to say that because of our being made right with God through Jesus Christ, the day in which the Sabbath is observed is not what is important, but rather we must give honor, and place our relations to Him before every other priority that could ever enter into our lives, hearts, or minds, on any day of the week.

What appears to be evident is that we are more important to God that anything we could ever accomplish, construct, complete, observe, or achieve. In rest, we come to encounter a God who is less concerned about doing, and more concerned about our being. Will we love this God who dies to be with us, or will we embrace more warmly a sticky-note of tasks we must accomplish?