Last month, I looked at some of the why’s of sabbath. This time, I want to consider some of the what’s. If we are to practice sabbath, what does it actually look like? Is it just “doing nothing” for the day?
Alan Fadling suggests, if “we are to receive the gift of rest”, we “need to turn to God and learn rest from the One who rested from his work in creation.”1 In fact, there are four aspects of sabbath, and each is rooted in what God himself did on the seventh day in the Genesis creation story. These four aspects are stop, rest, delight, and worship.2
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Gen. 2:1-3)
Stop
Did you catch the first thing God did on the seventh day? The text says he “finished”. This means that God’s work in creation was complete, brought to its full end.
Now, because of the connotation of our English word “finished,” you might think this means God tied up loose ends on this day. But that is not what this means. God didn’t do any “creation work” on day seven, as he had the prior six days. On this day, God stopped what he had been doing, because it was finished. You can hear this in the repetition of the phrase, “the work he had done”. Three times in two verses the author says this to distinguish what took place this day from the prior six.
So, what does this mean for us and our sabbath practice? On sabbath, like God we stop. We cease from our routine labors and activities. We say “no” to those things that are part and parcel of our everyday experience, those things that pertain to survival. For six days we create and maintain habitable order, but on this day, we leave our work behind, we put our tools down, and say, “That’s enough for this week.”
For me, this means I don’t do “church stuff” on sabbath. On Fridays, when I practice sabbath, I don’t check work emails or work texts; I don’t do youth group lesson prep. That’s how I earn my living, so I stop doing all things related to it. I also do my best to avoid routine chores or projects that contribute to the functioning of our home… you know, the “honey do” list.
Setting this limit, however, is not easy. Why is that? I think a large part of the reason is sabbath confronts us with our own limits, and generally we don’t want to face them. Sabbath confronts us with our limits of body – we can’t be everywhere; limits of time – we only have 24 hours per day and 7 days per week, no more, no less; limits of relationship – we can’t be everything for everyone at all times. Simply put, sabbath reminds us that we are not God.
But the good news is God meets us in our limits. They are part of his good design and opportunities to receive his loving embrace. God doesn’t expect you to be Superman or Wonder Woman. He certainly doesn’t expect you to be God. Stopping on sabbath is an opportunity to remember our own limitations and to learn to live into them, rather than beyond or against them, to the glory of God.
Rest
God didn’t just stop on the seventh day. The text says, “and he rested”. This is the Hebrew word shabat, from which we get the word sabbath.
Old Testament scholar, John Walton, explains that in the Genesis creation story God is building a cosmic temple. In the ancient world, gods lived in temples, and so any ancient person picking up Genesis would recognize that’s what’s going on here. The God of Genesis is building a temple, a house, for himself and his creatures to live in. For six days, God forms and fills his cosmic temple. He forms it by separating light from darkness, water from water, and water from earth, and he fills it by making celestial bodies and creatures of every kind to inhabit air, land, and sea. But on the seventh day, he doesn’t do any work. Rather, God settles in – he rests. Because all the work is done, the house becomes a home. The ordered space is now enjoyed and “lived in”.
What does this mean for our rest on sabbath? Walton says it this way, “When we “rest” on sabbath, we recognize [God] as the author of order and the one who brings rest (stability) to our lives and world… Sabbath is for recognizing that it is God who provides for us and who is the master of our lives and our world.”3
On sabbath we rest by participating in the reality that, as the hymn says, “This is my Father’s world.” Therefore, I can sleep in, I can step away from work, I can take a nap, I can spend time with my family, I can enjoy the sunset sipping a glass of peach tea, I can rest… Because this is my Father’s world.
In a culture that expects us to produce and earn everything we have this is truly revolutionary. We are tempted to find our identity in what we do, how we feel, what we have, who likes us, etc. But sabbath has a way of stripping us of any identity other than our identity in God.
The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” It answers, “That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” This is what God invites us to embrace as we rest on sabbath: I am not my own, but I belong to Christ. That is why we rest. That is where we find rest.
Delight
Upon finishing and resting on the seventh day, we’re told that God did two things “to” the seventh day, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (2:3).
For God to have “blessed” the sabbath day means that he imbued the day with life-giving power. It’s a day of fruitfulness. This becomes clear when you consider what else God blessed in the creation week, namely, animals and humans. To the animals, “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (1:22). To the humans, “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (1:28).
Here’s the point: while we pour ourselves out for life and mission with God for six days, he blesses one day for us to be poured back into. Sabbath is the time when God’s own life and vitality fills us back up.
What sorts of things fill you up? Maybe it’s taking a walk, lingering over a good meal with others, spending time with your family. For some of us, time alone fill us up…maybe with a book in our favorite chair. Sabbath is a day not so much for life-sustaining activities, but life-giving activities. There’s a difference.
But let me add another layer to this: God’s blessing is closely tied not only to fruitfulness, but also delight and joy. When he pronounced his benediction over the seventh day, he didn’t do so with a frown, but with a smile. God delights in what he blesses.
I’m afraid delight has been missing from our understanding of sabbath for a long time. Sabbath is not a boring, downer of a day to do “nothing”. Instead, on sabbath God dares us to delight, to take pleasure and joy in the good world that he has made.4 For one day in seven, God invites us to play, to laugh, to sing, to make music, to know deeply and be deeply known, to love deeply and be deeply loved. He blessed this day for us to be filled with his own joy in all that is good.
This is why I’ve picked up the hobby of breadmaking. Not only does it provide me a delicious bite to enjoy in the end, but each step of the way: kneading the dough, letting it proof, shaping the loaf and baking it off; each one fills me with delight in the raw ingredients and processes of God’s good world.
Worship
Finally, in addition to blessing the seventh day, God “made it holy”. At its root, to be “holy” means to be set apart, to be devoted; it has the sense of being special or unique, of being for this and not that. This is why the tools the priests would use in the tabernacle were holy.
Similarly, for God to make the sabbath holy means, most fundamentally, that this day is different from the other six. It’s set apart from them. In this sense, it’s not a “common” day. It’s devoted, chiefly, to the Lord.
Because of this, when practicing sabbath your day shouldn’t look like just any other day. It should be different in meaningful ways. If for six days, you shop and work and watch the news and scroll social media and do house chores, then on this day you are freed up not to do those things. This is not a burden, it’s liberation! Put another way, if for six days we labor and sustain life, for one day we stop our labors, rest in God, delight in his world, and worship him.
Eugene Peterson said, on sabbath, “We are keeping company with God in the present, in the now: attending, adoring.”5 This is why I try to put my phone away on sabbath – I don’t always make it the whole day. Nevertheless, it’s a small way that I try to open myself up to the day, the moment, the place God has put me right now. Rather than getting sucked somewhere else for some insignificant reason, I’m present to God, to my wife, to myself, and to our life together.
Peterson went on to say, “One day a week stop what you are doing and pay attention to what God has been doing and is doing. Be reverent and worshipful and grateful for the Genesis world we are placed in. Remember in gratitude and worshipful adoration. Hallow this day. Keep this day holy.”6
I love that… pay attention to what God has been doing and is doing. It’s why on sabbath I also make a practice of journaling. Again, it’s just one small way that I mark this day as different than others by paying attention to what God has been up to this week, to where I sense him leading me, to where I’ve fallen short and where I’ve received his grace.
Do you see how this day is holy? Sabbath is a day for giving worshipful attention to God.
When we stop on sabbath, we admit our limits, remembering God meets us in them. When we rest on sabbath, we find our identity in God not our work, remembering that this is his world and we belong to him. When we delight on sabbath, we fill ourselves up by taking joy in all that is good, remembering that God has blessed this day. When we worship on sabbath, we keep company with God, giving him our adoring attention, remembering that he is our greatest love.
Which of the four aspects of sabbath (stop, rest, delight, worship) are you drawn to the most?
Which one do you want to know more about?
Which do you want to put into practice this week?
I encourage you to talk to Jesus about it.
Alan Fadling, An Unhurried Life, 109.
I’ve been greatly helped by Peter Scazzero in understanding these four aspects. For more, see his books Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and, especially, The Emotionally Healthy Leader.
John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, 146.
Dan Allender’s book Sabbath dives deeply into the theme of delight.
Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, 13.
Ibid, 14.