Thoughts on the Sabbath... or is it Sunday?

 Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy

Sabbath or Sunday?

The biblical Sabbath day, according to the 10 Commandments, the Decalogue, as we sometimes refer to it, as found in Exodus 20 of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, was to be the seventh day of the week. The way the Jews eventually counted days, it started at 6 PM or sundown on Friday and went until the same time on what is our Saturday. Now, some Christians, particularly those who are Jewish, do keep the sabbath day on Saturday. For most of us Christians though, the first day of the week is regarded as our equivalent of the Sabbath day. The first day of the week became prominent early on in the life of the church because that was the day that Christ rose from the dead, making all things new. 

If we accept that we regard Sunday as our Sabbath day, what might be the implications of that?

Turning to Scripture

A. The Old Testament

To begin examining this, we turn to scripture. According to the exhaustive Strong's Concordance, there are 137 references to Sabbath in the Bible, and another 35 references to the plural, Sabbaths. There are five references of the singular form in Isaiah, seven in Jeremiah, three in Ezekiel and one in Amos. The plural occurs twice in Isaiah, twice in Lamentations, 12 times in Ezekiel, and once in Hosea. There are six  singular references in Exodus, 17 in Leviticus, three in Numbers and three in Deuteronomy, as well as 13 in Nehemiah. The plural occurs once in Exodus, 11 times in Leviticus and once in Nehemiah.

The total of 41 references in the Pentateuch have to do with the establishment of the Sabbath day, what was allowed during that day and not, as well as repeated references to having to continue to observe the Sabbath going forward. This was an important part of God’s covenant with his people if they wished to continue to enjoy God’s favour and blessings. Interestingly, there was some work that was authorized on the Sabbath, such as setting up a fresh batch of showbread loaves in the Tent of Meeting, later the temple, and offering certain sacrifices. Some of this is repeated in the Chronicles, which reinforce the religious practises of Judaism.

The references in the prophets are reminders of the necessity of observing the Sabbath and of identifying consequences that are occurring or will occur if the Sabbath day is not kept. Again, these are place in the context of keeping the covenant made with God. The number of references in Nehemiah have to do with his discovery that there was buying and selling going on during the Sabbath day, including from merchants coming from outside the Jewish community. Nehemiah was zealous about trying to restore Israel, as it had been before the exile, not to repeat the sins of their fathers, so as to put themselves at risk for further severe consequences, hence his concerns about observing the sabbath.

B. The New Testament

In the New Testament, there are 10 references in Matthew, 11 in Mark, 18 in Luke and 11 in John, as well as nine times in Acts and once in Colossians. The plural form does not occur in the New Testament.

The New Testament references include Jesus going to the synagogue on the Sabbath in the gospels, to teach, and Paul going to synagogues on his mission travels to locate Jews, to whom he could preach the message of the gospel, as noted in Acts. We probably all remember that the stories about Jesus and the Sabbath often involve his doing things such as healing on the Sabbath, which got him in trouble with the obsessive-compulsive religiosity of the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the time.

A couple of questions can arise for us with how the Sabbath day is dealt with in the New Testament, as this part of scripture, which we sometimes refer to as the New Covenant, is seen as the final guide for our behaviour as Christians. We probably remember some of the discussions Jesus got into with these leaders who would do things like rescue an animal that had fallen into a well on the Sabbath, but could not tolerate good deeds being done on the Sabbath otherwise, such as healing humans. Jesus repeatedly referred to himself as being the Lord of the Sabbath, however, we interpret the meaning of that for our lives. Otherwise, he did not really teach or obviously promote the observance of the Sabbath. One could say his observance of going to the synagogue or temple on the Sabbath gives us a clue as to what we should do.  Then again, synagogues and their attendance on the sabbath did not even come from the Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament. It was a practice that evolved after Israel returned from exile some 300+ years before Jesus’ time on earth. Interestingly, none of the new Testament writers in the books after the Gospel of John speak to proper observance of the sabbath either. What we do read was that they continued to gather for worship and prayer on the first day of the week. What does that say to us today? Then  again, during the time the New Testament was written, one might argue that keeping the sabbath was so ingrained it did not need to be taught. Indeed, that might have applied to the first Christians, who were Jewish. But what about the Gentiles, the non-Jews who soon became such an important part of the Christian movement? Well, we also do know now that most if not all of the early congregations founded by the Apostles started with Jews, so it could be that the first Gentile Christians simply followed the practices of their Jewish predecessors. 

Historically 

Regarding Sunday as the Sabbath has continued to be part of the teaching of Christianity as most of us know it. This really never presented much of a problem, as it was really not much of an issue until around the beginning the middle of the last century. Living in Winnipeg at the time, I can remember a vote, or was it a referendum, to allow organized and professional sports to be played on Sundays. That was in the late 1960s. I can remember some more conservative Mennonite Christians at that time not even allowing their children to play recreational pick up ball games on Sunday.

Then, in the 1980s, when grocery chains wanted to open up on Sundays, there were many in the church, who opposed that, even to the point of petitioning governing authorities. The leadership in our Mennonite Church in Brandon at the time promoted the signing of a petition against that. One member told the pastor that she would sign the petition if he no longer golfed or went to restaurants on Sunday. Indeed, church goers have long been famous for going out for lunch after Sunday morning worship services nowadays. No one much seems to bat an eye about that. However, in the past, those who knew about Sunday as the Sabbath, sometimes did look askance at what they considered the hypocritical Christians, taking a break from their lunch, preparation at home but making other people work for them.

Not satisfied with being able to open on Sundays, the big chains also wanted to open late every evening if they so wished. We had just started to run a convenience store, which we did for three years in Brandon. It had been purchased by my brother-in-law as an investment to come to Canada. It was just at that time that the big stores began to open on evenings and weekends, which really did not spell well for running such corner stores or convenience stores. We were obviously open.

So, where are we at today?

If you are like me, I sometimes think that we have indeed gone too far with essentially ignoring what the original sabbath day was for, and what the church carried over to be observed on their first day of the week. To be sure, many enterprises, such as government offices and banks are closed on Sundays still. One might argue that other businesses give their staff a day off in lieu of Sunday. Some might even argue that getting several weeks of holidays may balance out having to work at other times of the year.

When you look around at what happens on Sunday though, what do you see? It seems more people go to the mall and to shop and to eat out because they do have the day off their work. When this is our habit, when do we as a society slow down, rest? Would we not agree that our hectic society could benefit from more of us having more times of rest? Maybe we could take a break from the ever present social media? Now we often forget to turn off our phones or at least the sound on them when we do go to worship.

When it comes to meal preparation on Sundays, perhaps we find a clue in the account of the appearance of manna for the Israelites in their 40 years in the wilderness, as recorded in Exodus 16. On the sixth day of the week, God provided twice as much manna as on the rest of the days, so that they would boil or bake enough for the seventh day too. Indeed, I think those of us who come from Christian backgrounds will remember that our mothers and grandmothers often prepared more food on Saturdays so that they had to do a minimal amount of warming up or simple preparation on Sundays. Then, especially for those of the rural background, the evening meal was a late afternoon meal of cold foods. There was no cooking or baking, although I think tea and coffee were brewed.

When one reads the prophets, although there really are not that many references, the ones that are there create a fairly strong impression that it was the Israelites’ failure to continue to honour the Sabbath, and especially the seventh or Sabbath year, let alone the 50th year of Jubilee, that were part of the sins that God held against them, resulting in their eventually being removed from the land and, as we actually read in II Chronicles 36:21, giving it a 70 year Sabbath rest. Do these warnings have any impact on us today?

Are we missing something with our failure to observe Sunday in the old-fashioned way as some might describe it? Most of us still want to eat on Sundays. Those who have farms need to look after their animals on Sundays, including milking cows. All of this then requires some of what we would call work. So where do we draw the line?

What shall we do on our Sabbath, Sunday? I'm sure most of us do as little as possible, whether it comes to shopping, business or meal preparation. Those are the things we may not do as much of. But perhaps we could do more of things like taking more time to read the word, pray, and perhaps even do more of this in conjunction with fasting. Our world could use a lot more prayer.