Sabbath REST!

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+ Jesu Juva +

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Six days for work.  One day, a seventh, for rest.  However, when Israel lived as SLAVES under the Satanic Egyptian rule of Pharoah they worked seven days a week.  SLAVES work 24-7-365.  No Sabbath rest! Ever! FOR SLAVES!  

God saw the afflictions and sufferings of His people so He exodus-ed – freed – saved Israel through Moses and the water of the Red Sea which was a foretaste of God’s Son, Jesus, the promised Messiah, who would do a Good Friday and Easter Sunday Exodus for the salvation of the world and FOR YOU.  Now, here in Deuteronomy, God’s OT Israel faith-ers, have been GIVEN or GIFTED a day (DID YOU HEAR THAT?) HAVE BEEN GIVEN OR GIFTED A DAY FOR REST.  This is precisely why Jesus says in Mark 2, “The Sabbath was made for man.”  Work six.  Rest one.  That’s the way God gives it.    

This all goes back to the “very good” in-the-beginning-week of creation.  Remember?  God graciously gave/made/gifted the heavens and the earth – in fact, everything. In how many days?  Six!  What did He do on the seventh? Rested. To be precise Genesis says, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy [set it apart / consecrated it / holy-ed it], because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation,” (Gen 2:3).   Please note that God speaks.  And with His speaking He blessed the day and made it holy.  BY HIS WORD He blesses and holies!  Make note of that.  More on that in a moment.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I have to mention that whereas each of the six days has an evening and a morning, the seventh day does not!  This is huge.  The seventh Day, the day given as rest, is the eternal day, the day that fulfills all the days.  We call it “eternity.” The seventh day, then, the Sabbath, as God gave it in the beginning, is a foretaste, a preview, or a rehearsal of eternal rest at the end of the work week.  Work six days.  Then rest.  Again, it bears repeating what Jesus said:  “The Sabbath was made for man.” I.E. It’s God’s divine gift to Israel. 

No other nation had a god who said, “I give you a day off – day to rest.” In fact, the other nations thought Israel was a bunch of loafers or ne’er do wells by working just six days a week. Again, Sabbath was God’s special gift to Israel. No other nation had this command. God’s free, chosen people had divine permission to rest, to enjoy the eternal rest of God, to sample a slice of eternity at the end of every week. Wow! Imagine that. Heaven’s eternity come to earth. Communion with God. Rest, no work. Enjoying the fruits of your labors. Resting with God.  Like it was in Eden in the “very good” of the beginning.

Dr. Luther nailed it in the Small Catechism when he saw the gift of the Sabbath day as God’s Word.  Gods wants to preach His Word of the gospel into our ears so that we are faith-ers! “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred, gladly hear and learn it.”

That’s why God wanted Israel to rest on the seventh day. In the evening, the Israelites would have a nice meal, raise a glass of wine and toast God who created and redeemed them. Then they’d sleep, and then gather to hear the Word. And that’s precisely what we, the new Israel, do too. We gather on the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead, in order to hear God speak and bless us through His Word and to receive with His sacred Word the Sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood. And through His Good Friday Word of forgiveness Jesus, who took all your sin in His Body on the cross, counts you as holy – in Him!  That’s what God calls “rest.” Sabbath’s rest.  A slice of eternity, heaven on earth, every Sunday.

So when God says, “Observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,” this means nothing else than to devote ourselves to hearing God’s Word – making use of God’s Word – exercising ourselves in it.  By gladly hearing and learning it whenever and wherever it is preached and taught.  After all, God’s Word is the treasure that makes everything holy.

Wherever and whenever God’s Word is preached and taught any day is a holy day – sanctified, made holy, by the Word of God and prayer (1 Tim 4:5). The Word is the essence of the Sabbath rest.  This is why the guts of the divine service is all about hearing God’s Word:  law, gospel, absolution, sermon, the water and the Word, bread-wine and the Word, and the benediction.  Again, if you’re picking up what I’m throwing down, “the Sabbath was made for man.” God’s gift FOR YOU to hear and receive His Holy Word by which He holies you in Christ.

Unfortunately, way too many Christians, have become “ABC” Christians – Anything But Church. Sports, recreation, hobbies, family, not to mention work and family schedules, running frantically from one activity to the next, have become idols of our own making that never give us a Sabbath Day’s rest.  We, like Israel, have become SLAVES serving these idols 24-7-365. We sacrifice everything or whatever these idols demand: our time, money, possessions, devotion.  We look to these idols, instead of Jesus and His sacred Word, for all our good.  And that is not an exaggeration.     

Out of the over 10,000 minutes God gives us each week, hardly anyone will set aside 60-90 minutes once a week to hear God speak to and bless through His Word, to be given the Sabbath Day rest of Jesus’ forgiveness, life, and salvation, and then pray, praise and give thanks to Him for His gracious giving. We do that to the peril of our faith. Seriously!  Faith in Jesus is only born from God’s Word and faith in Jesus lives only on the Word. Without hearing the Word, salvific faith in Jesus will wither and die. It will!  I beg you.  Don’t go there.  Because it will end relentlessly and hellaciously in eternal agony apart from God WITH NO REST … EVER.

So today, it’s time for all of us, by God’s Word, to be repented, faith-ed and led in holy living.  We need to hunger for the restful freedom of the Son of Man Jesus who, as Lord of the Sabbath, finished the salvation job by dying on the cross FOR YOU.  He did His salvation job work and then preached:  “It is finished.”

Then He rested on His “seventh day” in a borrowed grave to sanctify your grave.  He rose victoriously from the grave in order to give you perfect salvational Sabbath rest from all your sins as I tell you today by His authority:  “All your sin is forgiven for Jesus’ sake.”  Or as He tells you in the Lord’s Supper, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.”  

Again, observing the Sabbath Day is all about the Word!  We faith-ers always want to keep God’s Word in our hearts, lips and ears because it always bears fruit.  It puts Satan to flight and silences his accusations against you.  It strengthens your faith in Jesus. It gives you a greater desire to hear more of it and with expanding joy.  It increases in you a godly piety to be Sabbath Day-ed holy all the more.  It creates clean hearts and minds that rest in Jesus’ forgiveness so that on the Last Day He will raise you from the dead for an eternal Sabbath rest in the Triune God.  And that’s what He’s been up to since the very beginning when He “blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”

“The Sabbath was made for man.” It is Lord of the Sabbath Jesus’ gift FOR YOU.  Freedom hear His Word.  Faith in Jesus, will have it no other way!