On Sunday the 16th of May, Jonathan spoke about Sabbath Rest. This is a hefty topic to try squeeze into a 30 minute sermon so here are the notes and some additional resources that you can peruse at your own leisure.
Additional Resources:
https://bibleproject.com/learn/what-is-the-sabbath/
https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/7th-day-rest-sabbath/
https://bibleproject.com/learn/what-is-the-sabbath/
Sermon Notes
The Sabbath or 7th day rest is an important theme throughout the bible because it is intrinsically linked to Heaven coming to Earth. We at Valley Church believe that our main mission is to be a part of God’s plan to see Heaven come to earth. The very same mission that Jesus had. If we pay attention to the rhythm of 6 days of work and a seventh day of rest first seen in Genesis we might just learn that there is more the “7th day of rest” that what we might think. Furthermore it might not deserve the negative, legalistic wrap that it often gets. What I am hoping to do is focus on the early tradition of Shabbat or Sabbath or the 7th day of rest in the biblical accounts. We’re not going to focus too much on the contemporary traditions that have evolved up to this day.
So let’s go to the beginning, Genesis CH1. In the beginning God creates the heavens and the earth. Then on the seventh day he stops and enters His creation to rest there and rule over it. An important note here is that there is a phrase that has accompanied the first 6 days that is missing in the seventh day. “and there was evening and there was morning…” is missing, implying that in God’s perfect world, in Eden, the 7th Day rest goes on forever. How cool is that!
Adam and Eve are invited into and share in this mission to rest and rule in the garden and we see this play out as they go on walks with God. Beautiful intimate moments while they are tending the garden that God planted. During this 7th day of rest there is definitely work happening but its fulfilling and restful work. It’s the difference between starting a veggie garden or an orchard from scratch versus strolling through a well-established garden at harvest time tasting all the ripe fruit and veg. Both examples require work to get something from the garden but the first example is backbreaking labour and the second, restful and rejuvenating. So from the very first line of the scriptures we have a foundation for Sabbath, the 7th day. It involves a purposeful rest. Not simply clocking out.
The fact that the entire story of God starts with this cycle of work and rest implies that there is something much bigger going on. Bigger than a weekly reminder to rest because God rested. Starting with this cycle invites us to view the rest of the story with this cycle in mind. We are invited to pay attention to patterns that look like this because everything has essentially come out of this pattern. All of these cycles point to the same thing, there is a sense of divine completion that happens around the number 7. So as we blast through a few scriptures this morning I’m going to highlight the different ideas like justice, mercy, bringing heaven to earth and even ecological restoration which get attached to this idea of completion or new Eden or heaven to earth and then we will see what Jesus had to say about all of this.
But before we get to Jesus there is a problem. A big problem. Clearly we aren’t living in Eden. Adam and Eve gave up that intimate relationship when they rebelled against God. The land that once offered its bounty to them as they restfully strolled through it with God is now cursed. It has to be worked at with great effort and toiled over just to earn basic survival.
But because we know the story, we are aware that there is a plan to get humanity and creation back to completion, back to an Eden like state and we get a hint of it in a very purposefully structured 7 line poem in Genesis 12. Remember that 7 is a sign of God taking chaos and turning it into order and then resting and ruling with His people. So in Genesis 12 we read God’s promise to Abram:
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Interestingly there are five promises of blessing in this 7 lined poem which very conveniently stands against the five curses that are spoken over Adam and Eve and the land after the Fall, in Genesis 3! The picture that is being painted here is that God is recreating his perfect world in that 7th day of rest state, a new Eden through Abraham and his family. It’s also clear that the aspect that is being restored here is God’s blessing. There is a plan and we are included in it to see God’s kingdom here on earth, in all its blessed fullness and completeness. Fantastic. Things are looking up!
Until Abraham’s’ tribe find themselves as slaves in Egypt. Again God comes and liberates his chosen people by raising up Moses and using him to bringing the plagues which interestingly mimic the creation account but in reverse. So for instance:
Genesis says:
…and darkness was over the surface of the deep…. Then God said, “let there be light….”
Exodus says:
…that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt… but for all the sons of Israel, there was light in their dwellings.
Genesis says:
…let the waters swarm with every swarming creature…
Exodus says:
And the Nile will swarm with frogs…
This happens with every plague. It’s like as Egypt is being torn down as the Hebrew people are being reminded of their very own creation story. So we see that God takes the enslaved Hebrew people and liberates them. They are freed from the toil of the land. This is the next thing that God restores after the fall. In his kingdom, in his eternal 7th day rest, there is no slave, there is no bondage.
As we continue with the story of the freed Hebrew people, we see that they are now in the wilderness and in Exodus 16 from verse 21 we see the story of them collecting Manna.
21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.
This rhythm of collecting Manna was a clear link to the way God created in Genesis. This Miracle, bread like substance was a very simple but profound lesson to the Hebrew people they could trust God and his provision. No matter how much they collected and ate on the night before the Sabbath, there was always more than enough for the Sabbath. So the aspect of God’s new creation that is highlighted here is that God can be trusted and that there is always enough even during times of wandering in the wilderness.
As we continue the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, things start to get really serious when Moses goes up the mountain, waits 6 days and then on the 7th day God gives him the plans for the tabernacle which happened to be in 7 distinct speeches. This is serious because it meant that God’s presence would be able to dwell, to “Nuach”, to settle into the Hebrew camp. This language of settling is the same language that is used on the 7th day of creation. God settled into creation and is now wanting to settle with his people again. So Moses builds the tabernacle according to the instructions and God’s presence fills it! Fantastic! But he can’t enter which is what Leviticus and Numbers is all about. How to become holy. And so throughout the Old Testament there is this cycle of Israel keeping the covenant, experiencing God’s presence and then rebelling against Him. Yet throughout this ebb and flow there are cries from prophetic voices urging God’s people to return to that place of 7th day rest where God’s presence dwells.
One of the many examples of this prophetic cry comes from Isaiah where he proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour. They year of the Lord’s favour was the year of jubilee which was like a super Sabbath. The restoration that was meant to take place during this time was not only for the benefit of the Israelite nation but for surrounding nations, the land, they animals and the slaves and criminals. Farmlands would be rested for a whole year and there wouldn’t be intense harvests which meant the poor could help themselves to whatever they needed. Debts and criminal charges were erased. If you had lost land because of debt or crop failure or a bad business deal you would be given back the land. It was a revolutionary idea which clearly shows God’s heart for justice and mercy. Unfortunately there aren’t any records of this actually taking place in the Old Testament but those living in those times would have always had the expectation that it was always coming. There was this future hope of “the great reset” where everything would go back to the way God intended it to go. Back to an Eden like state.
And so as we jump forward to the time of Jesus and as the weekly Sabbath rolled around, you would probably be sitting your small synagogue. You might be thinking about the story of your people and how God had rescued them. You might be thinking about the various feasts and which one is coming up next. Then your mind might wander to the idea that there is this super Sabbath year that will one day come where everything that is in disorder will be returned to order. Then Jesus walks in to the same synagogue that you attend. This wasn’t strange. He had been doing it since he was a little boy. What was weird was what he decided to read that day. He read from Isaiah and said:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
You could have heard a pin drop. Did he just say what I think he said? Did he just proclaim the year of jubilee? He then rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Everyone was staring at him, but no one said a word. Then he said:
“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”
What I’ve tried to do up till now is demonstrate the sense of momentum and expectation that has been building for the Israelites. They have been reminding themselves once every 7 days, 7 times a year with the different feasts, once every 7 years with the year of release, and then looking forward to every 50th year, that the world that they find themselves in, with the toil and darkness is not the world that God has intended for them to live in. Jesus just declared that this is now happening. But he also adds in a little something something to the Isaiah 61 reading. He adds a single line from Isaiah 58.
“to set the oppressed free”
Jesus pulls in the line from Isaiah 58 to remind everyone he is talking to, to remember that this blessing is not only for them but for the benefit of the poor and the needy and the others that they might want to exclude from their way of life.
So Jesus’ ministry is like a long Jubilee tour where he went around and physically showed people what a year of jubilee would look like with healing and forgiving of sins. And we now know how just mentioning the word jubilee will invoke the idea of a super Sabbath. And Sabbath is linked to the creation account where God creates order from chaos. Everywhere that Jesus went Eden and Sabbath rest was released. Jesus then teaches about how God’s kingdom, this Eden like world, the never ending Sabbath, is available for us now. This is why in Matthew 12 Jesus said that he was lord of the Sabbath. He wasn’t saying that the tradition of Sabbath wasn’t relevant any more, not even close. He was the embodiment of the super Sabbath that goes on forever. He fulfilled it, completely.
So what does Jesus teach here now that he has fulfilled the Sabbath? How does this work out practically? Matthew clearly lays out what is going now that Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath. This obviously causes tensions between Jesus and the teachers of the law and he is being rejected by them as well as people who just don’t understand what is happening here. In a moment of prayer and teaching Jesus hit the nail on the head. He says in Matthew 11 from v 28:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This concept of a yoke is well known. It’s what attaches two oxen together so that they can work in unison. So we are joined to Jesus by his yoke. A yoke that is light. So when we let Jesus lead us the work we have to do is done from a place of rest. Sabbath. Eden. When we live with that lens, there is always enough because God provides on the Sabbath. There is freedom for the captives and rest for the land. See how the picture is being developed and fulfilled? It’s beautiful! Even in His death and resurrection we see that picture of Sabbath rest. Jesus was laid in the tomb on the Sabbath, and on the first day of a new week, he rose from the dead. Day 1 of 7 now carries the presence of God. Day 7, the Sabbath is leaking into every day. And that power that brought Jesus back from the dead is available to us now. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us.
At this point you are probably wondering how this translates to real life? We all still have to work and support ourselves and often that work feels like toil. Like the opposite of Sabbath rest. And so to end off we’re going to look at Hebrews CH 4 vs. 9. It says:
“There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God’s rest, also rest from their work just as God did from his. And let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.”
There is Sabbath rest for us but it’s easy to slip out of that mind-set and so we need to make every effort to stay in that rest. And while Jesus has ushered in a new year of jubilee that will never end, its complete fulfilment is still coming, even for us. But we know that we are equipped by the Holy Spirit and His power helps us to live “yoked” together with Jesus. We get to experience His rest even while we are toiling. We also have a responsibility to be a blessing to others. To share that perfect Jubilee rest with those who need it the most. The slaves, the captives and the sick.
So my prayer for us all this morning is that as we journey through our weeks, months and years we would remember the privilege of God’s presence. In the moments when we feel the toil of work, we would remember the year of Jubilee that Jesus declared over us. We have all that we need and we are yoked to Jesus. His yoke is light as we follow Him. As Holy Spirit works in us I pray that the transformation would be beneficial to everyone you come in contact with. That you would be a blessing to others and that they would see the work taking place in you and see God’s fingerprints all over you. I would also encourage you to work into your week a time when you acknowledge the story that you have been grafted into. Remember where you have come from and where you are going. Ask Holy Spirit to guide you in the week ahead and remind you that there is a day coming when we will get to experience the presence of God, face to face. There is always hope to those in God’s family. Amen.
Thank you!