Sabbath

In Exodus 31, God gives Moses some commands about the Sabbath. He's already included keeping the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments, but there's some additional guidance here. God emphasises the importance of the Sabbath (breaking it is a capital offence), and repeats the injunction against doing any work on that day. But he also twice refers to it as a sign. A sign points to something; what does the Sabbath point to?


In verse 13, God says it is a sign so that the Israelites will know that He is YHWH, the Lord. In verse 17 He reminds them that in the story of Creation, God works and then rests. But in verse 13, He also says that He is the Lord who makes them holy. It's not keeping the Sabbath that makes them holy. Keeping the Sabbath reminds them that it's God who makes them holy. "Holy" doesn't just mean "good", it means "set aside, different from the rest of the world". If they keep the Sabbath, they are behaving like God, who worked and then rested. If they are behaving like God, they are in line with what He intends for them. And being in line with what God intends for them is another way of expressing that God makes them holy, different from the rest.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus expands the teaching on the Sabbath. It's for the benefit of mankind, not just a legalistic requirement. And we know, in our modern lives, that it's essential to have a balance between work and rest. Working constantly leads to exhaustion and burnout. It's good sense to keep a Sabbath somehow, to have a time of the week that's not about working. But we should remember that there's more to the Sabbath than an ancient exhortation to achieve work-life balance. It's a sign, too.

When we keep a Sabbath (however we do it), we are behaving like God, working and resting. When we remember that it's God who makes us holy, not our good deeds that make us holy, we understand that living God's way is the best pattern for our lives. So keeping a Sabbath by just having a rest isn't a path to holiness. Keeping a Sabbath because we want to live God's way is what helps us to be the people God wants us to be.