David Bahn – Reflections

Hebrews 4:9-10

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰ for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

I love taking a Sunday afternoon nap; it’s one of the things I look forward to each week. Often times it is to the accompaniment of a televised golf tournament. When the announcer says in a hushed voice, “The ball is just off the putting surface,” I can be sure that the ZZZ’s will soon follow. Part of that is due to the fact that my Sunday morning starts very early, and I generally give it my all in worship each week.

But there is another aspect to this Sunday afternoon nap idea – a reflection of the ebb and flow of the week as God designed it. When God created the heavens and the earth he did so in six days. On the seventh day he rested. In fact that reality is underlined by the third commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).

The Jewish people took this commandment so seriously that they came up with rules to assure that the sabbath was properly kept. This was a misguided effort because the effort necessary to keep those rules undercut the purpose of the law. The sabbath was to be a day of rest for God’s people – a time to reflect on God, his creative power, and more important to prepare for the a more fruitful life as God’s people.

A sabbath rest is also a time for reflection on God’s work in our lives. It was first of all a time for God to look at his creation and call it “very good.” Whether we do so by means of a Sunday of leisure or a more full-blown sabbath experience from Friday evening through Saturday evening (the Old Testament manner of observance), sabbath is a foretaste of an even greater rest to which God calls us and which we have been promised through Jesus Christ.

The publicity for the book, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, by Wayne Miller states:

In today’s world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal–a refuge for our souls.

We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.

Hebrews 4:1-10

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. ² For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. ³ For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴ For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” ⁵ And again in this passage he said,

⁶ Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷ again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. ⁹ So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰ for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.