Quotes about Sabbath

In this brief Sabbath now, time fit To be eternal. Such a bliss Of bloom's no ornament, but root And light, a saving loveliness, Starred firmament here underfoot.

And in the fields and the town, walking, standing, or sitting under the trees, resting and talking together in the peace of a sabbath profound and bright, are people of such beauty that he weeps to see them. He sees that these are the membership of one another and of the place and of the song or light in which they live and move.

Jesus Christ is the rest of God. He is, as N. T. Wright has put it, "the fulfillment of the sabbath."114 By taking Christ as our rest, we cease from our labors just as God did from His.115 Christianity, therefore, begins not with a do, but with a done—"It is finished!"116 We enter into God's rest, and we labor from there.

You are not the only one who has spent the night in reflection. The final festival of the spring season is this coming Sabbath, fifty days after Passover. In Hebrew it is called Shavuot, though many now call it by its Greek name, Pentecost. It marks the end of the spring harvest, and the day carries a divine purpose. We are called to draw near to the throne of God, to receive an earthly foretaste of the splendor to come.

As we keep or break the Sabbath Day we nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope by which man rises.

Keeping the Sabbath day holy is much more than just physical rest. It involves spiritual renewal and worship.

Jesus was Jewish. He went to synagogue "as was his tradition" and celebrated holy days such as Passover. But Jesus also healed on the Sabbath. Jesus points us to a God who is able to work within institutions and order, a God who is too big to be confined. God is constantly coloring outside the lines. Jesus challenges the structures that oppress and exclude, and busts through any traditions that put limitations on love. Love cannot be harnessed.

This is exactly the message of GOD that Jeremiah had preached: the desolate land put to an extended sabbath rest, a seventy-year Sabbath rest making up for all the unkept Sabbaths.

Inappropriate, anxiety-driven, fear-driven work would only interfere with and distract from what God was already doing. My "work" assignment was to pay more attention to what God does than what I do, and then to find, and guide others to find, the daily, weekly, yearly rhythms that would get this awareness into our bones. Holy Saturday for a start. And then Sabbath keeping. Staying in touch with people in despair, knowing them by name, and waiting for resurrection.

Ever since Adam's day, the divine law of the Sabbath has been emphasized repeatedly over the centuries more than any other commandment. This long emphasis alone is an indication of its importance.

What is worthy or unworthy on the Sabbath day will have to be judged by each of us by trying to be honest with the Lord. On the Sabbath day, we should do what we have to do and what we ought to do in an attitude of worshipfulness and then limit our other activities.

Yes, child of suffering, thou may'st well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!