Many Churches, One Lord: To keep the Sabbath, we must practice

I just returned to pastoral ministry after a three-month sabbatical. It was such a gift. I praise the Lord for my sabbatical, and I am so grateful to Unity Presbyterian Church for all they took on to allow me to enter this time of rest in the Lord.

Sabbatical is simply an extension of the concept of the Sabbath. In the Ten Commandments, the people of God are commanded (and then reminded) to keep the Sabbath. But did you know that they had already been given the sabbath as a gift?

In Exodus 16, the Lord promises to provide daily bread or manna, and a weekly day of rest to the newly freed slaves out of Egypt. These provisions are a gift, but they’re also a test. Will the people trust the Lord to provide all they need over six days to rest on the seventh, or is it too good to be true?

The question remains for us, too. Do we trust the Lord to provide? Is it God’s grace or our own efforts that make the world go round? If I stop for one day a week, will the earth keep spinning? As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus calls us to come to him to find rest for our souls. The “work of God” is to believe in the one God sent, that is, to trust Jesus. This is salvation. It sounds a lot like sabbath rest, to me. It can’t be earned. It can only be received, and living into it takes practice.

Friends, I believe keeping a weekly sabbath helps us practice receiving grace and trusting the Lord. Sabbath is not a religious duty to perform, but a posture of rest and delight in the Lord. It’s not so much a law to be obeyed, as a blessing to be received. May we come to and learn to trust Jesus, who is gentle and humble in heart and so find rest for our souls.

Jeff Bergeson is the Pastor at United Presbyterian Church

This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: To keep the Sabbath, we must practice