The Sabbath rest

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it,

Because on it God rested from all the work that he had done. Genesis 2:3

 

Read Hebrews 4:9—13

I will think about the Sabbath rest tonight before I go to my daily rest. It is God’s time. It is the time that all God’s works lead into.[1] So it is a promise of God to me, that I may share with God in the outcome of all his works. It is the time for me to cease from my work to contemplate God’s work,[2] to enjoy God’s works. It is the time to cease from drudgery myself and from the exploitation of others, to celebrate God’s deliverance, my freedom, our shared salvation.[3] It is the festival that gathers up and rejoices in God’s creation and his re-creation, and that anticipates, with a mighty relief, the renewal of all things. All God’s work is headed towards this, which I can only picture in this way, but it is promise enough for me to see it as the goal of my life, and therefore to order my life toward this great Day of the Lord.

 

Dear Father, all creation sings a grand hymn of praise to you. All tends toward your glory. Nor does it stand still: it moves toward the fulfilment of your own purpose. The Sabbath: it is a grace beyond my imagining that you should invite me to come to it, to the place where I may share in your joy in all that you have made, in all that you have done, in all that you have restored, in the true nature of all things. All creation will be freed. Even my rest this night speaks in my daily round of this grand renewal. It becomes for me a little taste of Sabbath time. Hold me firmly in your purpose and in this hope until the end.

 

[1] Genesis 2:1—3

[2] Exodus 20:8—11

[3] Deuteronomy 5:12-15