Christian Middle

I’ve always admired the way traditional Judaism celebrates the Sabbath starting on Friday night into the day of Saturday. If we’re looking for a time when we’re all ready to stop working – these are definitely the hours.

This past weekend, having a blizzard blow through my area all day Saturday gave me a sort of enforced Sabbath. Because the storm was so well forecast, I knew ahead of time that I wouldn’t be going anywhere. It meant that I looked forward to a whole day of time that I could orchestrate however I wanted.

It’s amazing how restorative such a time block can be. Yet, I find that I’m not very good at keeping a Sabbath in my usual schedule.

In our modern era, we even have the “weekend” – typically two days off from our workday schedules. But I wonder whether that increased flexibility has helped us reserve a day as a Sabbath for ourselves.

The priests of Jesus’ day criticized Him regularly for Sabbath violations but Jesus taught, “The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27 The Message).

But what did Jesus mean? Though he modeled for us times when He withdrew from the crowds in order to pray and thereby restore His strength, He also did deeds of compassion on the Sabbath. He even observed that these deeds constituted for Him “food to eat” (John 4:32).

I did do some work during my snowy Saturday, but it was joyful work – work that fed my Spirit. I also relaxed in ways I don’t usually. The uncommitted time served me well.

Asking us to keep the Sabbath is God’s generous gift of time out of our normal routine to simply be: to enjoy quality time with our families, with ourselves, and with our Lord.

Now if I can just plan to do if without the weather’s training wheels.

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