Living the Sabbath

This is an excerpt from a paper I am writing in response to Norman Wirzba's book Living the Sabbath. It is an excellent book, and comes highly recommended. I will post a link to the paper once it is completed. Please leave me your thoughts. Thanks

From Sabbath to Sunday
"Put succinctly, in the person of Jesus the Sabbath aspirations that heretofore guided the Israelites now find a most visible and compelling expression. If we want to see, feel, hear, taste, and touch what God’s delight in creation concretely amounts to, we can do no better than to consider the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. As the early medieval pope Saint Gregory the Great put it: 'For us, the true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ.'" (43)

Many believers do not even realize that sometime in the first century AD, Christians began meeting on Sunday, instead of on Saturday, which was the Jewish Sabbath. From Creation on, the people of God celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday, which was, and still is, the seventh day. It was on Saturday that God created rest. It was on Saturday that God commanded our elder brothers to cease from all work, and to keep it holy; to turn back their feet from doing their own pleasure, and to call the Sabbath a delight. But if this was the day on which rest was created, which for thousands of years bore the name of Sabbath, then why have we all grown up worshipping on Sunday? The answer to that question is fully and completely one Name: Jesus. Wirzba notes, “Just as the Sabbath represents the climax or fulfillment of creation, so too Jesus reveals what God’s intentions for life have been all along” (43).

To understand this we must remember on which day Christ made all things new. It was on the First Lord’s Day, on the morning after the Sabbath, that Mary and the others came to visit the tomb, and found it empty. It was on a Sunday that our Lord was raised from the dead. And we find in this act, the central hope that we have, that the dead can be made alive. Death now is conquered. There have been two events in history that bear the authority to change everything, to reorient all things to themselves. The first is the birth of Christ, which has changed even our calendars. We live in the year we do, because Jesus was born in a manger 2009 years ago. The second is this day of resurrection, this day of new birth. It too has changed our calendars. We now worship our God on this first day of the week, instead of the last day, as did our elder brothers, the Jews of the Old Covenant. They looked forward to their salvation, they anticipated it, much like they anticipate the Sabbath throughout the week. Their mindset was “Salvation is coming, our Rest is coming, our eternal Sabbath is coming.” This was pictured for them in the structure of their week. Saturday, being the last day, was always before them, in front of their schedules. They continually moved toward it. In the world Christ has transformed, we have the honor of looking back at our salvation. Our mindset is, “Salvation has come, our Rest has come, our eternal Sabbath has come in the Person of Jesus.” This is pictured for us in the structure of our week. Sunday, being the first day, the day of resurrection and new life, is always where we start, and move out from. Our days start here, and move out into the world. We start in Christ, and take Him to the nations throughout the rest of the week.

It would be foolish to say that Jesus abolished the Jewish Sabbath, just as it is foolish to say that He came to abolish the Law. Rather he came to fulfill both the Sabbath, and the Law. In both cases his fulfillment meant a transformation. Which makes sense, for in the birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the whole world was made new. Therefore the Sabbath has not been exiled to the realm of ancient historical practices. Much to the contrary, it has been re-born in the very person of Christ, and on His day of resurrection. Seen this way, it is inevitable that Sunday has become the new Sabbath. It is the day of rebirth, of new life, of the hope of our eternal rest. Paul tells the Colossians,

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." (Col 1:15-20)

The world has been recreated, and once again, it takes place in a garden (Jn 19:41). As God, in and through and for the Word, created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1, so again, God, in and through and for the Word, recreates the heavens and the earth in John 20. It is why John tells us in his vision, the one sitting on the throne declares “Behold, I am making all things new.” All things, whether on earth or in heaven, are being reconciled to God, making peace by the blood of his cross.

So here we are now. We live and move and have our being in the new creation. This does not mean that the world will not be finally and completely transformed at the end of days. It simply means that the transformation has already begun. Just as our own bodies being in the end fully and finally transformed into the incorruptible does not contradict the truth that we are undergoing transformation this side of glory, so it is with all creation. What are the means God uses to bring about this transformation of all creation? It is clearly the Church, the new Israel. As Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10). We are a nation of priests, and what do priests do? They go proclaim, and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey all that they have been commanded. Why? Because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to our Lord Jesus Christ, and Lo, He is with us always, even to the end of the age.
This is why it is inevitable that our Sabbath be transformed and reborn into the day of rebirth and transformation. Every week we celebrate a “little Easter.” How is celebration marked if not by and through feasting? As Isaiah says,

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Is 25:6-9)

The central symbol of this feast is of course the Table that Christ Himself sets before us. It is at this Table, a Table we sit at every week, that we partake of the rich food of the body of Christ, and the well-aged wine of His blood. It is here that bread and wine become a feast of joy and resurrection, because “He has swallowed up on this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.” How does God accomplish this, if not through sending His Church to the nations, making disciples of them, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey Christ? It is to this purpose the Sabbath has been reborn. We come to worship, to start the week in Christ, in public, as a public proclamation that Christ indeed sits on His Throne. It is this reality that we take to the nations Monday through Saturday, proclaiming that the veil of death has indeed been cast off in the person and work of Christ. It is also how we must live locally, in the context of our local communities. If we do not live unto our neighbor as if death has been cast off, how will we ever be effective on the national scale? Living Christ to others starts where you are, and moves out. It starts in your own home with your own loved ones. Then it continues out to your neighbors, your community, your town, your city, your county, your state and so on. Salvation is not just a personal event. It happens in space and time, unto space and time. Our personal salvation recreates the world of our existence and reorients the time through which we pass. It gives us new purpose and new direction. It is not simply a blue ribbon that we attain, and pin onto our bulletin board of personal achievements. Wirzba again,
"[We] need to move beyond the highly individualistic notion of salvation that many of us assume – that Jesus is significant because of the salvation he makes possible for individual believers… The work of Christ extends to and links up with the whole of creation…Christ, in other words, does not take us out of creation to save us, but rather saves us precisely by enabling us to enter more fully and more harmoniously into it, and then to find in this deep immersion the reality of God." (45)
Wirzba continues,
"We do not live alone or as rugged individualists. We need each other and depend upon the sympathy and support we provide to each other. In a very real sense, the health of human living, its success and fulfillment, depends upon the health and wholeness of the many relations that bodily existence requires…All wholeness, in the end, is a reflection of a gracious God who cares for us all be showering us with the gifts of bodies, food, and community. To be healthy in any way whatsoever is, whether we appreciate it or not, to bear witness to God’s continuing involvement in the maintenance and wholeness of creation. If we are attentive, our whole lives should be long act of thanksgiving and praise." (46-47)

This long act of thanksgiving and praise is our Sabbath life. It is Sunday living itself out Monday through Saturday. To return to the Table, it is why it is called Communion. It is a public celebration done in Community. The table was never meant to be an individual experience, the same way salvation is never an isolated event. The Body of Christ is the new humanity. We are the new creation, recreated in the garden of the empty tomb. This is our hope and our rest. It is our eternal Sabbath.

"Sunday, far from being the obliteration of Sabbath teaching, represents a profound rearticulation of God’s overarching purpose and plan for creation. Sunday is our day of joy, for here we remember our memberships one with another and commit ourselves to the health and wholeness – the salvation – of physical and social bodies, of communities and creation, made possible by Christ’s resurrection power and redeeming love." (51)