The Gift of Rest

For many people on the periphery of the Christian faith, it may seem like our religion is all about following rules in order to get to heaven or appease an angry God. Depending on the passage of the Bible you read, that feeling may be confirmed - but the Bible isn’t just a book of rules. It’s a story that tells us how God, the Creator of the universe, pursued creation to restore it to its intended purpose. In order to understand the laws and commandments in the Bible, we need to focus on their intent. 

For example, if I were to tell my daughter (when she becomes a toddler) not to touch the stove, I don’t actually mean that she should never learn to cook. The intent behind such a rule is so she wouldn’t get hurt as long as she’s too young to understand how a stove works. As she grows, that rule will change for her because she will (hopefully) become a responsible adult. From the intent, we can see how rules can change and shift. Seeing rules as black and white leads to unhealthy legalism and confusion.

Of course, some of the laws that God gave to the people of Israel in the Old Testament still apply to us today. Murder, for example, isn’t one that changes depending on our age. We see it emphasized by Jesus when he said that we should not only refrain from killing each other, but also from thinking hateful thoughts about others since our hearts reveal our intentions (Matthew 5:21-22).

But Jesus had to address some other rules which his Jewish community did not fully understand. One of those was the law of sabbath rest. In Exodus 20, God gave the 10 Commandments to the people of Israel after they were freed from Egypt. They were preparing to be God’s representative nation in the world in order to draw others to Him. The fourth commandment was to keep the sabbath day holy - which in practice meant refraining from doing any work.

In the centuries before Jesus came to Earth, religious leaders created additional laws that defined “work” in order to prevent people from intentionally (or unintentionally) breaking the sabbath. They made rules about what people could carry, how far they could walk, or whether or not they could pluck grain and eat it if they were hungry. 

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were offended and threatened because He knowingly broke the rules that they had put in place. On one sabbath day, Jesus’ disciples were going through a field. They were hungry and plucked some grain and ate it (Mark 2). Others saw this and scolded Jesus because His disciples were breaking the rules that the religious leaders created. But Jesus answered them saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

By breaking the religious laws, Jesus was telling the people that they had missed the point. They actually lost the intent God had set up in the first place. The sabbath wasn’t there to just make God happy. Like all of God’s laws, its intent was to lead us closer to life in the way He intended. The laws of God are the boundaries in which life can truly flourish.

To understand the intent of the sabbath commandment, we must revisit the context in which it was given. Before God gave the 10 Commandments to the Israelites, God reminded them that He was the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. God was calling them to be a holy people, set apart to lead others to Him. They were free, but being free wasn’t something that they were used to.

As slaves, the Israelites worked for the benefit of their masters. They were dispensable spokes in the Egyptian wheel - constantly turning to get the job done. They were property, worked to death for Egypt’s gain. For generations, they didn’t know any different.

When God heard their cry and rescued them from slavery, He also gave them a new identity and purpose. But He also knew that they needed a different work ethic so they would not subjugate themselves or others to the conditions from which they recently escaped. Therein lies the intent of the sabbath law. It was meant to give rest to people who didn’t know what rest was. The sabbath was God’s gift of stillness and rejuvenation.

Jesus knew that God wouldn’t be angry if His disciples were hungry on the sabbath and picked grain in order to eat. Enforcing the sabbath in this way misses the point of what God was trying to tell humanity: that He created us to know and experience balance. Neither excessive work nor excessive rest are good for us. God knows that too many times, for the sake of productivity and profit, we would push ourselves and others to unhealthy extremes.

And so, God gives us the license to take a break and rest. In fact, God tells us that we need it. If we want to live like God intended, it needs to include rhythms of sabbath - times in which we stop and take a break from that which we consider “work.” I find this extremely difficult because rest often feels unproductive and selfish. I’m not known for being good at balance, but I want to learn to incorporate a regular rhythm of rest in my life. For me, it will need to involve learning to say “no” and prioritizing my time in healthy ways. 

I’m not sure what it might look like for you, but I do know that God longs for you to rest. God demonstrated the sabbath when He rested on the seventh day of creation. Jesus regularly went off alone in solitude to rest, pray, and recharge. God intends for us to have times where productivity is not the priority. God’s heart breaks for those who are stuck in situations where they can’t choose to take breaks. I know it will be different for different people, but in our Western world, I also know keeping the sabbath takes intentionality. Without intention, we will miss the gift of rest that God has given us.