365 Days with God - Day 22: A Day of Rest

I'm giving myself a challenge. Read the Bible each day for a whole year, following the ESV Study Guide 1-year plan. Each day, I will post whatever God has revealed to me in His Word, and how it is changing me. A friend of mine once said that nothing has changed her life as much as reading the bible each day - and I'm excited for how this will change me. Join me on an adventure into the heart of God - and day by day, we can learn more about who He is and what that means to us!

- Andy Catts

Day 22, January 11, 2014

Readings: Psalm 21, Genesis 21:1-21, 1 Chronicles 25, Luke 13:10-35

The Sabbath. A day of rest, and a strange name that we still discuss to this day. What does it mean? To be honest, I really didn't understand the purpose of it for most of my life. I didn't really see how the term "a day of rest" applied to a day we went to church. And so, for the most part, I grew up believing (by my own deduction) that the Sabbath was a day to go to church. And church often took up so much time that we didn't do much else, so I suppose it was a rest from the ordinary.

However, Jesus speaks of the Sabbath rather pointedly. But interestingly enough, he never mentions going to church. He speaks about the Sabbath at church (the synagogue), but he's not admonishing people to attend. He talks about something rather different:

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your disability." And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, "There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day." (Luke 13:10-14)

Jesus made the Sabbath. Jesus knows what the Sabbath is for. The Sabbath is for rest. For healing. For separating ourselves from the normal things in our lives so that we can connect with God and our community.  The mandate that no work would be done on the Sabbath is for our own healing. That we can be refreshed. Rejuvenated. Connected with our families and God before we go back out into another crazy week.