One of the topics Jesus often argued about with the contemporary religious teachers of his day was the Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath is on Saturdays and is a day when work is forbidden by the 10 Commandments. The idea was that you could work every other day, but the Sabbath was set apart for rest. In the ancient Jewish faith, the Sabbath had taken on a weird character of its own. The leaders of the Jewish faith had spent centuries talking about what was meant by “work” so they could make sure everyone followed the rule properly. There were sects of Judaism whose adherents wouldn’t go to the bathroom on the Sabbath, for fear that it would be construed as work. Other, more commonly obeyed rules, included not making your bed, not getting food, not traveling more than a few miles from home, etc. Punishments for disobeying the Sabbath were severe. Jesus frequently clashed with the leaders of the day because he healed people and allowed His disciples to gather food, both on the Sabbath. His response on one occasion was that God had made the Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath. This basically means that the Sabbath was given to people as a gift. It is a divinely required day off, for people to rest and spend time with family and God. Instead, the ancient Jewish faith had turned the Sabbath into a strict, miserable set of rules to follow. Rather than it being an opportunity to take a break, it had become a heavy weight to bear. Today, most people live in the opposite place. As a culture, we’ve bought into the idea that busyness is a virtue. Filling the calendar to the brim with work, hobbies, running from place to place, and everything else is the norm. In the few still moments, we fill the air with noise, chores, and all matter of distractions. I recently read of a study that found that kids read less than ever, largely because of the ever-present distractions that keep them from reading at length. We have achieved the opposite extreme from the ancient Jews. We are too busy to take time away and rest. Rest is a burden because we, as a culture, are too busy to relax. Charles Swindoll once said of busyness: “It substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man. It fills a calendar but fractures a family. It cultivates a program that plows under priorities.” God gave us the gift of relationship with Him and with each other. Busy living robs us of it. There is no virtue in failing in our relationships. I am not a proponent of forced rest or the idea that God requires believers to take off on Saturday or Sunday. Instead, I would argue that what Jesus taught is that God wants us to take time off to enjoy the important things in life: time with him, time with family, time of rest and relaxation. It is a huge blessing to have time. Sometimes that means eliminating things from our schedule or learning to say “no” to new obligations. This also means intentionally scheduling time to be together and to worship. It’s a countercultural thing to do and it can be an uncomfortable thing to adopt.
