Shouldn’t Sunday be different for us?
Sundays used to be very different. When I was growing up, most everything was closed on Sunday. Malls, restaurants, movie theaters, car washes- everything was closed. In fact, my Dad taught me to drive in a mall parking lot on Sunday afternoons. But over the years, we have seen a massive shift in society, and in the church, as to how we spend our Sundays. Other than maybe attending Church, for most people there is not much difference between Sunday and any other day of the week. Well, except for the disappointing realization that if you’re hankering for a Chic-Fil-A sandwich, you’ll be disappointed!
I will readily admit that it is easy for us to get caught up in the cultural drift on a number of things –be it changing values regarding sexuality or the ever-increasing presence of social media or the pressure for productivity at all costs. I’m certainly not immune to social pressures that are part-and-parcel of the 21st century Christian experience. However, I’ve become increasingly convinced that yielding to the social pressure to ignore the Sabbath is a colossal mistake for the people of God.
While all of us can likely use a day of rest, personal pragmatics are not the chief reason for us to reclaim this day. Rest is good and rest is a part of the reason God gave us this day. But there are deeper, more theologically significant reasons we should consider observing Sunday with more diligence and faithfulness.
Reviewing What the Scriptures Teach
The Sabbath rest has its roots in creation itself. Genesis 2:3 says, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:3, ESV) From the outset we can see that the day was made or created “Holy”. We see that in essence the day was sacred as a day of rest.
God called His people into a unique Covenantal relationship with Him and, after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, He gave them the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20:8-11 they are instructed, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11, ESV)
Twice in these four verses we see the day is called “Holy”. In fact, the commandment is bookended by the declaration of the day as a holy day. The people are told to remember it and to keep it holy by abstaining from work and resting. This is in imitation of their God. As God’s people prepare to enter the Promised Land, Moses reviews the commandments with them in the book of Deuteronomy. It is noteworthy that in Deuteronomy 5:15 we learn more about what it means to “remember”: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:15)
The remembrance God’s people are called to engage in on their Sabbath is a remembrance of what the Lord has done. It implies thanksgiving and gratitude on behalf of the people for the mighty ways the Lord has provided for them. This is multi-generational because the people entering the Promised Land are not the same people who were delivered from Egypt– they are the 2nd generation. So there is a communal aspect to the sense of remembrance. It is to remember what the Lord has done through history for us.
But what about the New Testament? There are a few noteworthy observations in the Gospels that should inform our practice of the Sabbath. First, we see that Jesus himself observed the Sabbath. In Luke 4:16 the Gospel writer says, “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” (Luke 4:16) Here Jesus connects himself with the Sabbath and with worship. Jesus observed the Sabbath.
Secondly, Jesus pulled the Sabbath back from human legalism. Our tendency in any command or observance is to morph it from gift of grace to a burden of obligation. The Pharisees (the legalists of legalists) had made the day burdensome to the people and they were hypocritical in their application of the Law. Jesus regularly asserts his Lordship and authority over the day. The disciples were chastised for picking heads of grain on the Sabbath. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and was chastised for it. He responds to the former by declaring, “For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” In Mark 7:27-28 Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 7:27-28, ESV) Jesus calls His followers away from a rigid legalistic view of the Sabbath and reorients it as a gift.
My suspicion is that in the modern day we have made the opposite mistake of the Pharisees. Whereas they made it a burdensome obligation, the modern church has tended toward neglect of both remembrance and rest. I believe the key to a recovery of the Sabbath, one that embraces the commandment and appreciates God’s provision through it, is to look at those who came before us. On this subject I can think of no better example than that of the English puritans.
Reconsidering What our Forebears Taught
Thomas Watson (1620-1686) has become one of my favorites of the Puritans. He noted the attitude of the Christian as he prepares for the Sabbath, “When this blessed day approacheth, we must lift up our heart in thankfulness to God, that he has put another price into our hands for gaining heavenly wisdom. These are our spiritual-harvest days; now the wind of God’s Spirit blows upon the sails of our affections, and we may be much further on in our heavenly voyage.” (1) This seems a far cry from the average Christian’s outlook on Sundays, sometimes I must admit, even my own. However, I believe this is in large part due to the fact that we really haven’t taught or been taught this kind of perspective.
In reading J.I. Packer’s posthumously published work, The Heritage of Anglican Theology, he recounts the practices of the puritans on the Sabbath. Their view, as Watson intimates, was that the Lord’s Day (as it was commonly called) was a day to receive and store spiritual provisions and rest for the coming week. It was common for families to share a meal together at home and to discuss the sermon they had heard preached.
This implies not only attendance at worship but the tending to the whole of the day in light of the command of God and the historic pattern of the Church of Jesus Christ. As we have seen, the 4th Commandment (which instructs us keep the Sabbath) is no more ejected from the Christian’s moral obligation than are the other 9 of commandments. We still are commanded to honor one’s father and mother (5th Commandment) not to covet (10th Commandment) and not to steal (8th Commandment). Are those commandments burdensome to us? Are we frustrated by the Lord’s command to worship Him only? Do we question His wisdom in the provision of his commandment to not commit adultery? Or not to murder? I hope we don’t! Then perhaps we have discovered that the issue lies within us. It lies in an attitude of neglect of the 4th Commandment that many of us in the modern church should consider as a matter of repentance.
Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle, writing in the late 19th century said, “I want everyone to regard Sunday as the brightest, cheerfullest day of all the seven; and I tell everyone who finds such a Sunday as I advocate, a wearisome day, that there is something sadly wrong in the state of his heart.” (2)
Resetting Our Thinking and Practice
So, how can we move forward with a more joyfully obedient attitude and observance of this fundamental Christian practice? My goal is to not promote the laying up of unneccessary burdens or creating a legalistic matrix that defeats the very intent of the Lord’s commandments. But, as in all new habits, we should not be surprised if we find the old habits and attitudes fight us as we seek to replace them with Biblically faithful ones. So what are some practical ways for us 21st century Christians to observe the Sabbath? I would like to offer you 3 ways to reset our thinking and practice of observing the Lord’s Day. None of them are new. In fact, they are quite old, but maybe worth reconsidering.
1. Make worship with the gathered community of the local church a priority. Acts 20:7, we see the early Church’s testimony, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” The first day of the Jewish week, would have been Sunday, which, following the separation of the Christians out of the Jewish Synagogue was observed as the Christian Sabbath. The pattern of their community life was to assemble together. The gathered Body of Christ is completely unique. No where else you or your family will go during the week, will do what the Church can do. There you will gather with fellow believers from all walks of life, united by Jesus himself. There you will hear the Word of God read and taught. There you will offer praise and thanksgiving to God. You will receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion which strengthens and sustains you as a covenantal reminder that His love for you is real and His redemption was bought with by very breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood.
To “make Church a priority” requires some thought. First, whatever we prioritize has a place of meaning and importance in our lives. We are all aware of the limitations of time and resources. It is has been said that if you want to know what is important to a person, look at their checking account and their calendar. What we do with our money and our time reveals our priorities. The second thing to consider is that our priorities speak, they proclaim a message, particularly to our children and families. What the family makes a priority, the family values as more important than something else. What the family chooses NOT to do also speaks loudly to the children and the community about what they consider not important. The most obvious example of this is sports. Over the last 20 years, Christian families have willingly surrendered the Lord’s Day and made sports their family’s priority. The implied message about Church is, “Well, that’s what we do when we have nothing else to do.” It’s not a priority and so the faith life of the family languishes as the family cheers from the sidelines. Make worship a priority.
2. Make family time a priority. Families are starving for time together that builds and stregtherns their relationships. One study found that American families get about 37 minutes of quality time a day together as a family.(3) Yet, family time ranks high in perceived needs and desires of family members.(4) So we generally want more time as a family, but due to busyness, over-scheduling, economics, social media (on average our teenagers spend over 4 hours a day on social media platforms!)(5), we aren’t getting this needed and desired time. Historically, the Lord’s Day has been a day for families. It is clear that we need this time together. We run hard all week, and to have a day with intentional and dedicated time together is a gift we have neglected for far too long.
I would encourage us to not only go to church, but to come home, put the phones and electronic gadgets in a cabinet, make lunch and eat together. Discuss the day at church, the Sunday school lesson, the sermon, the people you saw, and the ways you were comforted and challenged in the morning. Listen to how the Westminster Confession of faith describes the Sabbath observance, “It is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are all all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the hole time (except so much of is as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship.”(6)
This may well sound virtually impossible in this day and age. It seems so far removed from our current Sunday practices, but are our current Sunday practices improving our spiritual health? Are our family’s spiritual health better than our forebears? How about our communities and churches? Even if we just reclaim the day with church attendance, a family meal and discussion, we will have done much to right the ship. But I’d add a solid afternoon nap, taking a walk together, reading a good spiritual book, having some real conversations with our spouses and kids, would likely account for the rest of the day without much extra effort.
3. Rediscover the Joy of Reading Scripture, Proven Spiritual Books, and Catchesis. One of the ways of observing the Sabbath, that was once more common, was the reading of Scripture in the home, particularly on the Sabbath. Second to this was the reading of spiritual books that fed, challenged, and comforted the reader in their walk of faith so that they may be led to maturity (Ephesians 4:13). This is something that must be led and modeled in the home by the parents. Can you imagine the witness of seeing Dad forego the football game to read his Bible and talk about the Catechism with his daughter? Or the witness of Mom (who always is busy) sitting and reading a spiritual classic and talking to her son about what she is learning? Again, while the language may seem a bit archaic, the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it this way, “The charge of keeping the Sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound to not only keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those under their charge.”(7)
What to read? In terms of the Bible, one could re-read the lessons from Sunday morning using a Study Bible and go deeper into the passages. Or you could have a Bible reading plan (hopefully Sunday isn’t the only day you’re reading the scriptures) and do some extra reading in that plan –maybe catch up if you missed a day or so. In terms of Catechesis, you could use any of them. With younger children the 1662 Book of Common Prayer Catechism, or Wesminster Shorter Catechism. For Adults (and since I have many Anglican readers) I’d suggest a commentary on the 39 Articles (my favorites are by Gerald Bray and Griffith Thomas) and To be a Christian in addition to the Westminster Confession of Faith or Longer Catechism.
To renew our observance of the Sabbath is not the same as a call to legalistic rigidity. It is more of a call to a Gospel counter-culture of freedom-in-obedience. The Lord established a Sabbath for his people. Jesus himself said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 7:8, ESV). If he’s right, and I suspect he is (being Jesus, the Son of God), would His father make the Sabbath for us, if we didn’t need it? If it did not fulfill some Divine purpose in our life?
I don’t think so, either! So, I encourage both you and I, let’s reclaim the Lord’s Day.
- Watson, Thomas, Heaven Taken By Storm
- Ryle, J.C. Knots Untied, 1874, Banner of Truth 2016, 348
- https://nypost.com/2018/03/20/american-families-barely-spend-quality-time-together/
- https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/26/family-time-is-far-more-important-than-other-aspects-of-life-for-most-americans/
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/512576/teens-spend-average-hours-social-media-per-day.aspx
- The Larger Catechism, The Westminster Confession of Faith, Q117, Banner of Truth Edition, 296-7
- The Larger Catechism, The Westminster Confession of Faith, Q118, Banner of Truth Edition, 296-7