"The leader of the synagogue,
indignant because Jesus had
cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd,
“There are six days on
which work ought to be done;
come on those days and be cured, and not on
the sabbath day.”
My siblings and I grew up in a home that believed
your salvation was based on keeping the Sabbath. It was a required
church law in our home, and we were expected to keep it if we were going
to live under their roof. It was the "most important" law to keep, Dad
believed.
Keeping the Sabbath law in our home looked a little
something like this: On Friday, before Sabbath began, the house had to
be cleaned, the car gassed up since we weren't allowed to purchase gas
on Sabbath, and Saturday's family meal had to be prepared in advance.
Once the clock arrived at the exact minute it became sundown on Friday,
the TV was turned off, secular music was stopped and the Sabbath had
begun. The 24-hours of Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown
Saturday, allowed us only to play religious games, attend church, visit
with church friends (not neighbor friends) and watch the hands of the
clock s-l-o-w-l-y tick by till sundown Saturday night arrived.
Sabbath, in my home, didn't look a thing like Jesus ever hoped or wanted us to experience.
As I became an adult, I began to understand the true blessing and meaning
of this day I had so dreaded as a child. I discovered it had nothing
whatsoever to do with keeping a stringent and exhausting list of rules
and regulations or keeping a certain day of the week, but rather, was a
hand-wrapped Gift placed in my life for EVERY day of the week to help
nudge me closer to God. I discovered it was His Son that was my much
needed rest.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment