2025 Week 17
Hello, Springers!
As we head toward Easter this year we’ve been walking through Luke’s gospel account of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.
But what about Holy Saturday? (Or as some call it, Silent Saturday.)
This is what it says in Luke 23:56:
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
This strikes me.
Jesus was unjustly condemned and crucified. He was buried and the stone was rolled over the entrance to the tomb. But after sundown on that Friday, the Sabbath began. And they rested.
Certainly, for Jesus’ disciples, it was not a restful rest. There was the agony of defeat. There was the fear of arrest. If the Son of God was killed by sinful men, there was no guarantee of safety for the followers of Jesus.
But rather than escape from Jerusalem, rather than rally together in a stand-off, rather than busy themselves making plans to contemplate their next move – the disciples of Jesus observed God’s command to Sabbath rest.
I’m no strict Sabbatarian, but it strikes me that if the crucifixion was not a reason to ignore the Sabbath commandment, what excuse do Christians today have for not observing it?
Yes, something is different in light of Jesus’ resurrection. The Christian Sabbath is now the first day of the week rather than the last. Someone has said that Christians have one holiday, the Lord’s Day, and we celebrate it 52 weeks per year.
Jesus said important things regarding the Sabbath. He said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” He also said, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” In saying these things he pointed to the two-fold purpose of the commandment. Jesus himself is the focal point of Sabbath observance, and it is good for his people to rest and worship Him on that unique day of the week.
On that first Holy Saturday, the disciples of Jesus were focused on their Lord, but they were not ready for the shock of that Sunday sunrise. Their rest on that day was not restful. Most likely, they were exhausted from all that had happened in the previous forty-eight hours. Yet according to the commandment, they rested.
Now we have their example to follow. In a world that clamors for our attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, our phones, our texts, our alerts, our friends, family, and jobs – if we allow it, the world will take as much attention as we are willing to give it. The demand never ends.
We think we do well to shave a few hours off our Sunday to pop into worship and perhaps even come an hour early for Sunday School or stay an extra twenty minutes later to talk with friends, but then we jump back into our calendar alerts and packed schedules.
How would our weeks be transformed if we came to believe more and more that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and that the Sabbath is given to us as a gift from our Lord, the one who holds time in his hand?
How would Sabbath keeping transform my view of what time is, its value, and how I choose to spend it?
The crucifixion did not cancel the Sabbath rest. At the end of time, those who are united to Christ by faith will enter into the ultimate Sabbath rest. That’s what the Holy Spirit tells us in Hebrews 4:9-11.
In the meantime, what will we do with the gift of the Christian Sabbath given us in the church, the people of the risen Christ?
in Christ,
Pastor Tag