The Sabbath Was Made For Man

And he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." -Mark 2:27

I don't remember when it was, but sometime not too long ago it dawned on me that the Sabbath, at it's root, is not a Levitical ordinance. It is actually much deeper; a sacred slice of time that is intimately connected with the creation and character of the universe. It is the tithe of our toil, a quiet moment for us to reflect on life, and in doing so to more accurately grasp it's meaning before it passes us by.

It has been said that leisure is the basis of culture; it takes time for our senses and spirit to awake to the beauty of the world. Leisure, which is only possible in the context of meaningful work, is not to be confused with idleness, which is the absence of work. As Wendell Berry writes, in this brilliant passage from A Continuous Harmony:

A man doing wholesome and meaningful work that he is pleased to do well is three times more at rest than the average factory or office worker on vacation. A man who does meaningless work does not have his meaning at hand. He must go anxiously in search of it - and thus fail to find it. The farmer's Sunday afternoon of sitting at home in the shade of a tree has been replaced by the "long weekend" of a thousand miles. The difference is that the farmer was where he wanted to be, understood the value of being there, and therefore when he had no work to do could sit still. How much have we spent to obscure so simple and obvious a possibility? The point is that there is an indissoluble connection and dependence between work and leisure. The freedom from work must produce not leisure, but an ever more frantic search for something to do.*

So we see that leisure implies labor; rest implies work. The Sabbath is not an idle institution - on the contrary: it is drenched with the consciousness of toil. It is in accord with the sagacious spirit of Ecclesiastes, which says there is nothing better for a man than to pause and rejoice over his labor he has taken under the sun.

When you think about it, having an entire day free from the would-be tyranny of occupational activity is a glorious opportunity for growth and enrichment, both practical and spiritual. As Thomas Cahill says (emphasis mine):

No ancient society before the Jews had a day of rest. The God who made the universe and rested bids us do the same, calling us to a weekly restoration of prayer, study, adn recreation (or re-creation). In this study (or talmud), we have the beginnings of what Nahum Sarna has called "the universal duty of continuous self-education," Israel being the first human society to so value education and the first to envision it as a universal pursuit - and a democratic obligation that those in power must safeguard on behalf of those in their employ. The connections to both freedom and creativity lie just beneath the surface of this commandment: leisure is appropriate to a free people, and this people so recently free find themselves quickly establishing this quiet weekly celebration of their freedom; leisure is the necessary ground for creativity, and a free people are free to imitate the creativity of God. The Sabbath is surely one of the simplest and sanest recommendations any god has ever made; and those who live without such septimanal punctuation are emptier and less resourceful.**

Thus we can see there are several conditions that must be met before we can experience the full benefits of the Sabbath-rest:

1. We must regard the Sabbath as a gift, not a burden.
2. We must be doing meaningful work on other days so we have something to "rest from."
3. We must deliberately and proactively avail ourselves of the liberty to pray, learn, meditate, dream, read, or simply rest.

The Sabbath is more than a day to sleep in and "recover" from our "tough week." It is there to remind us that there is more to life than drudgery and deadlines and dollar bills. It is there to remind us "Life is real - life is earnest / and the grave is not the goal / dust thou art, to dust returnest / was not spoken of the soul."*** It is there to remind us we are free. That we are responsible. That we are responsible to be free.

*Thomas Cahill, Gifts Of The Jews, (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 144
**Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony, (Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard, 1972), 113-114
***Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist

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