Back to the Garden - The meaning of 'Sabbath'

When I was a kid growing up in the 60’s, I had fair number of friends in my neighborhood with whom I spent almost every waking moment that wasn’t already spoken for because of school, family meals, or sleeping.  Six days out of the week, from morning until bedtime, it was a time filled with playing sandlot baseball, sledding, and games of “Army” in the open field down the street from morning until our mom’s called us home. 

Actual picture of our neighborhood 
sandlot/playing field
(a.k.a. Oak Hill Cemetery) 

As community of kids, we quickly developed our routines, our rules, and our traditions.   Among other things, those rules and traditions included when, where and what we would do together; the location of the out-of-bounds lines; the times when you had to include younger siblings in our activities; and who had to go home on the first call or the third (depending on whose mom was doing the calling.)  Although an outsider wouldn’t know, let alone understand, our rules and traditions, it made perfect sense to us.  How we practiced our rules and traditions maximized our play time, minimized our disputes, and gave us a sense of purpose and belonging.  

Me on the front porch as a kid...
but I wasn't stuck there.

But I also learned that one day out of the week our routines and rules were superseded by another set of rules and traditions. Since our neighborhood was predominantly Dutch, and therefore religious, that day was reserved for something my friends called ‘the Sabbath.’  I didn’t understand the Sabbath as a kid because, despite my parents being thoroughly Dutch, they were not church going folk, I never learned the reason behind it.  But while I didn’t comprehend the purpose of Sabbath, I did quickly learn its practice.  It seemed to me that my friends were pretty much stuck to the porch on that day. They told me it was a day that they had to 'rest.'  As a 10 year old boy, I understood the word ‘rest’ was nothing more than parent code-speak for ‘nap.’  And when you are 10 years old, the last thing you would do is burn daylight hours on a nap.  So for me, this strange tradition of ‘Sabbath’ made no sense.  And judging from the reactions of my childhood friends stuck up on the porch, it didn’t make much sense to them either.

So what is this thing that we call Sabbath? Is it important, or insignificant?  Is it required, or optional?  Can it only be done one way, or are there many ways?  To be honest, I never did ‘get’ the idea behind Sabbath until recently.  Previously, my perspective was that the Sabbath was a tradition that maybe had outlived its usefulness.  Sure, it gave us a time to gather for worship, but beyond that, it was a day much like any other day, except maybe there was enough time to grab a day time nap (and thereby confirming my childhood suspicions).  I attribute that skewed perspective to the simple truth that tradition without understanding is useless.  I didn’t understand the intention behind the practice.  Then I started digging into it and uncovered a deeper truth and purpose.

Jesus had a saying about the Sabbath: ‘The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.’”  I love it when Jesus reels off a pithy saying like that, but what is Jesus driving at with that statement?  What is the underlying purpose of taking a day of rest?  I think we find the answer in the story of where the concept of Sabbath was created in the first place.  In Genesis 1, we encounter nothingness.  No light, no dark, no sky, no sea, no land, no birds, fish or animals…and most of all…no us.  Then God starts speaking, and as he speaks, he brings creation into existence.   And it isn’t a haphazard plan, but where everything created is incredibly interconnected.  Part and parcel to creation of the universe, the earth, and all things on the earth, God also created the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve.  Genesis tells us that it was a place where the physical needs of Adam and Eve were met perfectly.  All of this was done methodically in six days.  Then on the seventh day, God created Sabbath.  

So if we stop the time line on the seventh day, what do we see?  We have humans living in Eden, walking with God, tended his garden, and Sabbath.   So as Adam and Eve lived in the Garden, and were stewards over it for six days of the week, on the seventh day they too were encouraged to enjoy it thru Sabbath.  The point being that even when the world was in its perfect state, just as God wanted it to be, there was still Sabbath.  Sabbath is part, and has always been part, of God’s master plan for creation.

Where was this app
when we needed it? 

Well most of us know what happened next.  Sin entered into the world and into the Garden of Eden.  We obtained knowledge of good and evil, except we didn’t download other useful apps with it…like wisdom, insight or good judgment. Instead, it was just enough understanding for us humans to be really, really dangerous.  So God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden. He had to.  He had no other choice.  If they had remained, their sin would’ve destroyed the place. But here is the one important fact that most of us miss in that whole transaction:  While God banished Adam and Eve (and by default, us) from the Garden, do we ever notice the fact that God didn’t take away the Sabbath?  True, we lost our place in God’s creation where our physical needs were met perfectly, and instead, found ourselves facing a life of pain and hard toil.  But it's not as if God decreed that banishment was 24/7, or indeed, a permanent.  With that realization, we start to unravel the purpose behind the practice of Sabbath.  

To better understand how Sabbath applies to us here and now, we must first draw back a bit from our own faith journey and look at the larger context of humankind’s journey.  Ever since the fall of mankind, God has been on a single focus mission of redeeming us and His Creation.  God didn’t banish us and simply shrug his shoulders and say “Well, guess that didn’t work out.”  To the contrary, from that moment onward God has been intent on restoring us back to the Garden.  So from our perspective then, we should be aware that while the journey of humankind begins in the Garden of Eden, it is also on a trek back to the same Garden, as described in the Book of Revelation.  We are all on a journey from the Garden, back to the Garden.

The truth is we all want to get back to the Garden.  We all want to get to the place where the needs and wants of our whole being (both physical and spiritual) are met perfectly.  There is a yearning to once again walk in peace with God and have the pleasure to tend to his Creation.  Yet, the present reality is that we are engaged in a daily struggle of life in this broken place we call planet Earth.  How are we to be sustained?  How are we to be nourished?  How can we continue on?

One practice of faith that can help us is actually practicing Sabbath.  I'm not suggesting the mindless sitting on the porch, doing nothing, kind of practice, but one done with understanding and purpose.  An understanding that is grounded not only in the firm belief that Christ will indeed return to earth and restore Creation and us, but also the belief that God has not abandoned us or his mission where we find ourselves here and now.  So while we wait for the return of that perfect physical place, he gives us something that was the crowning achievement of Creation in the first place: Sabbath. 

From the beginning, the Sabbath was meant for us!  It was created for us.  It is a gift, a benefit.  When we engage in Sabbath, our physical and our spiritual beings, our very souls, are fed!  It is through the practice of Sabbath that God gives us a sign of his creative and redeeming power.  It is a time to remember that while God may have sent us out of the Garden, he still takes care of us, and will delivers us back to it.  It recalls our previous glory, when we lived with God in Eden, and at the same time, testifies to God’s purpose to recreate us in His own image.  In essence, Sabbath points us to what was…and is yet to come.

Think about it this way:  If we are on a journey from the Garden back to the Garden, the purpose and practice of Sabbath is to prepare us for re-entry into it.  It is a tradition that that makes us fit to once again live in Eden with our Lord and Creator.  It is a spiritual routine that gives us purpose and identity.  So as we approach that day that God has intentionally set aside and making it holy so we can experience restoration and renewal.  It is a time and space where we once again walk in relationship with the Lord, rest in his presence, and play in his Creation.  It is our temporary respite in our journey from the Garden…back to the Garden.

Keep the faith,