Remember the Sabbath Day
By Eldon Smith -- Sunday, August 22, 1999

Letter From Your Editor, August 1999

Bible Reading

And it came to pass that Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to him, "Behold, why are they doing on the Sabbath that which is not lawful?"

And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the showbread, which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them who were with him?"

He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath."

He entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Stand forth."

And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill?" But they held their peace.

And when he had looked around on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, "Stretch forth your hand." And he stretched it out; and his hand was restored, as sound as the other. (Mark 2:23-3:5)

Reading from Swedenborg

When our actions come from the true ideas of faith, we do not yet have heaven's pattern in us. But when our actions come from the good of kindness, we do. . . . When we are in this state, it is the Sabbath, since then the Lord can rest. We are in this state when goodness has been united with truth. . . . This is the state of heaven, which is why heaven itself is called the Sabbath, and why there is an eternal Sabbath in heaven. (Arcana Coelestia #8510)

Sermon

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (Exodus 20:8)

This commandment is an essential part of the Ten Commandments. The principle involved in it is so important that the Lord included it in the brief summary of rules he gave us to follow in our daily lives, without which true order and happiness cannot be maintained. The Bible tells us that the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger on two tables of stone. We read, "And the Lord gave me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, on the days of assembly" (Deuteronomy 9:10).

We will never outgrow the need to obey these commandments. No change in our disposition or circumstances can reduce them to nine or eight or any smaller number. The obligation of keeping the Sabbath is for all people--unless we set the scriptures completely aside. To us, as emphatically as to the Israelites, the Lord says: "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it" (Deut. 12:32). There should not be a shadow of a doubt in anyone's mind that the Sabbath ought to be remembered and kept holy. The question is how we should observe it.

We have no direct historical evidence about the Sabbath prior to the beginning of the Jewish church. But there is reason to believe that the practice of setting aside one day in seven for religious purposes was known. It is certain that the division of time into periods of seven days called weeks has come down to us through many nations other than the Jews.

And it seems perfectly natural that one day out of the seven should be held in special honor and made a day of rest. Spiritually, mentally, and physically everyone needs such a day. The reason for it is to be found in the very necessities of our own nature. It is not to be imagined for an instant that the Ten Commandments contain any arbitrary decrees, or any precepts that are not based on the essential and universal requirements of humanity. If it was a good thing in the past to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, then it is still a good thing. The essential laws of life in the present time should be those of the past and of the unending future. For Jew or Christian they cannot be radically different from what they were to the churches of ancient days; nor can they be materially changed as long as there are humans living on earth.

The commandment about the Sabbath holds its place among the ten essential principles of orderly Christian life. We can see, then, that the Sabbath is an institution without which our highest spiritual interests would suffer fatal injury--which has already happened for those people who have no spiritual values. From the beginning of recorded time, it has stood as one of the ways of conjunction between the Lord and his human creation.

The day of the Sabbath has always been the Lord's day. It has been kept in obedience to him, in honor of him, and as a means of continually remembering him. No thoughtful person needs to be told what a strong and beneficial influence it has exerted. It has been one of the distinguishing marks of the Lord's church. Where the Sabbath has been observed, there alone the one true Lord has been openly acknowledged and worshipped. The Sabbath and the scriptures go together. The rejection of one is the rejection of the other. Reverence for one is reverence for the other.

In the ancient Jewish Church, before the birth of Christ, it was necessary that the outward observance of the Sabbath be more rigid and inflexible than after Christ came. This was due to the characteristics of the ancient Jews and their place in the order of the churches. They were the most external of all those who worshipped God. Spirituality of any degree or kind was almost unknown to them. They were under the rule of their senses. This world, with its various possessions, was their ruling thought. They were moved primarily by considerations of material success and the fear of natural punishment.

The Lord, in his goodness, accommodated himself to their condition. He led them in the only way they could understand. He gave them the assurance of worldly prosperity if they were obedient to him, holding out the promise that their days would be long in their ancestral land of Canaan. But if they violated his precepts, they knew that natural reverses and calamities would surely happen. As they could not enter into the spirit of the divine law, they were met by the most exacting requirements in its letter. Nothing was left to their own judgment or discretion--even in the external forms of worship. Sacrifices, offerings, and festivals were prescribed to them, and they were commanded to do no work on the Sabbath day under penalty of death.

This all changed with the Christian dispensation. The Lord himself, present in the flesh, taught mankind by example and precept that the external forms and modes are of comparatively little consequence to those who worship God in spirit and in truth. All sacrifices were abolished after the coming of the Lord. Other Jewish ceremonies shared the same fate.

The Sabbath, changed from the last to the first day of the week, was no longer treated with the unbending literalism of former days--though some variety of opinion and usage sprang up in relation to it. The Lord had plainly shown that with the Sabbath, as with other matters of religious observance, the essential thing was the spirit in which it was kept. Walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath day and plucking and eating the grain, he was accused by the Pharisees of profaning the Sabbath. The same charge was brought against him because he healed the sick. He replied, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27), and, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4).

These sayings obviously mean that the purpose for which the Sabbath was instituted--namely, the spiritual elevation and improvement of the individual--is far more important than any rigid ceremonial keeping of the day, and that kind and beneficial actions toward others are always in order. With the revelation of the internal sense of the scriptures, and with the deeper insight that it gives into the true significance of the divine teachings, we can see that a genuine remembrance of the Sabbath is something that depends far more on our state of mind and life than on any system of prescribed forms or conventional customs.

The word "Sabbath" is a Hebrew word that means "rest." In every conception of the Sabbath, rest is the primary and all-important thing. On one day of the week it is ordained that our ordinary pursuits should be put aside, that our thoughts should be on other and better subjects than worldly duties and cares, and that both mind and body should come into quiet and peaceful states as compared with their ordinary activity. The best Sabbath day is that which leads most fully to these states. But the mind is more than the body, and rest of the mind is of far greater importance than physical relaxation and repose. Rest is of many kinds. There is rest in change, rest in sleep, and rest in idleness. But the Sabbath rest is none of these. It is not just freedom from exertion and fatigue, but a positive influence of strength and comfort spread out over the soul of the one who experiences it.

All life consists of conflict and rest alternating with each other. The Lord says, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God" (Exodus 20:9, 10). This depicts a person's experience in regeneration, or preparation for heaven. Successive states of temptation, or of effort in overcoming evil, are followed by a period of eternal rest. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation" (Genesis 2:1-3).

In each of us the Lord seeks to create a heaven and an earth, an internal and an external; to bring them into their true order and relationship; and to fill them with good affections and wise thoughts--which are the highest form of spiritual life. This work, if we permit it to be done in our hearts, involves much labor and conflict. The natural unregenerate selfhood does not willingly or immediately accept higher principles and influences. The Lord has a difficult struggle with our selfhood before this stubbornness is overcome. Little by little, by one stage after another, he effects his purposes in those who cooperate with him. At last the opposition ceases, and he rests. A state of eternal conjunction with him follows the state of combat, and a state of genuine tranquility and peace follow. This is the true meaning of the Sabbath.

This highest idea of the Sabbath should be the basis of all our thoughts concerning it. Every lesser Sabbath should be a step toward a complete obeying of God's commandment to spiritually rest. As the Sabbath day occurs week after week, we should try to spend it in such a way that it will bring us nearer to the Lord in heart, mind, and life. We should make it a means of coming into a state of permanent union with him.

Every effort of this kind will tend to lift our thoughts to him, to make us aware of his infinite goodness and our own unworthiness in comparison, and to stimulate our desire to shun evils as sins against him. The rest which we enjoy will be of the interior kind that is felt in its fullness only by the angels. We will not need to force ourselves into any particular course of outward conduct, since the inward peace we feel will find its appropriate expression in corresponding actions. All will be quiet and peaceful around us because there is quiet and peace within us. In other words, above all else, we must try to keep the Sabbath in our hearts.

Remembering that the Sabbath is holy, we need to approach it with feelings of reverence. We need to keep in mind that it is the Lord's day, and that he is the all in all of it. Worldly cares and interests should be put behind us. Before the Sabbath arrives, we should try to come into communion with the Lord--communion of thought and feeling. No definite rules are given as to the precise way in which the hours are to be spent. The best way is that which produces the deepest and most beneficial impression on us in regard to the purposes of the Sabbath. The Scriptures give no direct instructions about going to church; but because the establishment of our proper relationship to the Lord is the object for which the Sabbath exists, it is fitting for people to worship together. It would be a strange Sabbath if this were omitted. If a person is inclined to omit it, let that person ask whether this inclination is prompted by anything good within him or her.

Yet merely formal and conventional worship is useless if it has none of the spirit of the Sabbath in it. The one who keeps the Sabbath best is the one who has the spirit of the Sabbath at heart. Outward actions are to be condemned only so far as they are destructive of that spirit. Sabbath-breakers are those who ascribe no holiness to the day, refuse to acknowledge the Lord in it, and make no effort to enter into states of internal rest.

Children and others who know nothing about the true significance of the Sabbath cannot be said to violate it in the same sense as those who have been thoroughly instructed. But no lesson is more important to impress on the minds of children and young people than reverence for the Sabbath.

This lesson can be taught partly by precept, but far more powerfully by example. If we in our inmost souls remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, then our children will probably do likewise. But if we neglect its observance, keeping it merely as a part of our weekly routine with no thought of anything but the outward ceremonial observance, our children will soon discover that fact, and govern their actions accordingly. Early in life, every child should become acquainted with these three objects of reverence: The Lord, the Scriptures, and the Sabbath. As the Lord is different from any other human being, and the Scriptures from any other book, so the Sabbath is different from any other day.

It must be evident to all that disregard for the Sabbath is a great and growing evil in our community. The day comes, but not the spiritual rest that belongs to it. Secular labor that is not religious or sacred is to a great extent stopped, but with far too many people, there is no recognition of anything high and holy in its place. Too often, the thoughts are not raised above the level of common everyday life, and the Sabbath is treated as an occasion for nothing but physical relaxation. Those who have a better knowledge of what the Sabbath was designed to be should resist this increasing tendency, and do what they can to impress upon the mind the principles contained in this commandment.

It is impossible to overestimate the spiritual help and strength we will receive if we are faithfully obedient to this precept. It is one of the most obvious means that the Lord has provided here on earth for accepting his heavenly blessings as our way of life.

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Amen.

Eldon Smith is a consecrated Lay Leader serving the Swedenborgian Church of San Diego, California.

Prayer

O Lord of the Sabbath, we thank you for building into human culture the divine principle of weekly rest from our labor. We thank you for caring for our physical and spiritual well-being through setting aside a Sabbath of rest for body and soul. As we observe your Sabbaths, touch us with the deeper peacefulness and quiet that we gain only through reconnecting with your enlightening and compassionate presence. As we physically rest from the tiring work of the week, may our body, mind, and spirit discover their true rest in you. Amen.