Friday, January 25, 2008

Four - Delightful Sundays

A portion of my reading today:

"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word,
Then you will take delight in the LORD,
And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Isaiah 58:13, 14 (emphasis mine)

Isaiah 58 follows the great sequence of chapters detailing the redemption of God's people by the suffering servant (Jesus) and begins a description of what the restoration of His people will be like. This chapter specifically speaks of the need for, and pleasant consequences of, obedience to God.

The phrase that really caught my attention this time through was "call the sabbath a delight". That is exactly what we have tried to do at the Marsh household for the past few years. Some Christians try to ignore Sunday, but for those who observe it, it is easy to view Sunday as a burden, (E.g. "I have to go to church", "I can’t mow the lawn", etc.). However, I don’t want my family to "observe" Sunday, I want us to celebrate it! My wife and I have tried to arrange our day so that Sunday is the best day of the week for our family, the day we look forward to the most. For example, our afternoons involve the best meal of the week, with fine china and fancy drinks, naps for everyone, short walks in the neighbourhood, afternoon tea with special snacks and lapsang souchong tea.

I have heard a theory that it was after the Babylonian captivity that the Sabbath became burdensome and oppressive. The theory goes that the Babylonians had many special or ‘holy’ days that they observed, but the purpose of the days was not to celebrate their blessings or commemorate some great event, but to avoid bad luck. I suppose it would be similar to the superstitions some people have about breaking mirrors or spilling salt. The Israelites absorbed these bad attitudes, syncretized them into Sabbath, and were burdened by the day until Jesus came reminded them that the Sabbath was given as a gift, not a curse.

It is true that there are many things we refrain from doing on Sundays, not as a punishment or burden, but as a declaration on our faith and trust in God. For example:

I do not go to work on Sundays, even when it would be financially beneficial to do so, because I want to declare that God is the source of my families material provision, not my employer or career.

We do not shop on Sundays, even when it might save money, because we want to declare that our satisfaction is in the Lord and what He has already graciously provided, not in what we can gather by our own skill. He has already provided all we need.
We do not go to sporting events or other entertainment venues on Sundays, not because we do not value relaxation and leisure, but we want to declare that our source of delight and joy is not in the temporal excitement of sports or the beauty of the arts, but in the Lord God.

For our family, we want to delight in what God has given, and so we plan for Sundays by spending the days before preparing for it with cleaning, baking, and planning, so that we can spend the day itself in thanksgiving and praise to God. Sundays are our day to declare that God is the source, centre and circumference of our every need. As Isaiah says, we delight in the day, so we can delight in our God.

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