June 10, 2012
Dear friends in Christ.
I don’t know about you, but in the past few years,
I’ve started receiving quite a few “Save the Date” postcards. These postcards most often come to me as an
announcement of a wedding to be held on a certain date six to even nine months
in the future. I don’t know if “Save the
Date” postcards are just the new and popular thing to do for weddings these
days, or if it’s become necessary because we are all so busy. After all, if you are like me, then you have
any number of activities going on during any given day. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of
you often find yourself double and triple booked when it comes to family,
children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. So it seems that the idea of sending out a
“Save the Date” postcard months before a wedding would be a great idea;
especially if one couple is looking to guard against another couple snatching
up their special day. Yet, even though
we often times receive those special postcards designed to guard the date of a
wedding, so often we are not able to guard that date for a wedding because we
are already guarding that date for another event to which we are already
committed. Or, if we have the date open,
we put the card in a special place to remind us of when the event will be, but
we do not necessarily enter it on our calendars until we know for certain that
nothing else is going on that day and we can guard it for a wedding.
Sadly, this is how so many people treat the idea of
coming to church. Though Sunday is the
day when so many congregations gather to worship the Lord how often doesn’t it
happen that people only come if they have nothing better to do? How often doesn’t it seem that fewer and
fewer people in our congregation, in congregations throughout our fair city,
even congregations throughout the world are finding it of any value to Guard
the Holy Sabbath Day!
Yet, what does our God have to say about this? Well, let’s take a look at it together. I invite you to open your Bibles to our
lesson today in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.
Now, as you are turning to Deuteronomy 12, let me set the stage for
you. Israel was camped on the Eastern
Side of the Jordan River. They were most
likely somewhere around Mt. Nebo with the city of Jericho basically due west of
them. It was the spring of the year,
forty years and eleven months had passed since the Lord had led Israel out of
the slavery of Egypt, and now Moses was giving his farewell address because the
Lord would not allow him to enter the Promised Land with them. (See Deuteronomy 1:1-5; 3:21-29; 34:1 and
Joshua 3:15-17; 4:23-24; 5:10-12) It was
there, on the east side of the Jordan River that Moses began teaching the
Israelites the Law of God, giving it to them a second time, which essentially what
the word Deuteronomy means. Our lesson
begins with verse 12 where Moses says, “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it
holy.” (Deuteronomy 5:12a, NIV84)
Now, does anything strike you about that? Does that wording seem right? Or are you thinking to yourself, “I learned,
‘Remember the Sabbath Day!’ I didn’t
learn, ‘Observe the Sabbath Day.’ What’s going on here?” Why is it different in Deuteronomy 5:12 than
it is in Exodus 20:8? Well, quite simply
the wording is different because the situation is different. In Exodus 20, when the Lord spoke to the
people Israel from the Mountain, they had just come out of the land of
Egypt. They were being led by the Lord,
and after they left Mt. Sinai, they would continue to be led by the Lord
through the wilderness. In that time,
and indeed for the past forty years of their wandering, it was the Lord who led
the people and made sure that they were able to rest on the Sabbath. It was the Lord who saw to it that the people
would rest on the Sabbath so that they might be refreshed physically by taking
a break from their travels, and so that they might be refreshed spiritually as
they had the opportunity to worship the Lord and remember his great blessings
to them. However, now, as Israel was on the eastern side of the Jordan
preparing to cross and conquer the Promised Land, things would soon be
different. Soon they would be living in
houses and cities that they had not built.
Soon they would be prospering in the Land the Lord had given them. Soon their way of life would be changing and
the Lord inspires Moses to tell them, “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it
holy.” (Deuteronomy 5:12a, NIV84)
The funny thing is that one could argue that the
word “observe” isn’t really the best translation of the Hebrew word. Yet, it seems to be the most popular translation
as 7 of the 8 Bibles I looked began this verse with “observe”. In fact, it was only the King James Version
that was different using the word “keep” instead of “observe”. While this could be said to be a better
translation than “observe” I would argue that an even better translation would
be “guard”. Guard the Sabbath Day by
keeping it holy. The reason I say this
is because the Hebrew word that the NIV and 6 other Bibles translate as
“observe” is actually the very same word that describes the job of the Seraphim
and the flaming sword in the Garden of Eden.
They were placed there not to “observe” the entrance to the Garden, but
to guard it, to keep a close watch on it, to make sure that Adam and Even nor
anyone else entered the Garden and ate from the Tree of Life. (Genesis
3:24) Thus I would argue that from the
context of our lesson today, though the word “observe” does fit, and does
convey God’s will for his people that they remember and observe and keep the
Sabbath, the context suggests more. Take
a look at what the Lord is saying in verses 13 and following, “Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath [a day of
rest] to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor
your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your
donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your
manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember [same word as
exodus 20:8] that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought
you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD
your God has commanded you to observe [same word as verse 12] the Sabbath
day." (Deuteronomy 5:12–15, NIV84)
Now, did you hear the importance of what the Lord is
proclaiming to his people? They are
about to enter the Land and conquer it.
Their whole lives will soon be changing from wanderers to city
dwellers. They are about to get just as
busy, if not more busy than you and me.
So the Lord is calling on them to guard the Sabbath Day. Guard the day of rest so that they will not
miss it, so that they will be refreshed both physically and spiritually on a
regular basis. The Lord is calling on
them to block that day off in their calendars, to set it aside as a day for the
Lord, to guard it as the most important day of their week, because on that day
they will have yet one more opportunity to hear the Word of the Lord proclaimed
to them. They will have yet one more
opportunity to worship the Lord their God.
They will have one more opportunity to offer their sacrifices to the
Lord. They will have one more
opportunity to grow in their faith in the Lord their God and find their eternal
rest in the promises of the Savior who will come to free them from their sins.
So why have I taken so much time to teach you about
the Sabbath Day and how the Lord was calling on his people to guard it and keep
it as holy? Because this is exactly what
the Lord is calling on each and every one of us to do today! He is calling on us to not merely remember
it, not merely observe it; rather he is calling on each and every one of us to
guard the Holy Sabbath Day. He is
calling on us to mark it off on our calendars and set it aside as the most
important day of our week, because it is on that day that we have one more
opportunity to gather with other believers.
We have one more opportunity to hear the Word of God. We have one more opportunity to worship the
Lord our God, grow our faith and our trust in Jesus as our Savior, and be
strengthened and built up before we walk out those doors and go back in to the
spiritual war-zone of this sin-filled world!
Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying when
I’m talking about the Sabbath Day. I am
in no way saying that we ought to go back to holding to Saturday as the Sabbath
and keeping that particular day holy by calling it the only day that we can
ever worship. Not at all! After all, the Bible clearly teaches that
when Jesus went to the cross and freed us from our sins by his death and
resurrection, he also completely fulfilled God’s Law for us. So, by his death and resurrection, Jesus
completely fulfilled the Sabbath, and its rules and regulations no longer apply
to us. In fact, even the Apostle Paul
assures us that the Sabbath Laws have been fulfilled as he writes to the
Colossians saying, “Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or
with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is
found in Christ." (Colossians 2:16–17, NIV84) Rather, what the Lord wants us to do is to
guard the Sabbath Day and keep it holy so that we do not “despise preaching and
the Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear it and learn it.”
But how do we do that? We guard the holy Sabbath day, when we set
aside the day of worship as the most important day of the week. Whatever day that might be, when we set it
aside and make gathering with other believer a priority for our lives, we guard
that day as the day when we will grow in our faith. We guard the Sabbath when we take time out of
our busy schedules to sit down and read God’s Word for ourselves, whether that
be from the Bible, from Meditations, Portals of Prayer, or other devotional
books. We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when
we teach our children the precious truths of salvation; when we bring them to
worship with us and teach them that worship is what we do each week. We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when we bring our
children to Sunday School and bring ourselves to Bible Study. We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when we sacrifice
our self-love and stop lazily sleeping in on Sunday mornings, or skip out on
worship because of vacation plans. We
guard God’s holy Sabbath when we take the time to rest in him, grow in our
salvation, and find in him the spiritual rest that he longs to give us in the
assurance of the forgiveness of sins and the salvation that is ours through
faith in Jesus.
What greater encouragement could the Lord our God
give us today than the encouragement to guard his holy Sabbath Day. Though there are many things in this world
that seek to keep us from gathering in worship of the Lord our God, I pray that
you would heed the encouragement of your Savior. I pray that you would continue to make this
day and this time of spiritual rest the most important time of your week. I
pray that you would continue to guard your time with the Lord in worship and in
personal Bible readings. May the Lord
continue to bless you as you worship him, grow in your faith in him, live in
the forgiveness of sins with which he has blessed you, and especially as you
seek to guard his holy Sabbath Day.
Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
