Sabbath Musings

Another Sunday is winding down.  There have been more Sundays in my life than I can count.  Long before I ever entertained thoughts about what it meant to "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy..." (Exodus 20:8), I knew by way of my Mother and Daddy that it was a special day. My Daddy who was an avid fisherman said, "No fishing on Sunday...give the fish a day of rest" and my Mother made it very simple by saying, "You can't do anything on Sunday."  Growing up in the days when the "Blue Laws" were still on the books meant Sunday was a day mostly spent at home.  Having any kind of fun was taboo. 

Years later it got a bit more complicated.  The preacher this morning preached on the text in which talked about Jesus getting in trouble with the Pharisees of His day.  They thought it wrong for Jesus to heal a man on the Sabbath.  By their rules, the broken man could wait another day to be healed.  Jesus, of course, disagreed as He was one guided by a way of life which declared that the most important thing in life was to love God completely and to love those around Him as well.  According to the morning sermon, the most important thing we have to do on the Sabbath is to live as one guided by what we know as the great commandment, the one about putting love in action anytime and everywhere.   

Maybe keeping the Sabbath holy is not so complicated.  Maybe it is a day in which we are to live loving God with all our being and our brothers and sisters as well.  In doing so we bring more honor to God than we do by slipping around doing things we hope He is not seeing.  We may even be doing more to honor Him through our loving than we do on those Sundays when we sit in church and do all the right looking things for all the wrong reasons.