Sabbath Rest

When God decided to take a rest on that seventh day, I wonder if He considered the theological debate He was putting on the table.  Surely, by the time His fiery finger etched the words of the fourth commandment on the that tablet of stones up on Mt. Sinai, He was contemplating the confusion which organized religion would create.  Obviously, religious people were heavily into the business of manipulating the meaning of Sabbath rest during the days of Jesus.  The gospel of Mark gives evidence of this as he reports the criticism of the Pharisees when they saw the hungry disciples of Jesus plucking grain on the Sabbath. "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" they asked Jesus.(Mark 2:24).  

As one who grew up in the Blue Law era of the South, I remember those days when the only thing which dared move on Sunday were the leaves on trees.  The Sabbath was for going to church.  It was not for working, or going to stores since they were all closed, or doing anything which might be fun.  My father who was an avid fishermen, but not really a church goer in those days often said no one should fish on Sunday because the fish needed a day of rest. It was certainly a day when the Sabbath was viewed differently than the "anything-thing-goes-on-Sunday" era in which we live.  

The old boundaries of Sabbath rest are now stretched far beyond the boundaries of what used to be.  It is also true that the concept of Sabbath rest means many different things to people.  If we can lay aside all the do's and don't of Sabbath keeping, we might see that at its core it is God's way of calling us to live with some balance in our life between work and rest as well as a way of helping us to understand that it is good to set aside a day in which we look to Him and not just to ourselves for our daily sustenance.