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Sunday Homily for December 11, 2005

We began last week looking at the Fourth Commandment, the commandment about Sabbath rest, as we continue our series in the Ten Commandments.

I’m going at this commandment a little differently than in the past.

Last week we looked at passage from Hebrews 4 that says “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” And so we looked together to our common future of peace and wholeness in Christ if we would believe in him.

This week, we go back to beginning, to creation, to the creation of seventh day.

These two are connected in Hebrews 4.9-10:

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

Our future Sabbath rest, which we begin to enter now, is connected to that rest in which God rested when he finished His work of creation.

So let’s take a peek back in time this week, and then, next time we look at the Fourth Commandment, on January 8, we will begin to see what this means for us now in between the future and the past.

Genesis 2:1-3       (1) Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (2) And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. (3) So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

It says, “The heavens and earth were finished, and all the host of them.”

Let us remind ourselves of the unspeakable good and bounty and richness of what God has just done in the creation of the heavens and the earth. He Himself has looked and declared His work to have been very good.

Ahhh – very good indeed!

What does He mean by “all the host of them”? The host are meant to be all the beings that fill up or populate the spaces he has made – the animals of the sea, the birds of the air, the creatures that walk upon the earth, and the moon and sun and stars that fill the firmament. It may include the angels as well.

I find it, well, pleasing, that many of such hosts are part of the Advent story – donkeys to carry a pregnant mother, horses and mules perhaps to share a nursery with a baby, sheep and goats, sheep ands goats out in a field at night, a host of angels announcing tidings, and a star guiding wise men from the east. That just makes me smile.

Notice that there is no end given to the seventh day. It doesn’t say as with the other days, “and there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day.” The seventh day has no ending. The seventh day continues. The seventh day is eternal. The opportunity to enter into God’s seventh day rest continues.

While I am at it, let me say a word about the number seven. Why seven days? Why not six or eight? Does it have to do with seven being the “perfect number”? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Here is an interesting fact. The seven day week is the only part of our calendar NOT tied to lunar or solar events. In that sense it is arbitrary. It is imposed. God set aside a unit of time that was in no way to be associated down the road with idolatries and pagan rituals, which themselves were associated with lunar and solar cycles.

Well, anyway, on seventh day God has finished his work, and he rested.

God rested?

We know God does not get tired. He could create a million worlds and not be tired.

I would propose a modern word. On the seventh day God chilled. He smiled. He surveyed His work, saw it was good, and He was pleased. He had already blessed the creatures, their work and their reproduction. Now he blesses this special day of not working, of chilling. He sets it apart. He makes it special. For time and eternity there will something special about chilling with God and enjoying Him and His day of tranquility and rest.

God blessed the seventh day. Blessed a day? Yes, God blessed it by sanctifying it – making it holy, setting it apart.

The seventh day is the very first thing made holy, or spoken of as being holy in the Bible.

The Creator Himself has made it holy. The fourth commandment didn’t make it holy. God made it holy way before that. Nowhere since has He taken back that holiness. He has never made it unholy. Just as the seventh day never ceases, so its holiness never ceases.

But why make it holy. First, because on it God rested from his work. It is a holy day of pleasure. Second, because he would set it apart for man’s benefit, and fence it off as special for man’s sake.

Six days he shall work. One day he shall chill with God. His temptation will be to keep working, working, working. God wants to rescue man from the never ending task of exercising dominion over the earth.

Come with me, he says, and let’s hang out. You’ve been very busy engaging the world I made, doing as I asked, working hard, now, let’s be together, you and I. Let’s look over this beautiful world and smile together. You know, O man, I made the world in six days, and it will get along just fine without you for one. I’ll keep it running, I promise. Trust me. I’ll take care of if you stop. Trust me. You can take your hand off the wheel I promise, go ahead. See! You take my hand, and let’s run through eternity for a day together. Let’s skip and jump and laugh and be friends. Let’s chill. Let’s celebrate this big beautiful universe I have made and all the hosts of them.

Come, know my rest, my peace, my serenity, my joy. Come and worship me on this holy day and you will find rest for your souls that will carry over into all eternity.

And Jesus said: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls

Joel Gillespie

http://spaces.msn.com/members/joelblog