Sabbath KeepingEgzanp

The Grace of Sabbath 

In Ephesians 2:1-10, the apostle Paul insists that apart from Christ we are dead, and in Christ we receive love, mercy, and new life. All this comes to us as a gift—the gift of grace. We cannot do anything to earn it. My friend asked me if I ever truly experienced God’s grace. As I thought about her question, I realized that the sabbath, more than anything else, has enabled me to experience this grace that comes to us in Christ.

The sabbath teaches us grace because it connects us experientially to the basic truth that nothing we do will earn God’s love. As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, experiencing joy in our work along with the toil, we are always in danger of believing that our actions trigger God’s love for us. Only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do.

The sabbath teaches grace because it invites us to rest and rejoice in what we have, rather than focus on what we do not have. The sabbath invites us to practice thankfulness. On workdays we have to think about what we don’t have and what we need to do. On the sabbath we can forget all that and simply enjoy what is. Our culture is obsessed with production, possession and accomplishment. The sabbath invites us to spend a day apart from the media’s incessant cry of “More!” The sabbath invites us into a rhythm, a structure, that frees us from outside pressures. And that freedom communicates God’s grace to us.

From Sabbath Keeping by Lynne M. Baab