In my early twenties, I cooked at several restaurants on St. Simons Island, GA. I would sometimes work double shifts in order to make ends meet. On one occasion, I worked three weeks of double shifts without a day off. Resilient though I thought myself to be at that age, I almost put myself in the hospital.
Most will admit, there is something built into the fabric of our being to remind us of our need for rest. We are image-bearers of God, called to emulate the pattern He established for us at creation: to live within a rhythm of work and rest. He set aside the Sabbath day for our bodies to be refreshed and renewed. The rest our bodies require reminds us that we need spiritual rest as well. And so the Sabbath is a time to remember our limits.
The Sabbath teaches us that we need God and the rest He freely provides in Jesus. It almost seems as though Jesus reserved many of His healing miracles for the Sabbath. And by healing physical maladies on the holy day of rest, He was showing that He had the power to heal the deeper malady of a sinful soul.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28). He is the one who rested in the grave on the old covenant Sabbath—after He labored for our redemption, providing ultimate rest through His atoning death and resurrection. He ushered in a new creation, saying, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… for your souls” (Matthew 11:28–29). And to those who attempted to pervert the meaning of the Sabbath day with legalistic rules and regulations, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
Coming expectantly into the first day of the week, I often wake my sons up and ask them, “What day is it today?” One of them inevitably shouts from under his covers, “The best day of the week!” Our family worships at church and sets the whole day aside to rest. Together, we read Scripture, devotionals, or other spiritually edifying books, and allow time and space in our home for Christian fellowship. We may even take a much-needed nap.
These are a few of the ways our family has learned to keep the Sabbath, setting aside a day to focus on worship, the Word, prayers, and fellowship. Whatever practices you can build into the rhythms of work and rest in your life, for the physical and spiritual refreshment of your body and soul, make them staples of your devotion to God on a weekly basis. He knows the benefit and blessing of rest, and that is why He asks us to keep the Sabbath.
Written by Nick Batzig
I have two very small children and not a lot of help for childcare options because of Covid. Anyone have any suggestions about how to sabbath in the stage of life?
I find it helpful to add in things like journaling or putting on worship music as the kids play and focus on gratitude. Nice smelling candles, a face mask. Anything to slow your mind down and refocus your attention. I was once alone in the nursery breastfeeding while our lifegroup was laughing together in our lounge. I felt so alone, but Jesus showed me that he saw me as though i were on my knees in worship to him when i looked after my baby. Your hard work with little kids is physically taxing, but sabbath can be about taking a breathe and relaxing your mind and pressures and actively giving them to Jesus. Hope that helps. Much love xo
Sabbath is a type of Fasting from Normal Daily rhythm to focus and delight in the LORD.
My husband and I have been practicing a weekly Sabbath for a year now and I see why God intends for us to have a Sabbath! It has brought such renewal and rest and life to our lives. Reminds me that God is in control and that God is good at being God!!
I need to practice Sabbath more. Really lean into rest and worship.
Erin B. a way to get close to the Lord a care for your toddlers at the same time on the Sabbath I found is to read Bible stories to them and then have them tell you the story back or draw a picture about it. My boys used to love this when they were young and it would allow me to get closer to the Lord at the same time.
I believe sabbath rest is also for our planet. When we take a day to stop and rest, stay home, use our cars less, we benefit and our environment does too ❤️
Being a nurse for over 40 years there have been many times I HAD to work on the sabbath. When I first started as a nurse, at the age of 20, I was living at home and my father couldn’t understand that I had to work on Sundays. I finally explained it to him this way, “People don’t stop needing care or being sick on Sunday, do they? Someone needs to take care of them on Sunday as well as during the week. Didn’t Jesus mention about caring for the sick? When He said that did He say to stop caring for them on Sunday?” After explaining it to my father this way he understood and was fine with it. I would go to church on my Sundays off and that would make him happy. Now that I don’t work Sundays it seems strange not to go to church. Yes I do virtual church but it isn’t the same. Before COVID my sister and I would go together to the church that she and my father used go to. What is it about the actual fellowship, I missed it when I was young and I miss it now. There were two different reasons for not having the actual fellowship but I still missed or miss it. Sundays just don’t seem the same.
Bless all you my sisters.
Whom the sabbath was made for (v. 27); it was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. This we had not in Matthew. The sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery. First, God never designed it to be an imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves. Man was not made for the sabbath, for he was made a day before the sabbath was instituted. Man was made for God, and for his honour and service, and he just rather die than deny him; but he was not made for the sabbath, so as to be tied up by the law of it, from that which is necessary to the support of his life. Secondly, God did design it to be an advantage to us, and so we must make it, and improve it. He made if for man. 1. He had some regard to our bodies in the institution, that they might rest, and not be tired out with the constant business of this world (Deu. 5:14); that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest. Now he that intended the sabbath-rest for the repose of our bodies, certainly never intended it should restrain us, in a case of necessity, from fetching in the necessary supports of the body; it must be construed so as not to contradict itself—for edification, and not for destruction.
2. He had much more regard to our souls. The sabbath was made a day of rest, only in order to its being a day of holy work, a day of communion with God, a day of praise and thanksgiving; and the rest from worldly business is therefore necessary, that we may closely apply ourselves to this work, and spend the whole time in it, in public and in private; but then time is allowed us for that which is necessary to the fitting of our bodies for the service of our souls in God’s service, and the enabling of them to keep pace with them in that work. See here, (1.) What a good Master we serve, all whose institutions are for our own benefit, and if we be so wise as to observe them, we are wise for ourselves; it is not he, but we, that are gainers by our service. (2.) What we should aim at in our sabbath work, even the good of our own souls. If the sabbath was made for man, we should then ask ourselves at night, “What am I the better for this sabbath day?” (3.) What care we ought to take not to make those exercises of religion burthens to ourselves or others, which God ordained to be blessings; neither adding to the command by unreasonable strictness, nor indulging those corruptions which are adverse to the command, for thereby we make those devout exercises a penance to ourselves, which otherwise would be a pleasure.
[2.] Whom the sabbath was made by (v. 28); “The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath; and therefore he will not see the kind intentions of the institution of it frustrated by your impositions.” Note, The sabbath days are days of the Son of man; he is the Lord of the day, and to his honour it must be observed; by him God made the worlds, and so it was by him that the sabbath was first instituted; by him God gave the law at mount Sinai, and so the fourth commandment was his law; and that little alteration that was shortly to be made, by the shifting of it one day forward to the first day of the week, was to be in remembrance of his resurrection, and therefore the Christian sabbath was to be called the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10), the Lord Christ’s day; and the Son of man, Christ, as Mediator, is always to be looked upon as Lord of the sabbath. This argument he largely insists upon in his own justification, when he was charged with having broken the sabbath, Jn. 5:16.
Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible by Matthew Henry [1706]
Bible Hub
This helps me understand better. Hope it helps anyone that might be struggling with the Sabbath.