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(Mark 2:27). It is not a binding
force to endose us in even
more
mundaneness, but a liberating force
for freeing our minds and bodies
from ordinary humdrum existence.
In our daily lives, we are often
barely conscious of what we do. We
get' up, we eat breakfast, we go to
work, we get on with the household
chores, we do our work, we eat
lunch, we do our work, we continue
the same things, often by rote. In
one way oflooking at it, we might as
well be robots, preprogrammed to a
certain way of doing things. The
part of us that is uniquely human,
our intellectual consciousness, may
not even come into play. Even if we
work "with our brains," we still may
never be
self-conscious
in the sense
of acutely realizing our unique posi–
tion in the universe-in the whole of
God's creation. The Sabbath gives
us time to consider ourselves in rela–
tion to the around.
Man Who ls Bom to Work
A rather jaded French writer ex–
pressed a modero attitude toward
life: "Work is less boring than plea–
sure." He was noting the desper–
ation of life without God: without
work, such a life would be boring,
meaningless and absurd.
That is the problem with the gen–
eral weekend frenzy in modero
Westem society. Individuals find no
meaning or variety in their work so
they seek it in various pleasures and
pursuits. But meaning, a solid basis
for one's Iife which ties all of its
diverse elemerits together, cannot be
found solely in physical things .
Again, the Sabbath-an observed
Sabbath- is needed to remind us of
this fact.
The same meaninglessness is also
the problem with the traditional er–
satz sabbath that most of Christen–
dom has produced, the religious
observance of Sunday. The
author–
ity
for worshiping on Sunday de–
rives from tradition and history, not
the Scriptures. (Sorne scrupulously
celebrate Sunday as a com–
memoration of the resurrection, but
this neither Christ nor the apostles
anywhere commanded. We are,
however, enjoined to observe the
annual anniversary of His sacrificial
The
PLAIN TRUTH January 1978
death for
our
sins. Write for our free
booklet
How Often Should We Par–
take ofthe Lord's Supper?)
Anything deriving its authority
mainly from tradition and history is
sufficiently fuzzy, and allows for
enough spiritual "fudging" so that
the net effect of Sunday observance
is simply to make it another day of
the week, one on which to play golf
or mow one's lawn. The Sabbath,
unlike Sunday, is firm; the source of
its authority clear.
The Greeks had a myth about Si–
syphus who was condemned to con–
tinually .roll a large stone up a hill ,
the stone always rolling back down
the hill justas he was about to get it
to the top. Modern man, without the
genuine Sabbath, is like that: con–
tinually working, immersed in mate–
rial life, but never quite attaining
his goal of lasting happiness be–
cause material things are temporary.
The Sabbath is classless. Every–
one-no matter wbat he does the
other six days ofthe week-has basi–
cally the same leisure time for re–
fiection and contemplation as the
richest man of property. For one
seventh of the week, everyone is
commanded to take leisure time
necessary to think things over.
Tbe Sabbath confers upon its
keepers a
"superfi~ity"
of time:
time, the most precious resource of
man, is being used for something
other than material, utilitarian func–
tions-a luxury that is normally only
within the province of the rich.
It is no accident that totalitarian
governments make it extremely dif–
ficu lt, if not impossible, for their
subjects to keep the Sabbath. Those
governments recognize no other
reality than the material, and no
higher authority than themselves.
They claim, in effect, the pre–
rogatives of God. They dare not let
any subject recognize the existence
of God by keeping the day which
marks Him as Creator.
Totalitarian governments consti–
tute the extreme form of a world of
"total work." Everyone under tbeir
control is a cog in the materialist
wheel, reduced to a mere function ,
subordinated for the good of a ma–
terial commonweal. But the Sab–
bath is an institution which shows
that man is God's creation, made by
Him for a purpose. A totalitarian
government can tolerate no space of
time which isn' t subordinated to the
work ofserving the state.
The Celebration of
the Universe
The Sabbath is, in effect, a celebra–
tion of the end of God's work and
the prospect of ·man's becoming
God, just the same way that God
celebrated His accomplished work
by resting on the seventh day when
He had completed the basic creation
of the physical universe and physi–
cal life on earth.
The atheist existentialist philoso–
phers have been content to tell us
that human life is absurd, that all of
man's life is mereiy a preparation
for death. And, given the materi–
alistic premises of these writers, li fe
is
absurd. But God intends to make
man into His image spiritually as
He has already made him in His
image physically. The weekly rest
on the seventh day is a "celebra–
tion" of this fact.
Thus the Sabbath commandment
embodies a principie as profoundly
moral
as any other of the Ten Com–
mandments-it affects the deepest
part of our being, wbat we believe
about the origin and purpose of the
universe in our heart of hearts. It is,
in a sense, the commandment which
God gave to keep us right inter–
nally, to keep our priorities and per–
spectives right in the way we look at
reality.
God intends for us to become like
Him. And to do that, we need the
"leisure time" which the Sabbath
provides to
think
about our lives-or
to "examine ourselves," as the
apostle Paul put it. God made the
Sabbath to give us just such an op–
portunity.
D
RECOMMENDED READING
The Worldwide Church of God offers
the following publications concerning
the Sabbath day:
Which Day
/s
/he Christian Sabbath?
The· Sabbath and /he Ten
Com–
mandments
The Sabbath
Was
Made for Man
To obtain your copies free of charge,
simply request them by tille. (lnter–
national addresses are on the inside
front cover.)
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