#DailyDevotion Remember The Sabbath Day And Keep It Holy
Deut. 5:12 “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
The Old Testament lesson for this particular Sunday is the 3rd commandment. Now as Christian we should note that Saturday, from the creation of the world is the Sabbath day the Lord is referring to in this commandment. The Lord rested from creating on that day and set it apart for his people to rest from their work as well. But the stipulations here in this commandment were not for all people but were for his people under the covenant made at Mt. Sinai, the Mosaic Covenant or Old Testament.
Jesus is the fulfillment of this commandment. Besides his outwardly keeping this commandment for us during his visible time among us, he ultimately fulfilled this command for us while he rested in the grave on that Sabbath. The Jews, after the exile for breaking the covenant their fathers made with the Lord on Sinai, made up all sorts of rules and regulations to keep the Sabbath. Some rules made it harder, others made it easier to keep. Jesus kept the Sabbath as he meant it to be kept as he taught it to the Israelites on the mountain.
But note how wonderful the Sabbath was for them. They were free from work for one day out of the week. Not only were the Israelites free from work but so were their servants, their slaves and their animals. Would that all people today were given a physical respite from work once a week.
But the Israelite Sabbath is not bound on Christians today. Jesus fulfilled it as well as the rest of the Old Testament laws, rules, regulations and the like. We have but two commandments, trust in Christ and love our neighbor as ourselves. Paul reminds us that we are free and we should not judge one another based on Sabbaths, new moons and the like.
Yet we should gather together regularly to hear God’s word and be taught of it and to regularly receive the sacrament. The apostles and the early church recognized this. They regularly met on the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the day of his resurrection from the grave. We are to keep a day of the week holy by doing good on that day and being in God’s word. While it could be any day of the week, many churches also meet on Wednesdays, we meet on Sunday because we know the Church will be open and the pastor will be preaching and giving out the sacrament.
Heavenly Father, your Son Jesus Christ fulfilled the Sabbath for us with his rest in the grave, help us to live out this Sabbath rest in our lives so we may do good, listen and learn from your word and build up and edify our fellow Christians on agreed upon days of worship. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.