As a practical matter, for most of my life as a Christian, “the Sabbath” has equaled Sunday worship service. As a UBF chapter director, there was never enough time on Sunday to engage in activities other than those directly related to the worship service, such as message preparation, prayer, worship service program rehearsals, driving students to and from the service, visiting those in need, and so forth. I often tried to squeeze in one or two one-to-one Bible studies before dinner. My Sabbath was as, if not more, hectic than any other day of the week.

The two Bible passages that have long shaped my view on Sabbath are both about Jesus’ response to the legalistic Jews who had accused him of breaking the Sabbath Law by healing the sick on the Sabbath day. Jesus countered their legalism head-on, saying: “[m]y Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working” (Jn 5:17), and “[t]he Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27,28). The legalistic Jews were preoccupied with the dos and don’ts of the Sabbath Law and lost sight of God, the Law Giver, and his original intent that they rest in him. The result back then was disastrous; the Sabbath Law was reduced to a political tool to maintain authority over people who were harassed, and true rest was not had on the Sabbath. Reading these and other relevant Bible passages led me to focus on avoiding legalism as I considered such Sabbath questions as doing homework on Sunday, playing basketball with Bible students after the worship service, or going grocery shopping for Sunday night dinner. After all, I reasoned, Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. I believed that as long as I tried to keep Jesus at the center of my activities on Sunday I was set, and since I never missed a Sunday worship service, I was being faithful to the Sabbath. Or so I thought.

It wasn’t until May of this year, when I attended the Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference at New Life Church in New York, that my view of Sabbath faced a serious challenge. I realized that while I was trying to avoid legalism and to keep Jesus and his mission as the focus of my Sunday activities, I did not pay a close attention to the more basic question of why the Sabbath exists in the first place. What a pleasant shock it was to learn that the Sabbath was God’s precious gift to me! Revisiting Genesis 1 & 2, Exodus 16 & 20 and Deuteronomy 5 not only confirmed that wonderful truth but also exposed the imbalance between work and rest in my life as a Christian. I was engrossed in what and how much I do for God, but largely neglected being with God. As a pastor and a missionary, this was an embarrassing and painful discovery about myself. Diligent personal Bible studies, prayers, fellowship meetings, and many, many missionary activities should keep me close to God, right? Not necessarily. Visible activities for God can and often do disguise the invisible world within where God is crowded out. Being with God does not come naturally. Left alone in my sinful nature, I choose to stay as far away from God as I possibly can so that I can be my own god. I have mastered a fair amount of skills to shun God while being engaged in “God’s work.” It is the great mercy and infinite wisdom of God that he gave his people the Sabbath so that they might cultivate the appetite for the pleasure of being with him. As Pastor John Piper of the Desiring God Ministry has succinctly put it, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.”

Sabbath is God’s gift to me so that I may experience the truth that I am loved by God without any accomplishments on my part to gain his favor. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know that I have not been a good receiver of God’s gift of the Sabbath, and I have paid dearly for the neglect. I have found that I am almost bankrupt in my emotional content. Now I know that I have been running on an empty tank for too long. The creative energy for my work as a pastor in the American campus ministry is the outflow of the powerful experience of my being with God. In practice, this takes a serious level of discipline and spiritual formation. I am amazed to realize how much I must work to learn how to rest!

The Sabbath reflects the beautiful rhythm that God has placed in human life. Every seventh day, we are called to stop our toil so that our minds, hearts and bodies can be poured into experiencing the presence of God. When God first instituted the Sabbath during the wilderness wandering of the Israelites, he provided them two days’ portion of manna on the sixth day so they wouldn’t have to gather it on the seventh day. The Israelites continued this reliance for forty years. My wife, Grace, and I recently began practicing resting on the Sabbath for twenty-four hours, from Saturday, around dinnertime to Sunday dinnertime. We have found it a difficult practice to keep. Life’s habits are hard to break. Yet we remain hopeful that we will grow to be better receivers of the gift of the Sabbath. We will keep trying to practice the four basic principles for the Sabbath that Peter Scazzero, the pastor of New Life Church in New York, suggested: stop; rest; delight; and contemplate. I am beginning to catch on to the rhythm of life – a rhythm in which Sunday is no longer for the sake of good weekdays; rather, weekdays are for the sake of a good Sabbath. The Sabbath is God’s precious gift during my remaining journey, after which an eternal Sabbath awaits. Jesus’ words resonate in my soul: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”