Sunday. Sabbath time.
Growing up, the day just sort of lasted forever, it just went on and on. Church, Sunday dinner, visiting, maybe some time to play. There wasn’t all that much to do or anywhere to go. Church, food, visiting, sitting around.
I understand the gift of it now, but then it just felt like a combination of too much polyester and starch, itchy and stuffy.
I understand now, a day to renew all the relationships that got worn out or neglected during the week.
Taking time to let the body heal and the mind to grow clear again. To meet God again after all the complications, sins, trespasses, gray areas, harms and wounds of a week of trying to survive. Of renewing the ties that bind in marriage and family and community and friendship, after a week of bumping and colliding into each other or forgetting about each other.
A day with time to renew all the relationships that had gotten worn out or neglected during the week. Church, food, visiting, sitting around.
Sabbath time. It might seem boring, but for those with eyes to see and ears to hear it is the healing presence of God, holy medicine.
The last day of creation, after six days of creating God rested on the 7th, the crowning jewel of creation, the final act, the frosting on the cake, Sabbath time, time to rest, to recover, to heal.
The rest of the week wears us out, runs us down, our relationships grow stretched, we accumulate wounds, we hurt one another.
But Sunday is coming, Sabbath time, time to heal, to renew all that we managed to break during the week, creation starting over every week.
Sunday is coming.
The ancient Hebrews even understood the healing rest of the Sabbath to apply to the environment, to the land, every seventh year the land was to rest, lay fallow, heal.
And they understood society and the economy itself to be in need of healing, after seven Sabbath years the fiftieth year was the year of Jubilee, all debts were cancelled, all slaves set free.
All the inevitable accumulation of selfishness that leaves more and more people with less and less over 49 years ended and started over, society and the economy rested and healed and started over.
Life is hard and harsh, and we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves, we get beaten down, weighed down, hunched over, unable to stand up straight. But Sunday is coming.
The Gospel lesson today, Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath, she was bent over, unable to stand up straight and the leader of the synagogue was indignant. There are six days to work! Today is not one of those days, today is Sabbath.
God bless him, he meant well.
Protecting the day otherwise the renewal of Sabbath rest wouldn’t happen, and if that happened everything and everyone would wear out and go crazy. He was right, he meant well, without Sabbath things do eventually just fly apart, creation loses its completeness.
But this was a teachable moment, the work of healing isn’t so much exempt from Sabbath rest as it is an example of Sabbath rest at work, Sabbath healing.
She was healed, she stood up straight, she was set free from her ailment, and she praised God. Sabbath time, it breaks the chains, it ends the bondage, it heals what has been crushed and broken and weighed down.
Sabbath, it sets us free to praise God. Creatures of praise. That is what we are. The world tries to make us slaves, but what we are, are creatures of praise, and Sunday is coming, and we will be set free to sing.
Sabbath time. It isn’t about controlling each other. It’s about being set free. Removing the yoke. Untying the knot. Loosing the bonds. Breaking the chains. Lifting the weight. Sabbath.
Sunday is coming, Sabbath time, it is Freedom Day. On this day nobody owns me, only God, and God makes me stand up straight, tall, unbound.
The good news of the Sabbath, the Gospel of the Sabbath, is that Jesus is that healing presence of God, renewing and healing all that has become broken and stooped over, that we may stand up straight once more and sing God’s praise.
Jesus is the Sabbath in the flesh, the walking, living breathing Sabbath of God, the crowning jewel adorning all creation and all time, he is the great Freedom Day in person, the frosting on the cake.
Jesus is Church.
Jesus is our food.
Jesus is that restful sitting around.
Jesus is that holy visiting with nothing else to do all day long.
Sunday is here.