Not so long ago we finished reading the second book of Chronicles in our family devotions. That coincided with the beginnings of the social shutdown with the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s a line at the end of that Bible book that got me thinking. At first I dismissed it but more recently I came across someone else who expressed some similar sentiments to my thoughts, so I’ll share it with you my readers. I’m curious as to your thoughts.
The occasion for the words that got me thinking was the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of the people of Judah into Babylon for seventy years. 2Chronicles 36 states that the reason for the captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem was the terrible idolatry that God’s people had engaged in. They mocked God and His messengers and worshipped the abominations of the surrounding nations. The consequence of that was an increase in violence and shedding of innocent blood. But right at the end of that explanation for the captivity there are these added words: “The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.”
The Sabbath was vital for Israel—a sign of God’s relationship with the nation (Ex.31:14-17). Israel was to do no work on the seventh day. Furthermore, the Sabbath was never intended as something just for Israel. The Sabbath is what we call a ‘creation ordinance’. It’s based on the creation story in Genesis—God worked for the six days of creation and then rested on the seventh day and He set the seventh day apart as sacred (Gen.2:2,3).
In the nation of Israel, under the Mosaic law that God gave at Sinai, it was not only the people of Israel who were to rest on the Sabbath but so were the aliens within their gates and even their animals (Ex.20:10). More than that, the land was also to have a Sabbatical year. Every seventh year there was to be no ploughing or sowing, no pruning and no cultivating of vineyards and orchards (Ex.23:10-12). The land should rest and enjoy a Sabbath. When idolatry and godlessness increased to the point of God sending the nation into captivity, it appears, from that line in the second book of Chronicles, that the nation had become careless about keeping the Sabbath… and then not only as a weekly event but especially in terms of the Sabbatical year for the land. So 2Chronicles tells us that Israel’s seventy year exile was an opportunity for the land to catch up with it’s neglected Sabbaths.
That was the point that set me thinking about the present social shutdown with the corona virus. Dare I suggest that it too is an opportunity for the world today to catch up with its neglected Sabbaths? It’s worth thinking about.
Our world is not very good at keeping Sabbath. I think of the way the attitude to the Lord’s Day has changed in our Western society in my lifetime. I still recall that when I served my first parish in Tasmania in the mid-seventies, the local Saturday newspaper had displayed in a prominent place, which petrol station was rostered for the Sunday—that one and that one alone was open for business. Supermarkets and almost every shop in town closed at noon on Saturday and didn’t open again until Monday morning. The only exception were some small corner shops (Milk Bars) where you could get some limited supplies but even many of these closed on a Sunday. Compare that to today. Okay, here in Narrabri many shops do still close for the Sunday but supermarkets and service stations are generally all open for business. In our major cities the shopping malls generally do a brisk Sunday trade. One wouldn’t know it was Sunday. Or think of Sunday sport. I can remember when many sports still had the decency not to schedule games on a Sunday morning so that Christian players didn’t have to choose between church and sport.
Please… I’m not suggesting a return to the bad old days where legalism—particularly in Christian circles—made the day an ordeal for some people—especially for younger people. I still recall as a fourteen year old asking my Dad if I could go for a bike-ride to the beach on Sunday afternoon with some of my church mates. Dad didn’t mind, as long as I was back for the evening church worship service. However that event never happened. Two of my cobbers were not allowed to ride their bikes on Sundays. We went the following Saturday afternoon instead.
For us as Christians, Sabbath is not just for rest. On the Lord’s Day we set aside time for the worship of our great God and Saviour. Of course that carries no weight with unbelievers—but the idea of a day of rest should. A story I once heard about the Boers in South Africa brings that home in a vivid way. As I recall the story was of two families of trek-boers who set out from the coast together. They made camp together at night and set out together in the morning. But when Sunday morning came the Christian family made no effort to move—it was their Sabbath. The other family mocked as they broke camp and bragged that they would beat the other family to the prime grazing land. However, the interesting part of the story is that both families arrived there at the same time and the family that kept their weekly Sabbath was in better shape.
God didn’t design us to work 24/7. Perhaps this unusual time of social isolation will give many folk the opportunity to catch up on some neglected Sabbaths.
John Westendorp