Many years ago, when I was a Sunday School teacher, I came up with a brilliant idea for an illustration for a point I wanted to get across. The only problem was that I needed something I didn’t have, but the idea was so good, that I decided to call in at the paper shop on the way to Church. All these years later I can remember looking around as I got out of the and couldn’t have felt more guilty if I were about to commit armed robbery. I made my purchase as swiftly as possible, but had to wait for a moment to pay, a man with his two sons had got to the counter first, the children were trying to encourage their father to buy them sweets “you know that we don’t buy sweets on the sabbath” he said adamantly and then promptly bought himself a packet of cigarettes.
I’m guessing that experience happened sometime in the mid-seventies, and it shows how attitudes have changed over fifty years. I was indignant for years about that mans hypocrisy, how dare he quote the rules about the Sabbath, then break them himself immediately. Jesus was continually getting in trouble with the authorities for helping people on the sabbath and I wonder what importance we place on keeping the sabbath today?
I often drive past supermarkets on a Sunday as I am travelling to Churches to work and with my wife working in care homes for several years, I understand how difficult it is for some of us to keep Sunday special. Looking back to when I was little, Sunday was the only day in the week that my dad didn’t go out to work. He was employed as a mule spinner at the mill in the village and would often work on Saturday mornings, so Sunday was his day of rest.
Looking back now, Sunday may well have been a holy day, but I don’t ever remember it being a day of rest for my dad. We lived at the top of the hill and would walk down as a family to the chapel for the morning service. We always sat upstairs on the same pew, mum would take my brother and I across to grandma’s house opposite the chapel just before the sermon and we would wait until dad came out after the service. We would all troop back up the hill for dinner, then down into the village for Sunday School in the afternoon, then up again for tea, then dad would go back to chapel for the evening service. We certainly kept the sabbath as a holy day, but I don’t ever remember it being a day of rest.
God created the world in six days and on the seventh day he rested. I’m not sure that we had “keeping the sabbath holy” right all those years ago, but I do think that God had the right idea, work hard for six days, and then have a day to rest, recharge the batteries, reflect on what has been achieved, give thanks to God for all he has done, and get ready to move on to the next six days and all that they hold in store.