Tag: Teaching

Here is an interesting quote from Heschel’s book the Sabbath.

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificient stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn; a shrine that even apostasy cannot easily obliterate

And

“When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time.”

When God gave us the Sabbath, God gave us something that could not be taken away by others. The Sabbath is something that we can only take away from ourselves.

The Sabbath is a celebration of God’s perfect creation. Celebrating the perfect creation means that we are somebody, we are valued. But more than this we celebrate present liberation and sanctification. God told Israel to remember the Sabbath because of both the deliverance from Egypt as well as the creation. We are also told that it is a great sign of God’s Sanctifying Power. Ultimately, the Sabbath is a celebration of the full restoration that will only come at the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.

Thus in addition to preaching the Sabbath as being the right day, we can preach the themes of Liberation, Sanctification, Creation, Covenant, Second Advent, even the Sanctuary as we weave in the present work of God.

So if someone says, “I am tired”…what is the Answer? The Sabbath of Rest!

Someone else may say, “I don’t feel like I am worth anything.”… what is the answer? The Sabbath’s call to remember God’s creation of a Very Good creation.

Someones else is saing, “I wonder if I have the strength to do what God calls me to do.” The answer… The Sabbath reminds me of God’s creative power which if it could create the whole world out of nothing can give me strength to overcome whatever is in my way.

Within this context the Sabbath can truly be the embodiment of our faith and worthy of the name “affirmation of our faith.” Praise God for the Sabbath.

The Spectrum Blog has a provocative post on how the Sabbath saved the Adventists from selling their soul to a political party. In light of the fact that white Adventists have voted similarly to evangelicalicals the question can be asked, “Why have they not joined the religious right totally?”

Could it be that our minority status among Christians makes us leary of the kinds of politics that the religious right uses? Alex over at the Spectrum blog seems to think so and I am inclined to agree. Perhaps someone should do more study of the political ramifications of being a Sabbath-keeping church.