My surfing career reached its zenith in graduate school wherein my school schedule afforded surf most days. To top it off, I would celebrate the end of a semester by taking a solo surf trip in my VW camper up the coast. I met a lot of interesting people as I hit various surf spots from LA to Portland. It was on one of these trips while catching some early Sunday waves, I invited a guy I had met to go with me to church. His response was classic, “Nah brah, the ocean is where I worship.”
In my last blog (see “Working for the Weekend”) I explored work’s relationship to the weekend. There I argued that we were made to embrace both work and rest as those made in the image of the God who works and rests. In passing, the blog touches on the fascinating and rich Biblical concept of the Sabbath. To follow up, this second installment will set its sights on what the Bible teaches about the Sabbath.
“God’s pattern of work and rest is baked into the creation account...it serves as a model for not only Israel but for all creatures made in the image of God. ”
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Sabbath”? For several people, the term conjures up images of a strict, legalistic adherence to rules. This is not surprising. After all, the Gospels record how the enemies of Jesus used their Sabbath rules to try to trap Jesus. This has led some to assume that the Sabbath is somehow in conflict with the ministry and message of Jesus. But is this assumption true?
One problem with this assumption is the source of the Sabbath. Moses’s command to obey the sabbath is not the original source of the Sabbath. The first time we read of the practice of ceasing from work one day out of seven is not in the Mosaic law (the Torah) but in the opening chapters of Genesis. After working six days, God rests on the seventh. As stated in my previous blog, God’s pattern of work and rest is baked into the creation account. And as such, it serves as a model for not only Israel but indeed, for all creatures made in the image of God.
Furthermore, when Moses does give the law to Israel, one of the reasons he gives for Israel to keep the Sabbath is a direct appeal to God’s own model given at creation: “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God […] For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. (Ex. 20::10)” God’s people are to weekly lay down their work and direct their attention to the God they reflect. Indeed, the entire day is framed as rightly directed towards God (“a Sabbath to the Lord your God”). In short, it is a day focused on worshipping God.
Astute Bible readers will recognize creation is not the only reason that Moses gives for keeping the Sabbath. In Deuteronomy 5 Moses argues for Sabbath observance from the logic of redemption. He states, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” (Deut. 5:15). The Sabbath is not only to remember the God who created us but also the God who has redeemed us.
“The Sabbath is not only to remember the God who created us but also the God who has redeemed us. ”
It is noteworthy that when Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath he never says, “I sure did. So what?!” On the contrary, he argues that he is the one who is truly honoring the Sabbath. A careful reading of the text shows Jesus’s issue is not with keeping the Sabbath, but with the added rules that the religious leaders of his day had added to the Sabbath (Mt. 23:4). Jesus claims their added rules show a profound misunderstanding of what the Sabbath is about (Mk. 2:23-28).
In fact, their rules have missed the point of Sabbath observance. Therefore, they must look to “the Lord of the Sabbath” to understand what true Sabbath keeping looks like. In this light, Jesus’s healing on the Sabbath is entirely fitting (Mk. 3:1-5). Jesus’s healings were signs and pointers to God’s great work of redemption—one of the things the Sabbath was designed to celebrate. Indeed, Christ’s healings were meant to draw our attention and focus on Christ—bringing us to a greater delight, worship, and service of the Creator who appears in human flesh.
This pattern of coming together for weekly worship of the Creator and Redeemer was reaffirmed in the early church’s observance of “The Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). In various passages (Acts 20:7-11; 1 Cor. 16:1-2) we find the early church observing a particular day for corporate worship—the first day of the week. But why did they move their Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? The church’s pattern of meeting on the first day of the week finds its source in the Resurrection.
As John 20 reiterates (and all the Gospels confirm), Christ was raised “on the first day of the week.” And it is on the first day of the week that the risen Christ meets with his disciples for table fellowship (Lk. 24:41-43) not only once (Jn 20:19) but twice (Jn. 20:28). This pattern of meeting with the risen Lord for fellowship became the church’s pattern for recognizing the Lord of the Sabbath.
What does all of this have to do with surfing? Quite simply, it challenges my surfing buddy’s claim that surfing was an adequate way to recognize the Sabbath. While holy leisure is certainly part of the Sabbath, the Sabbath is not merely a day of rest and reset. Rather, the Sabbath is first and foremost a day of spiritual refreshment wherein God’s people come together to break bread with the risen Christ.
Give or take some surfing.
Robert Covolo is a Cultural Theologian and Author of Fashion Theology. He is also on staff here at the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles, serving as our Director of Vocational Discipleship.