“Nothing is closer to God’s mind and heart than the creation of Sabbath,” said Dr. Paul Stevens, a professor at Regent College.

Sabbath, the rest in God, is God’s ultimate purpose for his people and universe. Sabbath stands at the heart of the biblical story. Six-days of God's creation ran towards the seventh day, the Sabbath (Gen. 2:1-3). Adam and Eve’s first vocational experience was to waste a day for God. They started their life in a Sabbath with one full day of rest. They were invited into the Sabbath of God to enjoy not because of the works they had done, but because of the gracious abundance of God in the fullness of the creation.

After the fall of humankind, they lost the gift of Sabbath in God due to their sin against the LORD. It was typically summarized in the life of Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, who left the presence of God saying, "I will be a restless wanderer on the earth (Gen. 4:14)". Humans lost the rest in God, the gift of Sabbath, and became restless wanderers.

The gracious and tenacious labour of God started to return human beings into His rest. In the plan of returning the whole universe to the Sabbath of God, as the first step God led the people of Israel into His Sabbath in the land of Canaan through Joshua (Josh. 21:43-45; 23:1). The wars engaged during the ancient kingdom of Israel through king David were not simply physical tribal wars, but were also spiritual, to lead the people of God into His Sabbath (2Sam. 7:1,11; 1Kings. 4:25).

God also manifested that His plan for His people is their Sabbath in God. He shows us in the book of laws various types: the day of Sabbath (one in seven days), the Sabbath year (one in seven years), and the year of Jubilee (one in every seven times seven years). These types were eventually fulfilled in the Messiah, Christ Jesus. The Christ Jesus came to give God’s rest to the weary. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28-30). The salvation through Jesus is best expressed by the word, Sabbath.

Easter is the dawn of Sabbath as an everyday reality in the Great Savior Yahweh. The people, who humbly take the yoke of Christ Jesus confessing Christ as their only Lord and the King, came to enjoy Sabbath of God as an everyday reality. It is only in the LORD who came to us through Christ Jesus, the only mediator between God and humankind, and by the outpouring of the Spirit of the living God.

The story, however, is not finished yet. We are urged to make every effort to enter into the final consummation of the Sabbath (Heb. 4:1-11). There is the Sabbath, the fullness of God's Sabbath, which we are to enter into. The biblical story will touch the apex with the scene of the perfect Sabbath in the Triune God in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21-22).

All creation is aspiring towards the Sabbath-rest in God; life is a pilgrimage towards the Sabbath-rest in God. “The longing for the eighth day in all days of the week is a form of longing for the eternal Sabbath,” said Abraham Joshua Heschel. By keeping the Sabbath we foretaste the eternal Sabbath. By keeping the Sabbath we open our being towards God. By keeping the eighth day as the Sabbath in Christ we confess that our beings are not in our hands, and entrust our beings into the hands of our Master, the merciful sustainer of our weary being. We don’t keep Sabbath; Sabbath keeps our being and life. When we enjoy Sabbath, God restores us as He restored Christ Jesus from the grave on Easter morning.

Rev. Sean Kim is the minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at 132 Greenway Cres. in Thompson.