Having ended the study in Romans with a discussion about the Sabbath, and still pondering whether there is more to the Sabbath than what we Christians think there is, I determined to "keep" or "observe" a Sabbath, or at least as closely as a Gentile could who has not really ever tried to keep it according to the Word of God versus according to the traditions of man; and whatever "Sabbaths" I have kept before now were all done on Sunday, instead of Friday evening to Saturday evening, so I am not sure they should really be called Sabbaths anyway.
So…Friday, during the day, I did my cleaning, got all the animals fed (wild birds, wild cats), did the necessary cooking (making twice as much of everything to cover the meals for Saturday, reminding me of the Israelites gathering double omers of manna in preparation for the Sabbath) and even took a late afternoon shower to avoid doing so at my normal time the following morning. I worked pretty hard at getting all of this done before sunset on Friday evening, and was glad that the days are still long and I had lots of time. During the entire process, I felt as though I were preparing for something special, and then I realized that the something special was the Lord Himself, for whom all this was being done in an effort to be obedient in my understanding of his 4th commandment to honor and keep holy HIS day.
Finally, the sun went down and the Sabbath began. I have to say, even with all the reading and studying I have done in recent weeks on this subject, I was not prepared to keep the Sabbath exactly as the Jews today might do, as I had decided to keep it rather last-minute. But as I had heard that the Shema is one of the most important prayers for the Jews (though perhaps not particularly on Sabbath?), I decided to use that as my evening prayer and morning prayer. I found it online and spoke it aloud while standing by my front window that faces to the east just as the sun went down behind me on Friday (the standing in prayer reminded me of Daniel standing and praying at his window where all could see, while the prayer itself reminded me of some of Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple). Here is a link to the Shema: [http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Torah/The_Shema/the_shema.html ]
After praying, we sat down to eat our dinner that was still warm having just finished cooking it right before sunset, and after dinner the dishes were just set in the sink to be put into dishwasher after the Sabbath ended the following day; not my usual routine as I don't like to wake up to dirty dishes, but then the Sabbath is not about "my" usual routine….it's about God's time and routine…I think.
After dinner, then came the tricky part…what to do now?
Keeping it "holy", meant to me, that I should probably not watch my usual movie; I don't have cable or TV service of any sort, but my husband and I do like to watch a movie each evening when we have the time to do so. I considered watching something religious as I have quite a collection of those movies, but still, just watching a movie at all didn't seem to really fit in with "holy."
So I sat instead at my desk and alternated reading between the Bible and a book on the Sabbath called "The Sabbath World" by Judith Shulevitz. I love to study the Word of God and to write about what I have studied; but writing seemed too "weekday-ish" and not "holy Sabbath-ish" so I avoided it…for a while at least (more on that later.)
After a fairly short while, I decided it would be ok to go to bed earlier than normal, seeing as how the Sabbath is about "rest." I was in bed and sound asleep by 9 that night and woke at 6 which gave me 9 hours of sleep instead of my usual 6-7. It appeared I had the "rest" part down pat. No problems there!
Saturday morning right after I woke up, I went immediately to my front window again and stood and prayed, keeping my prayers focused more on thanking God and praising God than on presenting my normal petitions, although I did ask that He help me understand all that there was to this Sabbath-keeping. While I did the Jewish prayer, I also found myself throughout the day praying prayers for others as they came into my mind just as I do every day, what I would call the Christian style of praying, so that my prayers were not limited to only the Shema. However, I definitely would like to study up on Shabbat practices before I try this again, I think.
After the Shema, I had a cold breakfast of cottage cheese and fruit instead of my usual toast and coffee; although I did have coffee later in the day. My husband, who was not trying to observe the Sabbath, and for whom I have been providing "intensive care" (as he calls it) for the past month since his major surgery, decided that this "day of rest" that I was experimenting with was a good opportunity for him to wait on me for a change; and so he insisted on making my usual morning latte for me himself (I didn't have the heart to tell him I hadn't really planned on having it that morning, nor that having someone "serve" me on the Sabbath was not keeping the Sabbath as it meant the other person still had to do the work. Thus I ended up with a very-nicely-done late morning latte. Good job, honey!)
But back to the earlier morning: after my cold breakfast, I went back to my desk and continued the alternating reading of the night before…and found some things in scripture that I had not seen before…but that is something that happens with almost every reading of the Bible for most of us, so that wasn't a new thing, just a good thing!
As the morning went on, sitting at my desk too long began to tire my legs, so I would get up and walk around, or go sit on the front porch rocker for a while and admire God's handiwork, and then come back in and read some more, with more prayers filling in moments here and there.
By noon, I was beginning to really notice the lack of busy-ness. It is normal for me to read a lot and study a lot in the early morning hours, but by 8:00 am most mornings, I am busy doing something or driving somewhere or visiting someone…things that keep me busy most of the day. This particular Sabbath morning, I had been reading and studying for basically 6 solid hours, minus half an hour for breakfast! And the lure of technology began to attempt to intrude into my Sabbath. I resisted…
….for a while. But I eventually picked up my cell phone, out of intense curiosity, and quickly glanced at the emails just to make sure there was nothing urgent (there wasn't) and within 30 seconds the phone was back out of my hand and remained out of my hand all day long.
But then the urge to write down what I was experiencing before I forgot it all, became overwhelming (I did not want to forget what was happening here!), and so, at least for this first Sabbath, I decided that I had to take notes, and while I could have resorted to paper and pen, it's just so much faster on the computer! Thus, as thoughts struck me during the day, I would type them into my computer.
For lunch, I re-heated the leftovers from the night before using the micro-wave…which is a bit of a compromise, no doubt, on not
"kindling any fire"…all I can say is that I would really like to have a Jewish friend right now who truly observed the Sabbath, maybe not in ultra-orthodox ways, but at least fairly straight-forward, to teach me the practical aspects of Sabbath-keeping…is everything eaten cold for the entire 24 hours or what? I just don't know for sure.
At some point after lunch, while I was back reading again, some stray "not-particularly-God-related" thought crept into my mind, andwithout even thinking about what I was doing, I decided to hop onto Amazon to see if a certain book was there, and if it was in kindle format…and it was…and before I realized what I was doing, I had 1-clicked it and purchased it!!! Then it hit me what I had just done – so reflexively that it had required no conscious thought! I can still feel my shock!
I had exchanged money on the Sabbath! How was THAT keeping the Sabbath holy!?!? Anyone who has ever read the Bible KNOWS that money should not exchange hands on the Sabbath…money is profane on the Sabbath! And while I hadn't actually opened my wallet to get money out of it, nevertheless, money was exchanged…from my credit card to their merchant account. There could be no doubt this was a violation of the Sabbath rules! After all the resisting I had at least tried to do, and all the reading and Bible studying and Shema and other prayers and all the extra work on Friday to prepare….I had just blown it! Wow! It was just sad!!!
And then I remembered…
And I relaxed, sat back in my chair, and I thanked God for Jesus, and for the knowledge that I wasn't going to have be taken out and stoned for this reflexive and (partly at least) involuntary act; for Jesus became the sacrifice for my mistakes, for my sin. He suffered for me. He experienced the death I should have experienced from ALL my failed attempts at keeping ANYTHING "holy." The grace of God through Jesus Christ removed the fear of death from the Sabbath law….from ALL the law.
Yet my failure reminded me also of what separation really must mean to the Lord; separating the worldly from the holy and just why it was important. I decided to continue on to see what else the Lord would show me that day. And so I did.
I have to say that by 2:30, I was no longer thankful that the days were long; it was taking some effort to keep from "watching the clock." Still, I managed to keep myself in the Word, with occasional 10-minutes wanderings onto the front porch for a change of position.
Finally, it came time for dinner, which I re-heated in the micro-wave, and lingered over as long as I could.
And I just barely made it to sunset before "releasing" myself from Sabbath-keeping; so quickly releasing myself, in fact, and with such gusto, that I completely forgot my plan which had been to say another Shema! I can certainly understand the importance and joy of the Havdalah after the Sabbath. I would have loved to have had people around to celebrate its passing!! I was VERY excited that it was over!!!
Well, there you have the "mechanics" of my 24 hour Sabbath-keeping ability (or lack of). The fact is there was not really anything we modern-day Americans would call exciting about keeping the Sabbath. I was actually more excited about the preparation of it, than the keeping of it, I think. But I'm pretty sure this stems mostly from the drastic change in the speed of the passing of time for that 24 hours period. It was a shock to my system that was extremely uncomfortable; my independence and autonomy suffered greatly!
In the next posting, I will attempt to share what I think I learned about the reason for (and importance of) keeping the Sabbath. That might be a little more interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment