THE NEXT ADVENTISM
Refreshing Sabbath Rest
“WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG TO DO ON SABBATH?” IS THE WRONG QUESTION BY JOHN BRUNT
Adventists have come a long way in our understanding of
Sabbath. In the church’s earliest statement of beliefs, written primarily by Uriah Smith and published in 1872, Sabbath was seen as a duty. It stated that the fourth of the Ten Commandments “requires that we devote the seventh day of each week, commonly called Saturday, to abstinence from our own labor, and to the performance of sacred and religious duties….”1 Te statement went on to emphasize that the man of sin, the papacy, had changed the times and laws and deceived the Christian world into keeping the wrong day. How different is the emphasis of our current statement of
beliefs, adopted in 1980? When it speaks of Sabbath, it states in part: “Te Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance, and a foretaste of our eternal future in God’s kingdom. Te Sabbath is God’s perpetual sign of His eternal covenant between Him and His people. Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset, is a celebration of God’s creative and redemptive acts.”2 Not just duty, but delightful communion with God and fellowship with each other. An experience!
The Experience of True Rest Jesus’ Sabbath miracles help give shape to this experience. Jesus seems to have taken the initiative to heal on Sabbath, unlike other days, when he was generally asked to heal. In doing so, he purposely violated the laws of the day, which allowed Sabbath healing only when an acute situation put life in danger before the end of Sabbath. A crippled man sitting beside a pool for 38 years (John 5) and a woman stooped over for 18 years (Luke 13:10-17) could hardly be considered acute conditions. Jesus offered healing, forgiveness, and wholeness to these hurting people on Sabbath. He advocated “doing good” on Sabbath. Tis raises a question. Where should we see ourselves in these
I have heard it too many times. People ask: “Is it right or wrong to do [fill in the blank] on Sabbath?” Tis type of question assumes that Sabbath-keeping involves adhering to a list of dos and don’ts. I could go on about why I think such questions are
wrongheaded, but instead, I want to ask a different question. If we truly experience Sabbath, what is right and wrong to do on Sunday and Tuesday and Tursday? How does experiencing Sabbath make a difference on the other six days of the week? To answer this question, we need to say a bit about what we mean by “experiencing” Sabbath.
34 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y
stories? How do they shape our experience of Sabbath? Are we the blind, crippled, and hurting people who need to be healed on Sabbath, or are we to carry on the ministry of Christ by doing good on Sabbath and helping those who hurt? Many years ago, when part of my pastoral work involved
hospital chaplaincy, I went into a hospital room to visit a mother who had just given birth. She was ecstatic: happy that the delivery went well, happy that she had a girl, happy that the child was beautiful, and happy that the baby had come on Tursday. She said she was so worried that the baby would come on the due date, the following Saturday, because she had heard that our
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