Why a Weekly Holy Day?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this post about how Sunday is the eighth day of the week. To sum it up quickly, Sunday was the eighth day to early Christians because it was the day after the Sabbath (the seventh day). Sunday was a weekly holy day called "the Lord's Day" when they commemorated Jesus rising from the dead on the day after the Sabbath.

Whether we call it the Sabbath or the Lord's Day, we need a holy day each week. The Lord commanded it on Sinai, reiterated that command in our era, and set the example by resting Himself. But, as with all of His commandments, He doesn’t ask us to do this because He needs it but rather because He knows we need it. Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”

Why do we need a weekly holy day? I discovered a trilogy of short videos that feature one of Jesus’ apostles addressing that very question. I especially enjoyed the second installment (embedded on this page) that talks about the symbolism of the hexagram (Star of David).

I personally love how the doctrine of a weekly Sabbath leverages the power of scheduling to our spiritual benefit. Schedules are powerful things. I go to work at a certain time each day and leave work at a certain time each day because my employer has established a schedule that I have agreed to. Work gets done because of that schedule. Before the internet, people faithfully tuned in for their favorite shows each week because of the power of routine scheduling. Most people wake up and go to sleep and eat at certain times for the same reasons. Stuff gets done because of routines and schedules. The Lord understands this and leverages it to help us devote at least 1/7 of our time each week to our spirituality. When we do this week after week after week, it has profound positive effects on who we are.

Also, the Sabbath helps us avoid the love of money. Our society measures the strength of our economy by the status of the stock market. A company’s stock is considered strong when it is making more money. Having consistently enough or sufficient for one’s needs is considered failure. We’ve accepted as status quo that one needs to relentlessly grow the bottom line and always have more and more money to be successful.

But the law of the Sabbath invites us to choose to make less money. We show our devotion by not working one day a week and not requiring others to work either. In the Old Testament, there was even a Sabbath year every seven years when the people were not allowed to make a profit on the land, were to forgive debts, and were let the poor and the stranger take freely of the fruit of the field. The focus wasn’t on extracting all they could get from the land but on taking a little less, being content with enough, and helping others. I believe the Lord would like for companies (even factories that “need to produce all seven days”) to close one day a week if, for no other reason, than to remind employers and employees that it is good to let go of growth obsession and be OK with sufficiency and learn to intentionally forgo profit to do the right thing.

Finally (and this relates back to the power of scheduling), the Lord’s Day is a weekly opportunity to remember Jesus Christ. We don’t have to wait until Easter to celebrate the Resurrection. Every Sunday is a celebration of that Miracle of miracles that happened on the eighth day. Every Sunday is a chance to participate in the Lord’s supper as He commanded in remembrance of the body and blood He gave for us. The words of the prayer associated with this Communion say that those who partake will “always have his Spirit to be with them” as “they do always remember him”. Devoting an entire day to celebrating Jesus’ Atonement and Resurrection not only helps us remember Him that day but reorients us toward remembering Him all week long which allows us to always have His Spirit with us. That Spirit is grace which works on us and changes who we are and makes us into new creatures who reflect who He is.