The sabbath of rest

I had asked in this post if anyone celebrates a seventh day Sabbath. I know of one person in my life, a Christian, my maid of honor at my wedding, the friend who first led me to the Lord nearly 30 years ago, who does. You know, we celebrate the feasts of the Lord; we have for several years.  We attend a church which holds a big feast of Tabernacles celebration every year. This past year, the pastor was saying that one year, a conflict came up in the schedule (this must have been before we were going there) and they decided to have the Tabernacles on a different day than the actual day, thinking it would make no difference to the Lord (being ignorant Gentiles — his words) and the presence of the Lord, which is so strong among us during this celebration, was absent that year. He said it mattered to God that we celebrate His feasts according to His calendar.

So I was thinking about that on Friday after I posted about the Sabbath, and looked up in Leviticus 23 to remind myself of the command concerning the feasts. I knew this, but had forgotten it — the weekly feast of Sabbath is the first feast listed. I asked myself, “Why do we celebrate all the feasts but this one?” I spoke with my husband, who believes that Sabbath- keeping is no longer required, and I asked him, “Would you mind if I kept the Sabbath on Saturday? I am curious to discover what will happen.” He had no objection, so I prepared dinner for that evening, and extra food for the next day, and cleared up all my work.

Then when the sun began to set, I excused myself from the family, went into my “prayer closet,” and prayed to the Lord, “I am not exactly sure what to do, but the Scriptures say that in six days You made the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh day, and hallowed it; and we are to keep the seventh day holy — the seventh day is beginning, so here I am to honor You.” These words were barely out of my mouth when the presence of the Lord descended so powerfully upon me that I could not speak any longer. I ended up worshiping the Lord for several hours, but it seemed like only a few minutes had passed. I slept like a baby that night, and had the most peaceful day yesterday, filled with joy. We attend church Saturday evenings anyway, and as we were coming out of the assembly last night, the sun was setting. I told the Lord, “That was the most beautiful seventh day I have ever experienced — thank you for making the Sabbath for man.”

My next task should be to study all that the Scriptures say concerning the Sabbath, and I would also like to understand why the Church does not celebrate this day. From my experiment, it seemed to me that the Lord was pleased and blessed my Sabbath day of rest. For another perspective, Sharra at Heritage Homeschooling describes her family’s Sabbaths (Broken link, June 17, 2007). Thank you, Sharra, for sharing your post with me. Does anyone else celebrate a Sabbath day of rest? I now know three people!

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Update: continued in The Sabbath holiday