What is Sabbath Rest?

One of the Christian disciplines I have struggled with over the years is keeping the 4th commandment: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (I have written about it before.)

It is very counter-culture to rest on the Sabbath (whether our Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday). I am guilty of treating the 4th commandment more like a suggestion than a rule or a guiding principle...

But in the Bible this commandment seems pretty serious. When it is first mentioned in Genesis (chapter 20, verses 8-11), it is followed with an explanation:

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.
On it you shall not do any work,
you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

When this same commandment is mentioned again in the book of Exodus, a consequence or punishment has been added.

(I can almost hear an impatient Moses answering - for the umpteenth time - "Yes, this is a serious commandment... Don't mess with it! Let me tell you how serious..."

You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you.
Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death.
Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD.
Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever.
It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.

I actually wasn't planning to get this heavy when I started this post... I had forgotten just how harsh Moses' words in Exodus were!

But to get back to what I was originally planning to say, it has always been hard for me to differentiate between rest and work...

I remember, as a teenager, having a lively discussion with my Sunday School teacher about whether playing baseball or going to the beach on Sundays (to relax with friends) was, in fact, keeping the Sabbath holy. What about doing homework and studying?! That was work!

I also remember my mother and I debating whether knitting was relaxation or work! I considered it a hobby - and therefore, relaxing - but my mother told me: My father would have considered it work and would have forbidden it.

I reasoned: In a day and age when you had to make all your clothing, maybe it was work. But for me, knitting, like drawing or painting a picture, was a relaxing pastime.

On my last trip to Israel, visiting Jewish friends on the Sabbath, I was reminded of what an observant Jew would consider as work on the Sabbath: ringing a doorbell (but not knocking), answering the phone, writing anything - and, of course, cooking (but not removing food or dirty dishes from the table)...

Observing the Sabbath Day of Rest has never been easy! (There seem to be so many rules!)

So - after all these years - I still struggle with the question of What is work?

Six days a week, I would have no problem saying what part of my day is work... But on Sunday (my Sabbath) - trying to do nothing but relax, THE ACT OF RELAXING ironically, suddenly becomes HARD WORK!