12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 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. 15 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. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 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.’”
God had already told Moses that they should keep the Sabbath and the Sabbatical Year, but He reminds him here how critically important it was - He says above all you shall keep my Sabbaths. He even says it's a matter of life and death. We might think that is overkill - pardon the pun - but God means business here. Why such the big deal? Why is it so "holy"? It is a sign of their covenant relationship. Circumcision was not THE sign of the covenant: the Sabbath was. Circumcision was not in the top ten laws of God; Sabbath was. Why was this day of refreshing so important? It is acting like God. God did it; so should we. As we said yesterday, God did not have to; it was not like He was tired out, like we get tired out. He chose to stop, step back on His creation, then refocus on His plan for human. God wants us to have this time of refreshing to helps us remember Who He is: our Creator. It reminds us everything comes from and belongs to Him. It reminds us to stop, look at what He has made, including us, the refocus on what His plan is, and recommit ourselves to that. Otherwise our lives are no longer about Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment