‘Tis the Season! (7)

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.” Exodus 31.12, 13

Recovering the Lord’s Day
Like you, I’d like to see our nation’s holy days recover a healthy measure of their proper purpose and focus. Christians will have to lead the way in this, but we won’t make much progress in re-sanctifying these holy seasons until we begin to recover a proper use of the Lord’s Day as the one holy day in seven God says we should “above all” strive to remember and observe.

In the two givings of the fourth commandment – Exodus 20.8-11 and Deuteronomy 5.12-15 – we find incentives and instructions sufficient to guide us in beginning to recover some of the real and proper use of the Lord’s Day, and, by extension, some of the purpose of our other holy days as well. Two motivations and two instructions are provided, and these can be useful in helping us to make better use of our holy time in observing the Lord’s Day and in bringing holiness back to our holy seasons as well.

Two incentives
Two motivations: Why should we keep the Lord’s Day?

First, as a day to focus on the Lord’s work of creation and providence (Ex. 20.11). The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (Ps. 24.1). He upholds and sustains the world by His powerful Word (Heb. 1.3). The steadfast love and glory of God are manifest throughout the creation, so that everywhere we look – if we will look carefully and with patience – we may hope to discover some deeper knowledge of God to enrich and sanctify our lives (Ps. 19.1-4; Prov. 25.2). The Lord commands us to remember His Sabbath because it recalls His rest from the work of creation. We rest to enter into His rest in Jesus, there to enjoy the full meaning, significance, and blessing of all of creation, rightly understood and used.

The Lord’s Day invites us to meditate on the abundant goodness and provision of the Lord, just as Thanksgiving does and as Christmas and Easter do, by reminding us that God’s blessings include the blessing of creation, and His redemption and renewing grace are for the entire creation.

Second, we should keep the Lord’s Day and all holy days because they remind us of God’s redeeming grace (Deut. 5.15). We rest in the freedom and forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ and give thanks and sing praises to Him throughout the day because of His redeeming and renewing grace. If we work at this every Sunday of the year, when special seasons of thanksgiving and praise roll around, we shall be better equipped to make the best use of these holy days for exalting our Savior and King. Our weekly training in devoting ourselves to praise and thanksgiving will make those annual feasts even more enjoyable and significant.

Two guidelines
Then, two instructions guide us in honoring the Lord’s Day and all holy days. First, “remember” the Lord’s Day (Ex. 20.8). “Remember” means something like “pay attention to,” “make preparation for,” “be thorough and complete” in using the Lord’s holy days as He intends. When we’re trying to “remember” something we focus all our attention on it, shutting everything else out to engage all the resources of our brain in what we’re trying to recall.

Remembering the Lord’s Day should be something like that.

At the same time, we must “guard” the holy days of the Lord (Deut. 5.12) against whatever might seek to corrupt, subvert, or hijack them for anything other than the glory of God. We must not let our time or attention during holy days be given over to purposes other than those for which these days are intended. Leave the TV off, at least until the evening. Let your family time be focused around activities designed to recall and reinforce the saving grace of the Lord. Don’t give up any of this holy time for mere self-indulgence, or you’ll be no different from any of your unsaved neighbors.

We forfeit the gold of God’s holy days when we mix it with the fool’s gold of our materialistic and hedonistic age. Remember the Lord’s Day each week, and guard it from being compromised or set aside. This is what God commands for this one holy day, which is the basis and building-block for all holy days.

Learning to use the Lord’s Day as God intends can go a long way toward helping us make better use of the holy days of our national calendar. And if we make better use of these holy days, it’s quite possible our neighbors will notice, and may be led to wonder about what they’re missing in failing to attend to the message and not just the messiness of Christmas and all our holy seasons.

Next steps: What do you think? Is there a connection between the Lord’s Day and how we use it and the holy seasons of the national calendar? Do you agree that Christians should begin trying to recover the real significance and use of both? Why or why not? Share your thoughts with a Christian friend.

T. M. Moore

We’re taking a 3-week intermission from our series on The Disciplined Life to review three archive series on the meaning of Christmas. This week’s study, ‘Tis the Season, is part 1 of a 3-part series on Christmas, As Advertised, and is available as a free download.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.