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As we begin our sermon series on the sabbath we might as well just admit it: we’re not sure what to do with the sabbath…
The account of the first week puts the issue front and center. The seventh day, the sabbath, is an odd day. 
First, every other day of creation, has its counterpart.
The first day, light is made; and the fourth, its inhabitants: the sun, moon and stars are made. The second day, the sky is formed above the depths; and on the fifth, their inhabitants: fish and birds are created. The third day, dry land is formed; and on the sixth, its inhabitants: mammals are made.
The sabbath day, though, has no parallel! It stands apart from every other day.
We’re not sure what to do with this day that doesn’t fit…

That isn’t even the only quandary of this day, either. Scripture is clear; it is on this seventh day, not the sixth, that God finishes creation. It is also on this day, though, that God doesn’t do a thing!
“And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all the work!” The sabbath day is blatant a contradiction!
We’re not sure what to do with this day that opposes logic…

And you know, our confusion about the sabbath day runs even deeper than those two quirks.
The real problem we have with the sabbath is it’s place. We had always imagined we, humankind, was the culmination of God’s creation. In our hearts, we pictured humanity as God’s greatest creation. 
Yet scripture asserts creation is crowned by this odd day, the seventh day, the sabbath. This day when God doesn’t do anything, and finishes everything is God’s last creation.
We’re not sure what to do with this day that takes us down a peg…

Observing the sabbath is a strange business, indeed. 
This final act of creation defies categorization. Why it even defies us!
And that’s our problem with the sabbath, isn’t it?
It refuses to play by our rules. We can’t figure out what to do with this day…

Our struggle with the sabbath, then, is not a new problem. It is not a crises only recently caused by 24/7 business chains. It is our problem. A problem God’s people have struggled with since the first day. Since Moses brought down the two stones. Since the tomb was found to be empty.
This day without parallel, this day where God doesn’t do anything and finishes everything, has always confounded us! We’ve never been sure what to do with this day…

The bad news is this day of rest will not be explained away. There can be no resolution to the questions this day raises. There is nothing we can do to make the sabbath more palatable. 
The sabbath simply is, what the sabbath is; a strange day. A day we’re not sure what to do with…

Ultimately, it is not the sabbath that must be made to make sense to us. Rather, it is us who must be made to make sense to the God of sabbath. As the Bible puts it, we are commanded to observe the sabbath. Keep it holy. 

There is no way around this day. The only way forward, is through it. 

First of all, you are here.
Gathering around God’s holy Word, the holy meal, in the company of the faithful is how the sabbath is kept, how we go through the sabbath. In the small catechism Martin Luther describes honoring the sabbath, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”
So, well done. You have already taken the first step in observing this strange day. Of keeping it holy. Of going through the sabbath.
Now then, let us venture forward…

The sabbath is a day without parallel. As we said earlier, every other day has it’s complimentary one. Not the sabbath, though. This day of rest is set apart. It is different. It is peculiar

Which, as it turns out, it what it means to be holy. Something that is holy, is something set apart for God’s particular usage. 
And, when you deal with the holy, you are dealing with the unsettling. It was the prophet Isaiah who, upon be taken to God’s holy sanctuary, cried out in terror; that he was a man of unclean lips, living among an unclean people. The holiness of God was unsettling for this prophet, too. He didn’t know what to do with the holy either!
Notice; it is a faithful response to come into God’s holiness, and not know what to do; at first. Your uncertainty with this day means you are on the right path. your uncertainty is fitting
So far, so good. Things are as the ought to be…

Now, though, we come to the great contradiction of this day. On the sabbath, God finishes creation and on this day God rests from all work!

No amount of wrangling can resolve this contradiction. Sorry. All we can do is observe this day, with its contraction. We must keep it, as the command puts it. 
We cannot try to minimize this day or it’s contraction. We must learn to live with it. Which, is what it means to be faithful
Not to try and make God fit to our images, but to come before God in reverence, and be fitted to God’s image. 

We do well to sit before that contradiction. In the end it lies at the heart of God. The apparent conflict, is actually the very nature of this God. This finishing everything by doing nothing, is what God has been up to since the very beginning to this every moment. It is God’s will in other words.  
The God scripture reveals, is the God who most fully works with rest! The God who is not a workaholic. This is the exodus. The resurrection!

This contradiction turns out not to be a contradiction for this God; the God who calls you to observe the sabbath, to keep it holy. This tension, is who God is. What God does!
We, Christians, used to call such holy-contradictions “a paradox.” Two things only God can hold together. Two things that can only come together in God. Two things that in contrasting, reveal the kind of God we have! 

…It was Augustine who insisted God didn’t have to make all this. 
God Just spoke each part of creation, and enjoyed what came forth. There’s no essential reason God had to make creation. God just did. 

And after God just did, God evaluated it all. God deemed it “very good.” So on the seventh day, the crown achievement, God finishes everything by doing nothing
Simply letting all creation rest in the goodness of God. Of joining that rest, even. Hallowing it. Sanctifying this day of rest with the very presence of God… 

That’s what the sabbath is. What today is. What God is up to!
The great day of God’s final act; gathering up everything and letting it rest with God. The paradox of finishing everything by resting for everything!

And as is so often the case, this paradox, this promise is what’s really hard for us. Why we don’t know what to do with this day. The promise of this day has no parallel. The promise of this day refuses to fit into our logical schemes. 

That God would simply grant us a day where everything is done. A day where there is nothing to do but rest. It’s too much for us. This day unseats our highest ambitions. 

It is a strange business for us to observe the sabbath. To keep it holy.
We don’t know what to do with this day. 
And, as long as that’s our problem; what to do with this day; the sabbath will always confound us!

That’s because there is nothing to be done with this day! 
On the sabbath, God says there is nothing more to be done. It’s all done in this paradox of God. God who takes creation, and in the rest of God, finishes creation, hallows it. 

That’s who God is. That’s the kind of God you have!

Soon we’ll hear about another sabbath. The final seventh day of creation. The Sunday morning the tomb was found empty. 
What the seventh day of creation reveals is, Jesus wasn’t God’s “Plan B.” What God had to resort to after humans made a muck of everything. Jesus is God’s very nature fully revealed. Jesus is what God is up to since that first week. What God is up to each and every sabbath since! 
To grant rest. To complete creation by crowning it with the God’s very presence. Each seventh day. Every resurrection morning. Right now!

Sisters and brothers, there is nothing to do with this day. Just rest. Rest in God. 
This is no mere day-off, but true rest. Coming into the presence of God and finding everything has been done. You don’t have to make your way to this God, this God comes to you. This God gives you rest.

God sends your savior to you, for you —this day. 
Come to this sabbath, meet the one who grants you rest. That’s the kind of you have. You don’t have to endlessly toil to please this God. Instead, this God does everything, and come to you. You.
You, you can rest. You can. Come to this God. 
Keep this sabbath. 
Find rest for your soul.

Keep this sabbath. It is holy.

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