Jesus is the Sabbath

Jesus is the Christian Sabbath in flesh. In the New Covenant, Sabbath is not a particular demarcation of time so much as it is a particular way of being in the world, by being in Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the Sabbath rest between the times, between the past and the future. He is the holy place, the safe place of God’s presence in the now. He keeps us safe by His Spirit from the haunting of the past and the fear of the future.

But this “holy place,” this Sabbath day, this sacred “time” — is currently manifested in the Body of Christ by the Spirit. The Church is the Sabbath of the New Covenant. This is particularly, explicitly manifested in the gathering of the Church together on the Lord’s Day to celebrate the great Memorial Feast, the Eucharist.  As the saints feast together and “remember” one another and care for one another and the weak and the poor and the hungry from house to house, the Sabbath is extended and shared just as the Fourth Commandment always required.

This doesn’t do away with the wisdom of setting a day aside for this enormous task, and Jesus Himself initiates a pattern of visiting His disciples on the first day of the week following His resurrection. But the Sabbath was never meant to be kept for itself; people were not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was always for people. The Sabbath was for being the presence of Christ in this world, for remembering covenant, keeping covenant, giving life, healing, sharing, feasting. The Sabbath was made for man. Jesus is the Sabbath made flesh, and the Church is that flesh in this world, for this world, by the working of the Spirit.