The Sabbath Mind

The Lord’s Day is the only obligatory feast in the Christian calendar. Christians are not to forsake assembling together. This means that Christians are not required to celebrate Christmas or Easter or Pentecost. The church may not bind anyone’s conscious with requirements that cannot be derived from Scripture. Christians are free not to celebrate these days, and some may have good intentions, but the issue comes down to the Sabbath mind. The Sabbath mind is an internalization of God’s goodness to us in the Sabbath; it is a deep down, gratitude for the goodness of God. This mindset sees the world as God’s play, God’s theater; the Sabbath mind sees God’s goodness everywhere; the Sabbath mind is somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, believing that God is out constantly conspiring to bless us. The Sabbath mind not only sees the blessing of God under every bush and pebble, but it revels in the goodness of God. It stops in its tracks and says thank you. And then because it is so deeply thankful, it resolves not to forget and it builds gigantic monuments to the gigantic goodness of God. These monuments are sometimes made of stone, but often enough they are made of minutes and hours and days set aside for laughing and eating and blessing and dancing and sleeping to the glory of God. For if God has done this great thing, all is right in the world and nothing can ultimately end in evil. This Sabbath mind is not suspicious and cranky and legalistic. The Sabbath mind is simply, truly glad. And this means that the sin of Sabbath breaking is really just old fashioned ingratitude, unthankfulness, and bitterness. But we are Christians; we believe that God has conspired to tell the story of the world such that his glory and grace fill the world with laughter and thankfulness. So drop your crankiness now. God is looking for opportunities to bless you. He rejoices in this weekly excuse he has to bestow his love upon you; and he is always looking for opportunities to give you good things like presents on Christmas, chocolate on Easter, and roses on Valentines.