[AI translation] God's Word speaks today about something that is a very practical matter for all of us: the day of rest. Every week we have a Sunday, a whole day, and every year we have 52 Sundays! A lot of them! What do we do with it, what can we do with it? What do we use it for? For what God gives us this day, or for something else? Whose Sunday is it? The Church's or the world's? Church and world, competing for it. In this age of secularization, it is only natural that Sunday is becoming more and more secularized. Sport, cinema, dancing, entertainment that is lost in the drudgery of everyday life, and something else: sleep, which is lost in the drudgery of everyday life, and the replacement of housework. Here are some very practical questions about this commandment. And I would also like to say very practical things, but first we need to clarify very theoretical truths. For example, what is the meaning of Sunday according to the Word, what does this day itself proclaim for us? If we can see this clearly, then the right practical conclusions will follow.Let us first see what is the significance of the Sabbath, the Sabbath of rest, in the Old Testament? Our Word says, with reference to the creation story, that "on six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day He rested" (Exodus 20:11a). A great divine calmness has shone over the created universe. But: sin came! Evil forces disturbed this calm, corrupting what was so good and perfect. And now the rest of God is over! Jesus says in the synagogue on the Sabbath: "My Father is at work all this time, and I am at work." (Jn 5:17) After the Fall, God no longer has a day of rest; on the day of rest He is at work to recreate the world. And that is when He gives His people the Sabbath day, that is when He says in the Fourth Commandment: remember on this day that there was a Sabbath day of God, there was a time in creation when God could rest from His work, there was a time when everything God created was good, the earth and man: good and perfect. Remember this, God says in this commandment, but in remembering it, remember also that man has fallen into sin, that he is no longer good, but is defiled with sin. But remember also that he has promised a Saviour, that the Saviour will come, who will break the power of evil, who will recreate the universe, and then everything will be very good and perfect again, as it was in the beginning. This is what the Sabbath meant in the Old Testament.
The rest of God's people on that day was a sign between God and His people, a sign that once all was good, today it is not good at all and one day all will be good again! In the Sabbath rest of the people of the Old Testament, God was picturing His own rest, what was after creation and what will be when the Messiah comes and does the work of re-creation. It is as if God is saying to His people in this commandment, "Your rest on this day is a little like the divine rest that I had before the Fall and that I will have after the Messiah comes. Sanctify this day by remembering this! This, then, was the significance of the Old Testament Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a great remembrance of the past and a great promise for the future.
And then came Jesus Christ. God's promise was fulfilled in Him. Behold, the Messiah has now come, to whom the Sabbath also referred. There is no longer any need for the Sabbath as a sign of the Messiah to come, because the Messiah has already come! So the Sabbath as a holiday slowly faded away in the life of the early Christian churches. In its place came the first day of the week, Sunday, being a common day of rest in the pagan world, the feast of the Sun. This day became the main day of worship for Christians, all the more so because the resurrection of Christ, the beginning of the new creation, also took place on Sunday.
On Sunday, the early Christian churches remembered the resurrection of Christ, but also the fact that evil was still rampant on earth. So on Sunday, through the preaching of the Word and the Lord's Supper, Christians were reaffirmed in grace, in the forgiveness of sins, in the joy of salvation, and they were also reaffirmed in the hope that Christ would return, and that then the happy day of rest would dawn, when there would be no more death, sin or Satan, and everything would be well again in the recreated universe. And so the pagan feast of the Sun in Asia Minor became a Christian feast day, a day of rest in the New Testament, a day sanctified in the spirit of the Fourth Commandment. This day is also a sign between God and man, a sign which is itself a reminder and a promise, a reminder of Easter and a promise of Christ's return. It is as if God were saying through Sunday: 'Man, be strengthened anew in the knowledge that Christ is risen, that He has won a decisive victory, that your sins are forgiven, that your redemption is accomplished, and be strengthened in the joyful hope that Christ will return, that His reign will be complete on earth. In this consciousness and by being strengthened again in this promise, hallow this day!
So what shall we do on Sunday? In one word I could express the Word's answer to this question: let us celebrate. Sunday is the most sublime, the most magnificent, the most beautiful holiday there is in the world! It encompasses everything that Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost proclaim separately. And we celebrate truly when we embrace again in our souls the cross of Calvary, where God gives the greatest gift God can give to man: forgiveness of sins for the merit of Jesus. We celebrate truly when we experience again in our souls the joy of the Easter victory, the reality of redemption, the possibility of victory over sin, over our own sin, and so when we experience joyfully that the resurrection of Christ has begun a new life for us. Behold, I am truly no longer a slave to sin, Christ has set me free, I can live free and happy for God! We celebrate truly when, despite all the terrifying prospects or dark hopelessness of this world, I look forward with hope to the future that God has promised in Christ's return. If, then, I am reaffirmed in the hope of a happy future: not the destruction of a nuclear war, but the glory of Christ, not the end is coming, but Christ is coming! He is coming to bring the fullness of God's reign, the ultimate consummation of his redemptive death and resurrection.
Do you understand that the celebration of Sunday, the true celebration of Sunday, is above all a spiritual process?! It is a reaffirmation of all that this name, Jesus Christ, means for us in the forgiveness of sins, in the victory of freedom from sin, in the continuation of a new life according to God, in the joyful hope of the future. Sunday itself is a great divine exhortation: 'People who believe in me, who are weary and burdened with the work of six days, with the labour, the chase, the struggle, the sorrow: people, "straighten up the hands that are downcast and the knees that are bent, and make your feet straight, that the lame man may not bow down, but rather be healed" (Heb 12:12-13).
Yes, as if by this day God also encourages us not to fear: in His hands are the world, the earth, history, the small world and the history of the heart, the hairs of our head, the destiny of our salvation. Christ's resurrection and return, like two mighty divine arms, embrace the world and your life. Renewed then in faith, renewed in following Christ, renewed in loving people, renewed in the power of God! You may have many temptations, difficulties, struggles, difficult circumstances, but all this, behold, is no reason to faint, to grow weary, in all these things you are free and can triumph through Him who triumphed at Easter, who comes to triumph forever!
Yes, that is the essence of celebrating Sunday! Without it, all else is in vain! For example, doing nothing on that day, or even spending the whole day in church, you still don't have a real Sunday. However, if this spiritual process, this strengthening in Christ happens: you will have a blessed Sunday even if you have to work all day!
Of course, this is why the highlight of Sunday is the church service: it is through listening to the Word, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and the communion of other believers that I am always strengthened anew in what Jesus means to me. Look, the very fact that we are here now, that the Lord's table is set among us this Sunday, is a sign that something great divine has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Something that is just reason enough to smile at one another, to take comfort, to go forward in serene hope, and to continue tomorrow with renewed strength to follow Christ.
And if someone were to ask me what else I should do on this day, apart from worship, to truly sanctify it? I would dare to tell him to enjoy life. How? How? That would be difficult to specify. In any case, one person enjoys beautiful music, another a good book, a third sports, a fourth a good hike in the mountains. All this is not contrary to the law of our Word: "do nothing on that" day! For it is one thing to rest and relax, and another to be idle. One rests physically and spiritually when one is doing something different from what one usually does. If it's up to you, let Sunday be a day of rest for you, so that you can rest from the work you do during the week. This rest from work is also a reminder that the time is coming when the sweat of our brow, this sign of the curse of sin, will no longer make work so bitter: in the new earth, divine rest will also permeate all our work.
True rest, then, is not idleness but, above all, the tranquillity of conscience. The soul is at rest because God has released the debt, has acquitted it of the charge. Christ Himself said so, through the bread and wine that is here before us on this table. And, only those who have heard and accepted this good news of Jesus can truly rest, relax, rejoice in freedom, enjoy life, play as carefree children of God in His garden.
True rest is also the rest of silence. To dare and to be able to be still in the drift of a hurried life. The problem is not that all kinds of entertainment have flooded Sunday, the problem is that modern man flees from silence even in the noise of entertainment! Every Sunday is a warning from the Lord: learn at last the stillness of silence, the silence in which the word of the Lord will be heard, because if you don't, sooner or later your soul will die!
And finally, the calm: the calm of family life! For the family is the heart of our whole life. That is where we all belong on Sunday. During the week, there's hardly any time left for family life. Let's at least stay together on Sunday. Let us hear the Word together, let us rejoice in life together.
So what should we do on Sunday? Let me say it again: let us celebrate, let us rejoice! Jesus wants our Sunday celebration to be a sign of the coming of the kingdom of God! This day is a precious gift of God, through which God stops us again and again in the passing, hectic days of our lives and warns us that He will never forget us under any circumstances, that He wants to be your Saviour and Lord even more, now also through Jesus Christ!
Amen
Date: 24 November 1957.
Lesson
Mt 12,1-8