Sabbath (or) Holy Advent, part VII
Richard M. Wright
Sabbath.
(Like you did not know where all this was going.)
On the one hand we have the season of Advent. That begins by looking forward to the second coming. As well as looking backward to the first coming of Christ. That straddles the past and the future.
On the other hand we have Sabbath. More specifically the “seventh day” that looks backward to Genesis 1 and what God has done in creation. And that looks forward to Genesis 2 and what human beings will do in partnership with God. What Terence Fretheim calls “creaturely creation.”
Sabbath then – to say more about this – celebrates and contemplates God and his activity as creator. And prepares for what we will do in ministry and mission. Sam Balentine writes:
In this ordered and relational world [referring to the vision of creation in Genesis 1 and 2], the seventh/Sabbath day crucially intersects God’s creative hopes and humankind’s creative possibilities. This day marks simultaneously an ending and a beginning, a bridge between God’s first and second creation demands (1:26; 2:16-18) – the day of rest for God and all God’s creation that signals the transition between imagine God’s creative act as royalty and imaging it as servant.
Sabbath then resembles Advent. Looking backwards as well as forwards. Celebrating as well as preparing.
Have you noticed how crazy the Christmas season can become? Extra musicals at church. Plethorae of Christmas parties. For Sunday school. For deacons. For internationals. For colleagues and friends. For inmates at
Is there any time or any room for us to pause (not stop) and be still and hear the angels sing the good news of the birth of Jesus Christ the son of God? To – gasp! – experience the meaning of Christmas?
Perhaps if we practiced Sabbath more consistently and effectively we would be in better spiritual shape for entering (more) fully into the Advent season…? To play and pray? To rest? To look backwards and forwards? To celebrate and prepare?
Now you begin to see my agenda.
