Sabbath (or) Holy Evening, part XI

Sabbath (or) Holy Evening, part XI

Richard M. Wright

rq,boß-yhiy>w:) br<[,î-yhiy>w:)

wayhi(y)-‘éreb wayhi(y)-bóqer

“And there was evening, and there was morning...” – Genesis 1:5b

When does a day begin? Twelve midnight – right? (Or whenever your alarm clock happens to go off.)

So why does the Creation narrative in Genesis chapter one repeat six times, “And there was evening, and there was morning – day x”? Because that is how Jewish tradition counts days of course! But that answer is tautological and misses the profound theological point.

Consider. In Genesis one evening is when God begins his work. But evening is when normally we cease our work and/or go to sleep. In his challenging book Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (which every vocational minister should read… and not a few lay ministers otherwise known as lay people) Eugene Peterson states, “The Hebrew evening/morning sequence conditions us to the rhythms of grace. We go to sleep, and God begins his work. As we sleep he develops his covenant. We wake and are called out to participate in God’s creative action. We respond in faith, in work. But always grace is previous. Grace is primary” (68). This is perhaps where the theology of Sabbath and Sabbath practice kiss most openly.

There are many ways we can elucidate the theological (and psychological and sociological and fill-in-the-blank-ological) significance of Sabbath as rest. And we will. But for now focus on Peterson’s insight. That Sabbath begins with evening and rest because of the primacy of divine grace and divine activity. Before I act… God acts. Before I try to earn my own value through what I do… we have value simply because we are. Before I toil like the world cannot get along without me… we rest because we trust the world depends not on us but on God. (This also has missiological implications.)

When we choose to practice Sabbath is up to you. But I would suggest that it begins not on Sunday morning (not to get into Sunday-as-Sabbath-versus-Sunday-as-Lord’s-Day right now) but rather on Saturday evening. (Marva Dawn in Keeping the Sabbath Wholly describes how her Sabbath begins when she goes to sleep Saturday night [9 et passim].) The Wright family at present begins Sabbath on Saturday evening. (Basically around sunset – we are not fussy about the exact hour and minute.) This is partly because Sunday evening (not to mention morning) is rather busy with a lot of church work so the only restful evening we might get is Saturday. We are still developing how exactly we observe the time but I can tell you we basically try to stop doing things that “need to get done”. (Such as cleaning house… laundry… replacing light bulbs… moving furniture… and so on.)

One last thing. I suggest that Saturday is not the time to stay up late (as I often do). If there is any night you go to bed early…