Holy Ground

Thoughts on the Sabbath School lesson for 2.18.12

How many hours of sleep do you get on an average night?  Do you get the full eight, or do you feel lucky to get five?  How many hours a week do you work (for pay)? How many more do you work at home? Do you ever feel really rested? I heard someone remembering being young and hating being told to go to bed … and wishing that someone would order him to bed now that he’s grown. 

Do you think our tiredness is really about lack of sleep, though? Yes, I know, people who live in “First World” countries tend to be sleep deprived, but is that really the issue? Maybe partly, but I believe we’re talking more about rest than about actual sleep.

Do you know that there’s a store in the Mall of America where you can buy a nap? (Well, there was one in 2005, anyway.  Don’t know if it’s still there.) Really, in this store, for a mere 70 cents a minute, patrons can, well nap, obviously, but they can also choose to 

“Escape the pressures of the real world into the pleasures of an ideal one.… listen to music, put their feet up, watch the water trickling in the beautiful stone waterfall, … and just take an enjoyable escape from the fast-paced lifestyle."[1]

I’m not sure that if I were paying 70 cents a minute, I could get real relaxed, but maybe that’s just me.  Anyway, I’m thinking just getting more rest is really the solution either.  I believe that our Creator knew what our minds and bodies needed and He provided for those needs when He created Adam and Eve.

Think about this for a second:  Adam and Eve were less than 24 hours old when God made the first Sabbath. 

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3 NKJV

There was no stress in their lives, no sin, no weakness, absolutely no physical need for rest. God certainly didn’t need any rest. Could it be that even without sin, humans weren’t complete without time spent building a relationship with their Creator? Even in a perfect world where Adam and Eve could speak to God face to face anytime, they needed a day that was “set apart?”  I think so.

I believe that everything God does is for our good, and Sabbath is no different. God didn’t make any other day holy; He didn’t even name any of the other days. It’s interesting to me that so many people can blithely forget something that God, Himself told us to remember.

“‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.’” Exodus 20:8-11 NKJV

When God blessed and made holy the Sabbath, He made it different from the other days.  I believe that if we are obedient, God will fill the Sabbath hours with an extra measure of His presence.  The Ark of the Covenant held the Mercy Seat that held the Shekinah Glory, the presence of the Lord.  It was set apart in the Most Holy Place of the earthly sanctuary.  The Burning Bush is another example of God making something holy because of His presence.  Remember what God said to Moses? 

“So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’“And he said, ‘Here I am.’“Then He said, ‘Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’”  Exodus 3:4-5

I believe that the Sabbath is Holy Ground.  And just like Moses sensed the holiness of the area around the burning bush, and the Israelites understood the sanctity of the earthly sanctuary, we should feel the specialness of the Sabbath hours.

One author describes how special the Sabbath felt to him when he was a child:  

“When my mother lit the Sabbath candles, I would feel, almost physically, the Sabbath coming in, being welcomed, descending like a soft mantle over the earth. I imagined, too, that this occurred all over the universe—the Sabbath descending on far-off star systems and galaxies, enfolding them all in the peace of God.”[2]

Isn’t that a beautiful way to think of the Sabbath hours?

“But,” you say, “Saturday doesn’t feel any different than any other day of the week to me.”  Well, maybe that’s because we’ve forgotten what it feels like to stand on Holy Ground.

“It [the Sabbath] belongs to Christ.... Since He made all things, He made the Sabbath. By Him it was set apart as a memorial of the work of creation. It points to Him as both the Creator and the Sanctifier. It declares that He who created all things in heaven and in earth, and by whom all things hold together, is the head of the church, and that by His power we are reconciled to God. For, speaking of Israel, He said, ‘I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them’—make them holy. Then the Sabbath is a sign of Christ’s power to make us holy. And it is given to all whom Christ makes holy. As a sign of His sanctifying power, the Sabbath is given to all who through Christ become a part of the Israel of God....           And every object in nature repeats His invitation, “‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28.”[3]

“All heaven is keeping the Sabbath, … On this day every energy of the soul should be awake, for are we not to meet with God and with Christ our Saviour? We may behold Him by faith. He is longing to refresh and bless every soul. …“The Sabbath is God’s time. He sanctified and hallowed the seventh day. He set it apart for man to keep as a day of worship.“We need to cherish and cultivate a spirit of true worship, a spirit of devotion upon the Lord’s holy, sanctified day. We should assemble together believing that we shall receive comfort and hope, light and peace from Jesus Christ.”[4]

Let’s do an experiment. Friday, as the sun goes down, whether we’ve been observing the Seventh Day Sabbath your whole life, have never observed it before or somewhere in between, let’s bow our heads and ask God to give us a sample of what He created Sabbath to be.  Then, let’s take our everyday complacent shoes off of our spiritual feet and experience true Sabbath Rest.

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[1] www.powernapsleepcenters.com

[2] Oliver Sacks, "Brilliant Light," New Yorker (12-20-99), p. 60

[3] E.G. White, The Faith I Live By, p. 33

[4] Ibid. p. 35

Caution: Contents under Pressure

“You can have it all. You can work harder, play harder, and multitask your way to squeezing 31 hours of activity into a 24-hour day. That's the finding of a study conducted by the American Management Association.

“The study concluded that people can add almost 50 percent more activity to a typical day of 16 waking hours. Similarly, according to U.S. Labor Department figures, the average yearly increase in U.S. workers' productivity has doubled from 1.5 percent during the period from 1987–1996 to 3 percent from 1997–2006.

“But at what price? Through technology, people are accomplishing more in less time, but they are feeling overwhelmed by the multiplicity of their lives, according to Ed Reilly, CEO of the AMA. ‘There's a sense of fatigue that comes from multitasking,’ he says. ‘You can force yourself to keep doing things, but you may not be as effective.’”[1]

Do you find yourself multitasking more and more often?  Are you finding that you keep adding activities to your day?  Are those activities that you want to do?  Or that you feel like you have to do? Do you find yourself saying things like, “I am so stressed out!”?  Then you can count yourself among most of the people in the world (well the United States anyway).  Most of us feel overwhelmed by all we have to accomplish every day. Even in the shower, we apparently stop: 

“In 2009, the Ketchum Global Research Network asked 1,000 U.S. adults (ages 25–54) what they think about the most while they shower. Here were the top four responses:  To-do lists, Problems [and/or] worries, Daydreams, Work

“What an interesting glimpse into what we obsess over as we wake up in the morning or wind down in the evening—the two times most of us take a shower. While we clean ourselves to start the day, we sully ourselves with stress and disappointment. When we try our best to clear the clutter from our minds with a nice long shower or bath in the evening, we fill our minds to overflowing with thoughts about places to go, people to see, dreams to fulfill. We are a people who can barely go one minute without pondering the many things we feel we need to do, must do, should be doing but are not.”[2]

That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?  We don’t even let ourselves relax in the shower!  Even when our bodies aren’t “working”, our brain is flying around making plans.  We’ve forgotten what it means to really rest.

Part of the problem is our electronic side-kicks – our cell phones, i-whatevers, and our computers, we keep ourselves “on call” pretty much all of the time.  That becomes a problem for every part of our being.

“In December of 2005, a team of Australian researchers scientifically confirmed a long-suspected link between emotional stress and illness. The group from Sydney's Garvan Institute discovered that a hormone called neuropeptide Y (NPY) is released into the body during times of emotional stress. This hormone undermines the body's immune system and literally makes you sick.

“According to the Institute's Fabienne Mackay: ‘During periods of stress, nerves release a lot of NPY, and it gets into the bloodstream where it inhibits the cells in the immune system that look out for and destroy pathogens in the body.’ She added, ‘That stress makes you sick is no longer a myth; it is a reality and we need to take it seriously.’”[3]

And that article doesn’t even go into more directly stress related illnesses like high blood pressure, heart disease, chronic pain and a bunch of others.  But what can we do about it?  How can we get rid of the stress that dominates our lives?

“How Americans manage stress: Listen to music: 52 percent, Exercise or walk: 47 percent, Read: 44 percent, Spend time with friends or family: 41 percent, Watch TV or movies two or more hours a day: 41 percen, Nap: 38 percent, Play video games or surf the Internet: 37 percent

Pray: 37 percent, Eat: 34 percent, Hobby: 30 percent, Church or religious services: 21 percent, Drink alcohol: 18 percent, Shop: 18 percent, Smoke: 16 percent

*Results based on an APA survey by Harris Interactive of 1,791 adults (June–August, 2008)”[4]

Wow!  Did you notice where prayer and going to church fell on that list?  Pretty low, huh!  How should we manage our stress?  What did Jesus do?  Well several times, the Bible tells us that He and His disciples went out into the country and away from people to have some quiet time:  “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”  Mark 6:31   Sometimes, he spent quiet time with his trusted friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  And, of course, there were times that Jesus went off by Himself to talk to His Father.

Then there’s Ellen White’s remedy for stress:

“Let us turn from the dusty, heated thoroughfares of life to rest in the shadow of Christ’s love. Here we gain strength for conflict. Here we learn how to lessen toil and worry and how to speak and sing to the praise of God. Let the weary and the heavy-laden learn from Christ the lesson of quiet trust. They must sit under His shadow if they would be possessors of His peace and rest.”[5]

Oh, wait, God built our biggest stress reliever into our every week!  Sabbath – a day when we can turn off, shut down, put away everything that pulls us away from Jesus and just feel Jesus’ presence.  The Sabbath didn’t show up on our list of stress-busters, but I’m thinking that it is the only true way of managing the stress that we experience in our crazy end-time lives.  My brother preached a sermon once about Sabbath being the holy ground of time, where we, like Moses, need to take off our earthly shoes and come close to God.

“O soul, are you weary and troubled?/No light in the darkness you see?/There’s light for a look at the Savior,/And life more abundant and free!

Refrain:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,/Look full in His wonderful face,/And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,/In the light of His glory and grace.”[6]

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[1] Hugh Poland, Kingwood, Texas; source: Houston Chronicle (6-21-06)

[2] Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky, and Brian Lowery, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Anne Carey and Sam Ward, "Snapshots: What Do You Think About in the Shower?" USA Today (6-5-09) 

[3] Sam O'Neal, St. Charles, Illinois; source: "Australian Scientists Find Proof That Stress Makes You Sick," Breitbart.com (12-4-05)

[4] Van Morris, Mount Washington, Kentucky; source: Adrienne Lewis, "How Americans Manage Stress," USA Today (10-7-08)

[5] E.G. White, Testimonies for the Church 7:69, 70 (1902)

[6] Helen H. Lemmel, Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus, 1922