| JULY 1, 2023 -- Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6: 31). Jesus is inviting his disciples to take part in a much-needed retreat, one might almost say a “Vacation”. The story in Mark shows that they were not successful in that endeavor, but I want to focus first on the original intent. Throughout the Bible there are instructions to us that we should from time to time take a rest. Our word “Sabbath” is only a slightly modified form of the Hebrew word “Shab bath”, sometimes “Shabbat”, originally meaning “rest” or “day of rest”. It, in turn, derives from the verb “Shavath” or “Shabath”, meaning to desist from exertion.
The creation story in Genesis states that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. The word used in the original Hebrew for “rested” is “Shabath”. Now, God did not rest because he was tired or weary, but rather it is an indication that his work was done. In Exodus it is stated that he was refreshed on the seventh day, in this case refreshed by the satisfaction of a job well done.
Jesus famously said: “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”
God tells us to take a day of rest primarily because it will do us good to do so, not because of an arbitrary law. And my personal opinion is that it is not vitally important that the day of rest be a Sunday. For some people, such as clergy, it is necessary to work on Sunday. My mother always chose Wednesday as her sabbath, because she was able to take a break from her chores on that day, go to the Wednesday morning Church service, and spend the rest of the day relaxing.
Another point about having a day of rest is one should include God in your rest period. Going to Church on Sunday morning is one way to do this, but it is not necessarily the only way. In our Gospel lesson from Mark, Jesus did not tell the disciples that they should “go away”, but rather “come away”. He was going with them. “To a deserted place”, to a place where they could be alone with him, a religious retreat, as it were.
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