Sabbath and "Ordinary" Work...

For the ancient Hebrew calendar, presented in Leviticus 23, everything started with 52 holidays, as it were, of sabbath all-day rests. These days meant 'no ordinary work'.

In Hebrew, sabbath means to cease and desist. Traditionally, this was for a 24-hour period from sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays (so, the whole Saturday or the 7th day).

How are your days of no ordinary work going for you? May I encourage this practice in you and your family's life as a regular, creation-like rhythm!

That said, I was thinking today about the many times we read of Jesus doing miraculous healings on the sabbath day. Even though that often frustrated the Jewish leadership of His day, I think He actually did honor the 'no ordinary work' of the Mosaic (Torah) Law. How? Well, divine miracles by the hand of God Himself are simply NO ORDINARY thing, right? Certainly no ordinary work!

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

-Luke 13:10-17 ESV

May we embrace sabbath in our rhythms and eagerly anticipate God doing some miraculous, non-ordinary work in our lives on those days!

Photo by The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Unsplash

Title: The Veteran in a New Field,Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine),Date: 1865,Culture: American,Medium: Oil on canvas,Dimensions: 24 1/8 x 38 1/8in. (61.3 x 96.8cm),Framed: 37 3/8 × 51 1/4 × 5 1/4 in. (94.9 × 130.2 × 13.3 cm),Credit Line: Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967,Object Number: 67.187.131,Curatorial Department: The American Wing.