Summer is almost here. There is already talk of ‘what will you be doing for your summer vacation.’ Vacation Bible School is almost ready. A group of youth and adults will be going on mission trips. Some of us are making plans to go to our favorite places to rest and relax -- to get away from it all. I sometimes have the sense that we work as hard if not harder to get ready and then to execute these so called periods of rest and relaxation. I would like to remind you that our Creator has a plan to address our needs for rest and renewal. This plan is found simply stated in one of the Ten Commandments.

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is a

Sabbath to the Lord, your God…

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth

And all that is in them,

But rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the

Sabbath day and consecrated it.”

(Exodus 20:8-11)

No, this is not another lament about the hectic hurried lives we live here in Northern Virginia , or a cry for you to take better care of yourself. All that is asked is that as you plan your summer get away consider Sabbath. Or as my Dad used to say, “Just do it.”

The word Sabbath designates in the Bible the weekly day of festal rest, which is a day of abstinence from secular work (Anchor Bible Dictionary, page 849). I like Abraham Joshua Heschel’s comments on Sabbath. He writes, “The meaning of Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world (The Sabbath, page 10).” Sabbath is than “down time.” Sabbath is meant for us to reconnect and celebrate both creation and our Creator.