“It has always fascinated me that God chose to rest. He worked six days, creating the heavens and the earth and everything that would fill them. And then he, the God who never grows weary, chose to rest. He took sabbath. Why would he do this? Why would the all-powerful God rest?”

I grew up in a Christian tradition that emphasized the continuity between the Old Testament and the New. These Christians held, among other things, that the Old Testament Sabbath commands—given to observe the fourth commandment—carry into the New Testament Lord’s Day. This meant that the whole day was consecrated to the Lord. A whole twenty-four hours out of every week was to be protected from interference from life’s workaday responsibilities.

Though I continue to have a great deal of respect for those churches and that tradition, my views have changed a little bit. I no longer believe that observing the fourth commandment requires refraining from all work on Sunday. But I haven’t abandoned sabbath altogether. Life as a Baptist has forced me to see this: It’s not just sabbatarians who need sabbath. It’s not just sabbatarians who need a day set apart.

God did not intend all work and no rest; he did not intend all rest and no work.

It has always fascinated me that God chose to rest. He worked six days, creating the heavens and the earth and everything that would fill them. And then he, the God who never grows weary, chose to rest. He took sabbath. Why would he do this? Why would the all-powerful God rest? He rested to established a pattern, to establish a flow. There would be times for labor and times for rest. Six days you could earn a living and carry out your day-to-day responsibilities, and on the seventh you were to rest. Six years you could harvest your crops, but on the seventh the fields were to lie fallow. There would be ebb and flow, there would be work and rest. God did not intend all work and no rest; he did not intend all rest and no work. He intended both to flow in a pattern, a dance.

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