PREFACE - God's Promised Rest

The Sabbath is God's rest, His holy and unadulterated rest that commands nothing be added to or subtracted from it. No new developments can evolve the meaning of His Sabbath. No elaborations can enhance its beauty or fascination. It's plain meaning tempts us to assume there is nothing more to say of the Sabbath than what has already been said, yet in the past thousands of years vast numbers of books have been written on the Sabbath. It is prized by Jews as the crown jewel of their faith, given by God as their Queen and beloved Bride. For Christians, it is compared to God's promised land for all nations to enter and live in the fulfillment of His promises. How can so simple a concept carry so much meaning and hope for so many? Why does it always elude us and has never been perfectly kept by anyone?

God created our mind and senses with the capacity to perceive all that He created, so we can learn and experience the works of His hands. But the Sabbath He keeps apart, clothed in His holiness that we can never penetrate. God gave it to Israel as a sign of His binding covenant with her. Millions of Jews throughout history have welcomed the Sabbath anew every week as a foretaste of the Messiah's coming. Millions of Christians believe God has fulfilled His rest in His Messiah, Jesus, who came and will come again. God's rest in completing creation is the Sabbath rest He gave Israel in the forth commandment and the rest that Jesus gives as Lord of the Sabbath. It is the most simple truth that accomplishes God's great promises

Balancing work with rest has long been known as essential for survival. Every waking day has its night for sleep. Every work week has its weekend and every year its vacation. Add to these scheduled times of rest the increasingly popular times of mental rest such as retreats or meditation classes and it becomes clear how well we know the need for rest from the exhaustion of work and from the frustrations of our unsatisfying or unsuccessful efforts. If not in practice, most people know the concept of rest as a basic human need and the damage caused when there is not enough of it. God's Sabbath precedes all our formulas for rest. The Sabbath is not our rest from work, but is God's rest that transcends any rest we can attain

God's rest is inseparable from His creation because it was on the Sabbath that He completed creation (Genesis 2:2). At the same time, the Sabbath is entirely separate and distinct from all God made, for it is holy. It is in this paradox of the Sabbath that both holds together God's created wonders and exists in holy separation from His works that we discover its treasure, God's gift He is continually offering to us. The Sabbath is the incomprehensible mystery of God in His sacred and gracious rest, who can never be exhausted

The Sabbath is no simple posture to do or imitate, but is the Spirit of God whose holy rest is His grace. To keep God's rest is to be kept by God without our efforts intruding, to know as God knows that He alone can be wholly trusted with our life whether active or resting, awake or asleep, able or disabled, alive or dead. The Sabbath is God's Spirit of kindness sustaining us and informing all that our eyes see and our ears hear and minds perceive with His holy presence, making of all He made what He has always intended: a creation, a world, a heart at rest in Him