Day 281: Keep Holy the Lord’s Day (2168-2176)

• It’s Day 281!! 

• ARTICLE 3: THE THIRD COMMANDMENT

• THE SABBATH DAY

• THE LORD’S DAY

• THE DAY OF THE RESURRECTION: THE NEW CREATION

• The first through third commandments directly relate to God

• We come back to this worship, what we owe to God

• The primary sub-virtue of justice is the virtue of religion

• We live out and express the virtue of religion through worship

• The Sabbath is not for the Lord because He needs it

• It is because WE need it

• This commandment corresponds to the human heart

• If we don’t recognize this, we forget what it is to be human

• To be human is to be oriented towards worship of God

• We are not the center of the universe

• God is the source of existence

• God is the origin of existence

• God is the entire point of existence

• God is the whole purpose and goal of existence

• Worship ensures that we do not collapse in on ourselves

• Worship ensures that we experience true freedom by offering the Lord true worship

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we ask that you please fill our hearts with a love of you so that worship can flow from us and be directed toward your glory, can be directed towards interceding on behalf of this world. Lord God, give us a heart that longs to worship you. Give us hearts that desire above all that your name is glorified, that you are glorified. Lord God, for every part of our heart that is opposed to worship, every part of our heat that wants to fall in on ourselves, every part of our heart that wants to be small or selfish, we ask that you please convert that, transform it so that we can truly belong to you, that we can truly be yours. And that every piece of our worship, particularly our worship in the Sunday Mass is truly for you, for your glory, and for the salvation of this world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• The introductory paragraph today says, “ARTICLE 3: THE THIRD COMMANDMENT…Remember the sabbath day, to 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; in it you shall not do any work. The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

• This points to the story of creation

• God makes the heavens and the Earth and everything that is in them on days 1-6

• On the seventh day, God rests

• So we are invited to live like the Lord by working 6 days and resting on the 7th

• We are invited to live and structure our lives around almost the very first description of God in Genesis Ch 1

• Paragraph 2170 says, “Scripture also reveals in the Lord’s day a memorial of Israel’s liberation from bondage in Egypt: ‘You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with mighty hand and outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.’”

• The context for the Commandment is the Exodus

• The Lord God brings His people, whom He loves, out of slavery

• They were slaves for 400 years and now they are free

• How many days off did a slave get?

• Zero

• Why?

• Slaves did not get a day off for their entire lives

• They had to work every single day

• God has brought His Chosen People from slavery to freedom

• Part of the first things He commands them is that they must rest from their labors

• Think about how this is connected to the relationship of what God is doing in their lives

• Think about how we resist resting on Sundays

• The beginning of this Commandment is that you are no longer a slave

• So why in the world do we buck against this Commandment to rest on the Sabbath Day?

• Why in the world do we buck against God trying to make it so clear that we do not have to live like a slave?

• We are free

• Therefore, there is a day of rest

• Paragraph 2172 says, “God’s action is the model for human action. If God ‘rested and was refreshed’ on the seventh day, man too ought to ‘rest’ and should let others, especially the poor, ‘be refreshed.’ The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.”

• How many of us are willing to give our entire lives for wealth, power, status, and security?

• The worship of money, power, influence, status, security, means you can’t take a day off

• If I take a day off, my whole life, security, and status are at stake

• AND YET…

• What would that mean about status, security, wealth, and influence?

• It might indicate that those things have become an IDOL in my life

• The Third Commandment frees me from that idol

• BUT…

• It means I have to actually kill that idol

• It means I have to actually kill that part of my own heart that is unwilling to take a break and unwilling to resist the servitude of work and unwilling to resist the worship of money, status, or security

• Every single one of us doesn’t take a break very well

• We may worship the Lord without fail on Sunday Mass

• AND YET…

• We do not rest

• What does this mean?

• What are our idols?

• “God, why do I not give myself permission to take a break?”

• And the answer, of course, is that stuff needs to get done

• If we give a whole day to not doing anything, then we become afraid that it won’t get done

• Now the other 6 days will be busier because I didn’t rest on that 7th day

• We are afraid of that

• God is telling us to rest

• Why?

• Because we are not slaves

• Are we going to sacrifice the mission because we are not willing to rest?

• What is driving our inability or unwillingness to enter into the Lord’s rest?

• THE DAY OF THE RESURRECTION: THE NEW CREATION

• Paragraph 2174 says, “Jesus rose from the dead ‘on the first day of the week.’ Because it is the ‘first day,’ the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the ‘eighth day’ following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica)-Sunday: We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.”

• Ever since the very beginning of Christianity, those early Christians recognized that the Lord’s Day is now Sunday

• It was transferred from that day of rest, the day of the Lord from Saturday to Sunday

• There are some Christians who say the Sabbath is still on Saturday

• THAT IS NOT ACCURATE!!

• Not for Christians

• SUNDAY-FULFILLMENT OF THE SABBATH

• Paragraph 2175 says, “Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ: Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord’s Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.”

• We do not hold on to Saturday as the sabbath because it has been fulfilled in Jesus

• Paragraph 2176 says, “The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship ‘as a sign of his universal beneficence to all.’ Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.”

• We are all created to offer to God our best, our worst, our everything

• OUTWARD- it has to be directed toward the Lord, not inward because it is not about how I feel

• VISIBLE- there is something concrete and tangible about this

• PUBLIC- it is not my own private worship that I am offering to God (if you go into the woods, you are actually going for a walk and maybe you are talking to God and that is not the same thing at all as worship)

• REGULAR- I am not just going when I feel like it

• We have to be willing to give the Lord the worship that He deserves that belongs to Him, in season and out, whether convenient or inconvenient

• Regardless of how we are feeling or our circumstances

• We have to be willing to have those kinds of hearts and lives that are willing to say at least once a week everything else fails in comparison to worship of God

• At least once a week, everything else does not stand a chance and cannot hold a candle to the need that I have in my heart for God

• A need that I have in my humanity

• The need that there is in the universe to stop at least once a week and say that God has no rival

• Whether we like this or don’t like this

• Whether it is convenient or inconvenient

• Whether it is in season or out of season

• We must be there every Sunday

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you down the road!!