16 April 2010
Psalm 16, 17; Exod. 16:23-36; 1 Pet. 3:13-4:6; John 16:1-15

The manna has a special property that allows it to be kept overnight one day per week in order that the Sabbath be kept. The Sabbath regulation hasn’t been established yet but the commandment here presages the commandment not to work on the Sabbath. What does it mean for Christians to take a Sabbath? When I was a kid there was a family in my neighborhood who spent Sunday as a real Sabbath, they didn’t do anything but go to church that day and most stores weren’t open on Sunday either. We don’t question whether the other nine commandments need to be observed. It is a question Jesus faced often, why do you do these things on the Sabbath. It is an important question for us to consider what is an appropriate response to the commandment and requires much prayer.

Early Christians had to decide what to do about worship as they were indeed thrown out of synagogues and needed to sort out what it meant to worship in truth, proclaiming that Messiah had come in the form of Jesus of Nazareth who died on a cross but rose again on the third day. Jesus here is preparing His followers for life after all these things. There would be certainly the temptation to finally decide that after all this must have been either an illusion or a delusion of theirs, how could it be true. The Holy Spirit would come to convict them and teach them and at the same time, convict the world of the truth of their story. They would need the Spirit to comfort and guide them but also to allow them to stand in their testimony before men when the prudent thing would be to say it never happened. I wonder, without the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, if any of these men would have continued in their testimony.

The flesh and the spirit are at war within us unless we have the Holy Spirit. Peter doesn’t use the term “born again” here but that is what he is talking about. You were formerly a certain way and now that you are in Christ Jesus you should be a different way. We must learn to live by the Spirit in order to show the world that our lives have been transformed and that there is indeed a new way of being human, a Godly way. Peter presupposes that we will be asked to give an accounting of the hope that is in us because that hope will, in part, set us apart from others. In many ways, every day for us is to be a Sabbath in that we live to Him each day, not just one in seven. How do we keep each day holy to the Lord by our lives?

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.