Free To Sabbath

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” – Deuteronomy 5:15

“Anyone who cannot obey God’s command to observe the Sabbath is a slave.” – Tim Keller

The institution of Sabbath comes only after liberation from slavery. We tend not to connect the two, but it is the primary reason Moses gives to keep the Sabbath. Quite simply, as slaves, the Israelites could not have kept a Sabbath. The Egyptians made themselves to be gods, and they exerted their dominion over the Israelites through work. And so, the Sabbath was not only the most concrete of all signs that the Israelites were no longer slaves, it was also a reminder that though they would still work, the work was no longer their master.

The Sabbath is a declaration of our freedom. Work is not our master, nor are we masters of our worlds through our work. In one sense, I take this quite literally. I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t beholden to work: as a student, to assignments and deadlines and exams; as a resident, to assigned shifts, clinic and operating room schedules. As moms, our time is not our own, and each stage has its own kind of work. After a week of freedom from routine, I realized coming back how much I really am at the beck and call of school and sports schedules, the emotional and practical needs of the kids. I am a slave to my labors.

Be a slave long enough, though, and it becomes your identity. We don’t know who we are without our work. We begin to believe we are gods through our work. In this deeper sense, I need Sabbath to help recover the me that is not a mom. I need Sabbath to remember that I am not the one who keeps the world running. I need Sabbath to reenter the goodness of a creation that exists outside the tunnel vision my work tends to inhabit.

It is all one journey: leaving Egypt and entering Sabbaths. And Moses emphasizes here that this journey is a story of rescue. It is not something we do on our own, but that God does for us: he brings us out with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. Hands are a universal means of work. Whatever cogitation may be behind it, ultimately it is my hands that operate, that cook and clean, that hug and dress, that type and write. But I can enter the Sabbath because it is God’s hands that have done the work. He has the might and power to release me from bondage. He has reached out to me; Christ has crossed realms to enter my world. To keep the Sabbath is to remember that I am neither slave to my work nor master of my world, but that God has rescued me with a mighty hand and outstretched arm.