The Sabbath Day

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. [Exodus 20:8-11]

"A Trip on a Comet"

“God is going to hear you talking about that Tommy and he won’t like it.” Steve told his best friend as they were going to school Monday morning.

“Well I don’t get it. What is Sunday even good for anyway? I don’t get it. We go to church every Sunday but nobody knows why. Maybe it’s just a bunch of goofy rules the church made up so why should we do it anyway?” Tommy said in a snotty way. Tommy really was a good boy. He loved God and his family and all those things but sometimes he just had questions and he wanted someone to tell him the truth. Lots of us are like that.

“Tommy, be careful. If you keep asking those kinds of questions, well God can hear you.” Steve said but Tommy said “fine” and he meant it. He didn’t care if God did hear him. If God wanted to show him why Sunday was important, that would suit Tommy just fine. Tommy thought about it all day at school. As he walked out onto the playground after school, he noticed that all of a sudden, there were not any other kids around.

As he came around the corner to the bicycles racks, he stopped short. He faced the biggest pair of feet he ever saw. They had sandals and they together were so wide, he had to turn his head to see from one toe to the other. Slowly Tommy’s eyes followed up the massive legs to the edge of a huge white robe, on up the big body to a huge beaming face that was all white with a glow like it has a light bulb inside of it. Behind each shoulder, he saw the edges of a huge angel’s wing.

“Hello Tommy, you ready to go?” The angel said with a deep voice that seemed to fill every inch of the air for miles around.

“Who are you?” Tommy asked feeling it was a pretty good question.

“I am Gabriel. I am the chief Angel of God. Are you ready to go find out why there is a Sunday?” Gabriel answered in a kind but firm voice.

“Where are we going?” Tommy wanted to know.

“You will see when we get there.” The angel answered.

“How will we get there?” Tommy continued.

“Well by comet of course. See?” And Gabriel gestured over to the swing sets where he had tied up to the jungle gym a steaming, flaming, very angry comet that didn’t like being tied up and it wanted to go right now.

“Well I……….” Tommy hesitated but he didn’t have time to finish deciding because in a flash he was holding on for dear life. The comet wasn’t tied to the jungle gym any more, it was streaking through space faster than ten rockets with fire and smoke streaming past as Tommy held on to part of the comet and Gabriel’s toe. He suddenly heard himself going “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” but then he suddenly heard Gabriel going “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” too. Who knew angels go “wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”?

Suddenly it seemed like the comet wasn’t moving. Tommy couldn’t see anything but could hear a sound like something out of control below. “Where is everything Gabriel?” Tommy asked.

“Everything hasn’t been created yet.” He said, “Listen” and as Tommy listened, a different voice, a booming and yet endlessly loving voice spoke with more authority than his dad and the principle combined when it said…

“LET THERE BE LIGHT!”.

And so much light exploded, it was like a billion light bulbs. Suddenly things were happening everywhere. He kept hearing that loving voice saying “LET THERE BE…” and more and more stuff happened. Below he saw a huge round thing form when he realized it was a planet and that it was his home, the earth. The sky formed up, really, really fast when that voice told it to and then the stars and the sun and then oceans and plants and plants and animals and then……… and then………

Then Tommy saw a little space of dust. And that voice said “LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE…” and like some invisible hands were making a model, a shape of a person formed in the dirt and then it was like a complete person with a face and fingers and everything but made all of dirt. Then a breeze came to it but not a regular breeze, it came from that voice and when that breeze hit the dirt guy, he sat up and he was a person.

Suddenly Tommy understood and he turned to Gabriel’s toe and then looked up and he said, “Gabriel is this why we have Sunday? To remember when God created the world?”

“This is why we have the Sabbath, Tommy.” Gabriel said, “Let me show you why we have a Sunday.” And the comet took off but moved like a super fast elevator and suddenly Tommy was standing on a hill. He held on to Gabriel’s toe still but he wasn’t home or on the comet. He looked up at a huge signpost in the ground. But it wasn’t a signpost. It was a beam of wood and as he followed it up into the air, he saw a man, up on that wood, his arms out and he was stretched on a beam across. A beam that was like, well, like,….

“It’s the cross!” Tommy said gasping at what he was seeing. He turned to Gabriel to try to understand what he was seeing but when he did, Gabriel was gone. He turned back and the cross was gone but he saw the jungle gym and the swings and his bike in the bike rack and there stood Steve looking at him funny.

“Tommy, where have you been? You look terrible.” Steve said helping Tommy get his clothes back on right.

“Never mind that. I know why we have a Sunday now Steve.”

“You do? Why?”

“Because of the Cross. Because Jesus died for us on that day and every Sunday we worship him for it and it is a holy day this week and every week for ever and ever and ever.” Tommy said reverently.

“Wow, that must have been some trip. Where did you go?”

“I can’t explain it now Steve.” Tommy said. “But here is a souvenir and I will tell you later” he said handing Steve something and walking to his bike. Steve looked down and opened his hand puzzled and wondered even more as he picked up the tiny piece of comet chip and put it in his pocket for later.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. [Hebrews 4:9-10]