Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

When I was a high school teacher, I loved cutting wood on Sunday.  Chainsaws, wedges, mauls, axes, and muscle were all employed with gusto to create brush burn piles or stack cordwood.  My sedentary work as an educator necessitated I do something else for rest after remembrance at my local church’s worship service.  Growing up in an assembly controlled by legalism, I had to grow out of the mindset that mowing grass or any other physical labor on Sunday was a sin.  

On the other side of the globe, the Japanese are known for being an industrious people.  In the 1980’s the land of the rising sun set worldwide industry standards for work.  But something else came out of Japan.  The island nation has a word for extreme commitment to labor: karoshi meaning “death by overwork.”  But patterns of overwork are not relegated to one people group.  Eugene Peterson says it best: 

Most of us spend most of our time in the workplace.  But without Sabbath . . . the workplace is soon emptied of any sense of the presence of God and the work becomes an end in itself.  It is this “end in itself” that makes an un-sabbathed workplace a breeding ground for idols.  We make idols in our workplaces when we reduce all relationship to functions that we can manage.  We make idols in our work places when we reduce work to the dimensions of our egos and control. 

When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easiest to develop god-pretensions.  Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives.  We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection.  We lose the capacity to sing “This is my Father’s world” and end our chirping little self-centered ditties about what we are doing and feeling.[1] 

Leviticus 23:1-3[2] instructs the reader “six days you may work” indicating a creation pattern.  The Genesis command to manage and conserve creation, the fruit of one’s labor, is not to become the end-all of life.  “You are not to do any work” is a release not a restriction for our profit; The Creator has our best interests at heart.[3]   ”The seventh day is a Sabbath of rest” literally reads “rest, rest” in the Hebrew and is a literary devise for emphasis.  Production increases when people are rested; reaping requires rest. 

What kind of work was Yahweh restricting or banning on the Sabbath?  The original word used almost exclusively in the Sabbath-rest-holiday discussion[4] is the term which means our vocational, God-given abilities.[5]  God ceased His creative creating as Creator.  Jesus-God in flesh on earth-even rested from His ministry functions in Mark 6:30-32 

Israel was an agricultural culture.  Their need of rest was to cease from practicing planting, sowing, reaping, any physical labor related to their six day routine.  The application is clear: we need to rest from our giftedness.  Here are five questions we should ask ourselves: (1) What is my vocation, calling, business, my normal work? (2) Do my Sabbaths include remembrance and rest? (3) Do I recall why my Sabbath is important? (4) Do I spend my Sabbath pouring myself into something else? (5) Do I allow my vocation, my work, to run my life? 

God established retreat as Genesis law.  The third pre-fall blessing from God was creational, embedded as necessary in God’s world.  I learned from a farmer friend in South Dakota that his work tending the soil ended for one 24 hour period each week.  Larry’s individual commitment to Sabbath was based on his weekly work obligations.  The only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated in The Second Testament means that no one should tell another when to practice rest.[6]  A liberal (or broadminded) approach to retreat must be based on liberty not legislation.[7]  Respecting the convictions of others is important in The Church.  An individual’s decision to rest arises out of vocational concerns.  God-gifted business, education, homemaking, construction, or industry workers will direct their retreat in different ways. 

A number of years ago, I wrote a poem to remind myself that retreat is crucial: 

Lord, when the alarm clock stove clock and time clock demand my presence,

When the pace of life is hectic,

When I wish there were six more hours in a day,

When the traffic light is stuck on red,

And my family’s schedule demands I be in three places at one time,

May I take time to rest, Lord.

 

Lord, when people expect too much of me,

When the boss has forgotten about the eight-hour day,

When I am constantly at others’ beck-and-call,

When the cell phone, twitter, fax, and email all go off at once,

And I begin to hate the human race,

May I take time to rest, Lord.

 

Lord, when work occupies all my waking hours,

When television commercials say I must have more,

When my neighbors flaunt their newest toys,

When alcoholic does not apply but workaholic does,

And I decide to go to the office on Sunday to catch up,

May I take time to rest, Lord.

 

Lord, when money means more than people,

When I read The Wall Street Journal more than my Bible,

When overtime becomes my primetime,

When promotions and pay hikes are my ultimate goals,

And “looking out for number one” has become my slogan in life,

May I take time to rest, Lord.

 

Lord, may I refocus my life on you.

May I restore my thoughts in your Word,

May I refresh my schedule by meditating on all your blessings,

May I relax my activity every week to enjoy the life you gave me,

May I take time to rest, Lord. 

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[1] Eugene Peterson. 2005. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. (Eerdmans): 116.

[2] See RETREAT: Naked in the Universe (Part 4) at http://www.mahseh.org/site/category/warpwoof/

[3] Deuteronomy 30:11-16.

[4] Interestingly, Exodus 31:3 and 39:43 use the term as well in the discussion of building the tabernacle.  The term is repeated in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:9-10 (see Leviticus 16:29).

[5] Andrew Bowling. 1980. melaka. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 1:465.

[6] The Gnostics, who believed they had special revelation from God, tried to coerce people into following human-centered law.  But Paul explodes the falsehood in Colossians 2:16-23 citing The Sabbath as a person-friendly regulation benefiting the individual.

[7] Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 are two passages that establish clear principle and practice of what theologians call “individual soul liberty.”  What is not commanded in Scripture is left to the personal direction of The Spirit in the life of the Christian.

 Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN

Facebook friends recently showered me with birthday greetings.  Many students from my past school years sent additional messages-things they recollected from my instruction.  A few that stood out were the remembrances of my antipathy for the word vacation.  “You are not to go on ‘vacation!’  These days off from school are a holiday!  Don’t forget the Americans who died (Memorial Day), sacrificed (Veteran’s Day), served (President’s Day), worked (Labor Day), started (Thanksgiving), and motivated (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) our country!”  Included in my harangue would be a plea to remember Sabbath-to recall why we work and Who gave us the privilege. 

The fourth commandment is the longest of all, the only one of the ten not repeated in the Second Testament.[1]  It is a positive command; a release from, not subservient to time.  For those who would denigrate the First Testament as arcane, an awful imposition on people, God’s Word was a halogen headlight in the darkness of the Ancient Near Eastern world.  Unlike any other nation, Israel treated people as people, not property.  Outsiders and strangers were incorporated in the weekly celebration.  Even animals were included.[2]  Leviticus 23:1-3 sets precedent and principle for keeping The Sabbath for both remembrance and rest.  

Israel held a weekly convention.[3]  Sabbath was for commemoration.[4]  Holidays had a purpose.  Holidays created memories, reminded people of their place, established repetition, formed memorials, and produced anticipation.[5]  Scripture heralds further ideas not already mentioned:  The Sabbath was a sign between God and His people; blessing resulted from keeping the day; treating Sabbath like any other day was grounds for chastisement; the Sabbath was made for people; and external appearances were no way to judge a person’s activities on the Sabbath.[6]  Sabbath was to be a collective event; there were no geographical boundaries.[7]  Sabbath was a contemplative focus on Yahweh.[8]  

But like every other gift given for our benefit, we humans mess it up.  Sin always produces extremes.  In the First Testament, folks just plain did not keep The Sabbath.  One of the reasons for a seventy year exile in Babylon was that the land-rest-law was not practiced.  2 Chronicles 36:21 records God’s specific reason given for national discipline: for at least 490 years, fields were not rested and soil nutrients were not replenished.  Gardening is the first work of The Almighty in His creation.  Land and place are of primary importance in His decrees for Israel.  So it should come as no surprise that the reason why beans, tomatoes, corn, and other crops should be rotated in a garden is for the sake of the soil. 

The pendulum then swung the other way.  Exile sharpened Israel’s focus on God.  Yet, over time, law became legalism, regulation replaced rest.  Pharisees debated the definition of work.  For example, should one walk one or two miles on Sabbath?  Loopholes were created.  One group said that a person could travel 1 mile before Sabbath, find a tree, deposit food there, declaring the spot temporary housing.  When the last day of the week began a few moments later, the individual could then walk another mile![9] 

Blaise Pascal, the brilliant 17^th century Christian mathematician, zeroes in on the necessity of both/and instead of either/or.  In his Pensees (or Thoughts), Pascal records two statements, one after the other, explaining our two problems, the two sides of the same sinful coin.  Restlessness is a result of the laborer who works too hard.  Weariness is the result of a man with nothing to do. 

Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study.  He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness.  There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.[10] 

Interestingly, Pascal refers to the overworked as restless and the one who has no work as weary.  I have spent some time displaced from vocational service.  Focus, meaning, and purpose were taken from me.  Pascal’s words are exact replicas of my experience.  Yet, when I was fully employed, much “on my plate,” I found my mind wandering, looking, anticipating something else.  The results of no rest or too much rest in Israel’s day are no different than our own: the gift is either misused or not used at all. 

[Work] saves man from the solitariness that he fears . . . for when a man is alone he is really alone . . . he is then naked in the universe; he is face to face with God; and this confrontation is formidable. . . . Modern man. . . . takes refuge in anesthetics, and most of all the opiate of work, which keeps his thoughts away from contemplation by keeping his eyes fixed on the conveyor belt or the drawing board.[11]

Sabbath compels us to be alone with God.  Perhaps this is why we replace remembrance of God’s gift with more work or more rules.  Perhaps we do not use the word holiday because of its meaning: a day set apart or holy.  Vacation comes from the Latin root “to vacate,” “leave empty,” or in our parlance “veg out!”  It may be easier for us to erase responsibility for The Sabbath than to remember it.  Memorials are forgotten both to our shame and our loss.  Sabbath forces us to look up to The One who has given us Genesis law down here. 

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[1] Exodus 20:8-11.

[2] Far from being simply “beasts of burden” God’s covenant included animals in Genesis 9.  During the tenth plague in Egypt, even the firstborn cattle died (Exodus 11:5).  When Jonah preached, the animals too were draped in sackcloth (Jonah 3:8).  PETA cannot hold a candle to the groundbreaking concern for animals in the First Testament.

[3] Leviticus 23:3 says Sabbath was “a day of sacred assembly,” our word for convention today.

[4] “Remember” has the idea of establishing a memorial in Exodus 20:8 (NIV).  “Keeping” meant to protect, pay attention to, and exercise care for as in Deuteronomy 5:12.

[5] Leaving Egypt, Leviticus 23:42-43; God is the ‘landlord,’ 25:23; ‘for generations to come’ 23:41; benefiting descendents, 23:33, 42; and the possibility of release from debt 25:10.

[6] Exodus 31:12-17; Deuteronomy 15:1-11; Nehemiah 13:15-22; Mark 2:20-28; John 7:21-24 and Colossians 2:16-23.

[7] Leviticus 23:3 “wherever you live.”

[8] “A Sabbath to The LORD.”  Elsewhere God calls this “MY Sabbath” (Leviticus 26:2; Isaiah 56:4).

[9] Some good cultural background material on the Pharisees and the Sabbath can be had by reading William Barclay The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2 (Westminster, 1958, 2^nd ed.), 20-30 and Craig S. Keener The IVP Bible Background Commentary on the New Testament (IVP), 77-78 and 141-43.

[10] Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 130, 131

[11] Arnold Toynbee, “Work, the Great Anesthetic,” Milwaukee Journal, 6 August 1971.

June 26, 2009 6:00 am

to

June 28, 2009 6:00 am

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

“Genesis is a myth, a story of origins like other stories,” began the college professor.  During my tenure as a Christian school teacher I would have my students compare Genesis 1-3 with non-historical explanations of earth’s origins.  After completing a paper pointing out the similarities and differences between Genesis and fictional accounts of our beginnings, I would ask a local professor to teach my students his point of view: Genesis is no different than comparable fables.  

Joseph Campbell, encouraged by journalists like Bill Moyers, fostered the fraud of Genesis equality with ancient fabrications for the 80’s generation.  Impact from false teaching about Genesis’ historicity has devastated The Church.  Born of poor doctrinal church instruction, college students are turned from biblical truth by college educators questioning the first pages of Scripture.  More and more so-called “evangelicals” have subscribed to the current craze that personal belief trumps absolute truth.  Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has cemented cultural confusion that God’s Word can be amended. 

Stripping Genesis of its one-of-a-kind authenticity knocks out the foundation of true Truth claims for every arena of life.  The twin lies of consumerism and statism (government can solve our problems) are born of Genesis-rejection.  Earth-rape and earth-worship are sins against The Personal Creator.  Both individual perception and tyrannical interpretation short circuit Genesis law in literature, the arts, judicial oversight, and every personal relationship.  The lords of career and pleasure start from opposite ends of the spectrum, coming to the same conclusion: the only origins that matter are my own. 

Like other sins, allowing work to dominate life without rest, or rest to eliminate work, is to strike a match to Genesis 1 and 2.  Israel’s neighbors believed humans were created to do the gods’ work.  Some cultural teaching-residue from the industrial revolution-created a servile class to meet their needs.  Others who believe there is no One or nothing above us make work their end all.  Wrong views of work and rest feed off each other.  Pleasure seeking, thank-goodness-it’s-Friday, live-for-the-weekend views dominate materially wealthy countries.  Forced laborers without adequate protection from any authority, bodies bent with pain, grind out their existence with little or no rest.  

The so-called “Protestant work ethic” is either praised or vilified for its product.  Those who denigrate Puritan resolve for hard work bypass both work’s benefit and the appropriate stoppage of labor for adequate renewal.  Yet Leland Ryken contends that the Puritans failed to give us a cohesive, Heaven-sent story of rest simply because they tried to make leisure “useful.”[1]  But Israel’s Exodus narrative celebrated freedom from work.[2]  Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel says the Sabbath celebration is “not a date but an atmosphere . . . a taste of eternity-the world to come.”[3] 

Rest is both the beginning and end of The Story Book.  The pinnacle event of creation is Sabbath.  Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath will return the world to its original intention.  Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite, Persian, Greek, Roman, English, French, German, and American stories all end.  And herein is the most basic difference between other cultures’ non-historical myths and Genesis- 

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son . . . He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake . . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”.[4]  

God acted in the exact, opportune moment.  God’s plan in time was set in eternity.  God started what He will finish.  God takes His time.  God’s work is slow.  God is not bound to our timetable.  God’s snail like pace is set against our day-timers, calendars, appointments, schedules, and routines.  God’s story is His story, not history.  God’s culmination of His intention at creation will “end” with rest.  But “cleverly devised myths . . . will say ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’”[5] 

Ancient and modern mythologies see time as a gerbil on the wheel, going round and round and round.  Time has no end so culture tells us to live for the moment.  We work so we can rest and our rest motivates our work.  The problem with human myths is that they focus on us.  The slowness of God in human events is born of Genesis 2 Sabbath. 

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you. . . . But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth.[6] 

“Are there any questions?”  The professor’s query was wrapped in a smug, pompous tone.  What did these high school students know of Genesis and mythology?  The arrogant attitude was immediately met with 40 raised hands.  His face registered the look of befuddlement.  By the end of the Q & A the self-important college elite stormed out of his own classroom, unable to answer the incisive questions of my students.  To this day, the full retelling of the event sends shivers down my spine.  Eighteen year olds had correlated the ancient writings and found that only one told the whole, true story.  Other stories are fabrications.  The Story-beginning and ending with rest-is the fabric of the world. 

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[1] This is the best, most readable, solidly biblical volume on both subjects, period.  Buy it!  Leland Ryken. 1987. Work & Leisure in Christian Perspective. (Multnomah): 87-115.  Leisure, like anything else, can be twisted for wrong.  Latin and French origins indicate the word meant “permission” later becoming illicit, licentious, giving way to license and laziness.   

[2] Deuteronomy 5:12-15

[3] Abraham J. Heschel. 1951. The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. (Farrar, Straus, & Co.): 21, 31-32.

[4] Galatians 4:4; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 22:13.

[5] 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4 ESV.

[6] 2 Peter 3:8-9, 14-15 ESV.

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

When I was a kid I watched Snively Whiplash, the dastardly villain of Rocky and Bullwinkle, as he would endeavor to divert the train to another track, trying to ruin everyone’s day.  Snively’s appearance happens much too often in life for my taste.  Diversion from the track, displacement from the norm, is both metaphor and message in Rails and Ties.  Another successful directorial debut,[1] this time from Clint Eastwood’s daughter Alison, hinges on what we all know too well: our train can be switched to another track at any time. 

No character is spared a detour.  Marcia Gay Harden’s Megan, twice in remission from cancer, is attacked again.  Kevin Bacon’s Tom Stark has the job he loves wrecked by a suicidal mother.  Davey (played with brilliant emotions by Miles Heizer) is the son who escapes physical harm only to be left parentless.  And if life’s curves did not themselves manage a crash, each person sideswipes the other in their own relational derailment.  While some will only manage a trifling connection to Lifetime movies in their reviews, the pretzel twists seem too much like reality to brush off so lightly.  Important, too, is leaving the audience with the unasked but obvious question, “OK, what would you do?”  Movies that place the audience in plausible situations haunt the sensitive viewer who knows too well that life can veer off the track at any moment.  Harden takes us on a humanly earnest emotional ride for which she is to be commended.  Bacon has taken the track less traveled in the last few years of his career (The Woodsman, The Air I Breathe, Death Sentence) punching our collective tickets to see characters that exist but are all too often unseen.  Eastwood’s direction delivers the point: ties are necessary to ride the rails. 

Emotional ties are driven spikes into the storyline.  How will humans respond when there is nothing they can do to stop the oncoming train?  How do we manage to shift to another point of view we believe is right but goes against every experience we know?  How are family units connected when there is no “unit” to speak of?  How do any of us muster the courage to continue down the tracks when we’ve had previous encounters with that headlight in the tunnel?  Lesser films would cater to flimsy characterization and standard plotlines.  Not so Rails and Ties.  Redemption is absent.  What the audience does realize is that while we may have gotten off at the wrong stop, we are still able to jump the next train. 

Trains, no doubt, are a central character.  But the film is much more about diversion, being displaced from the tracks of life by outside influences beyond our control.  I think that the writers of those old cartoons wrote out of experience.  They knew that the damsel in distress would someday be us.  But we are never left alone.  Goodness and grace are born beyond our earthly boundaries: the tracks always run both ways. 

Rated PG-13 for brief language, adult situations, some peril, and brief nudity. 

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[1] See my comments about directorial debuts in my review of Frozen River.

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN 

You know what I do when I finish mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, or eating leftovers?  I step back to view a job well done.[1]  What did God do when He finished creation?  He celebrated-twice-the meaning of the word “rest” in Genesis 2:3.[2]  Humans are imprinted with our Creator’s image to work, relishing our labor’s results.  

“It is finished”[3] adds Genesis 2:1-2.  The Sabbath begins by ending.  The Hebrew word demands we quit!  Stop!  Break the routine!  Order is given to the week by ceasing our labor.  Significance to the first six days is given importance by the seventh-there is a freedom from production, acquisition, and “getting.”  Genesis 1:31 declares enjoyment in what has been made by contemplating the beauty in the enterprise (2:9).  Exodus 31:17 repeats the process of creation for “refreshment,” literally “to take a breath” by taking delight in what is witnessed. 

Let’s dispel the wrong notion: God did not rest because He was tired after work.  Instead, God set a precedent, establishing a life principle.  Hawaiians say pau-God stopped because He was finished not fatigued.  Five times in three verses “the seventh day” appears.  Sabbath sets a rhythm, pattern, refrain, or cadence[4], giving significance to every other day, for creation to operate in a certain way.  

Once God completed His task, there is a repetition-escalation in the text: it looks like this in Hebrew: “God finished 

the work[5] He had done

from all the work He had done

from all the creation work He had done” (Genesis 2:2-3) 

These phrases which build on each other explain what “God finished” means.  (1) There is no longer a physical creation going on. (2) Rest is the end of creation, an anticipation of something yet to come.  (3) There is a marker of the world to come, namely, eternity is the goal; people are made for eternity.  Notice that the normal end phrase to the first six days is not repeated here; “the evening and morning” formula is absent.  Hebrews 4:9-10 summarizes: God’s intention of rest is the anticipation of His people.

In 1987 I preached my first sermon on Sabbath[6].  I wrote a rudimentary poem to remind myself of what rest means for everyone: 

God gave a special day

Because all people are made of clay;

So that believers could pray

And all people could play. 

“Worry. Don’t Be Happy!” is the eye-grabbing title from Marc Gellman rightly exploding the myth that happiness is our highest human goal.[7]  Another view from ancient times believed leisure was for the wealthy and ruling classes, never for anyone else.  There are no parallels from near eastern cultures for a day of rest-celebration.  In fact, the Greeks thought the Jews were lazy for taking the day “off”!  On the contrary, Isaiah 58:9 declares delight should be a bi-product of celebrating a holiday-a seventh, set-apart day.  Ecclesiastes, my favorite Bible book, sings the chorus of Sabbath enjoyment: life is a gift of God so enjoy it! 

Jesus reemphasizes the significance of Sabbath by infusing Sabbath rest into people.  Mark 2:23-28 and 3:1-6 establish Jesus’ point of view.  The Sabbath is made for humanity; it is beneficial.  The Sabbath is for restoration; a pointer to perfection in eternity.  The Sabbath is for peace; the Man of Sorrows, takes our sorrows.  But it is Matthew 11:28 where Sabbath bursts into daily living: 

“Come to me and I will rest (Sabbath) you, you will find rest (Sabbath) for your souls. 

Augustine’s famous line is no better understood than here: “You have made us for yourself and our hearts find no rest until the rest in you.”  It is the person of Jesus who sanctified the seventh day in Genesis and declared us holy-rested through His sanctification. 

When I finish this article, posting it on Mahseh’s website, I will read it again, any number of times.  I find delight in the placement of words, creation of sentences, construction of paragraphs, and building of essays.  Normally people return again and again to museums, marveling at the works of art.  All of us return to our work, in one way or another, to witness a job well done.  Why not?  We image His image, we work His works, we celebrate His celebration. 

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[1] Some might wonder how “eating leftovers” is included alongside household chores.  Economics (literally, stewardship) necessitates a wise use of all things.  If I cannot adequately manage the contents of my own refrigerator, how can I advocate propriety when it comes to anything else?!  So, honestly, I have a strange sense of satisfaction when a leftover container is placed in the dishwasher from another day’s meal.

[2] Genesis 2:3 uses the word “rest” meaning the state or condition for cessation, completion, and ultimately, celebration.  Victor P. Hamilton. shabat. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): II: 902-03.

[3] The word means to bring a process to completion, to carry out a task in full, to perfection. Paul R. Gilchrist. 1980. yakol.  Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): I:377-78.  I still ponder the connection between “it is finished” in Genesis and Jesus’ declaration on the cross.

[4] I am indebted to Eugene Peterson’s phrase “creation cadence” from Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Eerdmans, 2005): 114.

[5] The word indicates skilled workmanship relating to one’s business, habits, or skills as seen in Exodus 20:9-10; 31:3; 39:43; Leviticus 16:29.  Andrew Bowling. 1980. melaka. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): I:465.

[6] Born of my delight in the book of Leviticus, I still have the notes from my earliest message: Leviticus 23:3, 22 February 1987, “Beware of Becoming Hollow People.”  As a reminder, Sabbath does NOT equal Sunday.  Sunday was the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:1), the day of resurrection, the reason for Christian worship.  Sabbath is the seventh day, the last day of the week. 

[7] http://www.newsweek.com/id/45228/