“The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age… Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” —GK Chesterton
There doesn’t seem to be anything more contradictory than a community of people practicing
for 24 hours to the glory of God.
Genesis 1:31-2:3 CSB
“Children… want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” —GK Chesterton
God is
and we are not.
“A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society is the loss of its capacity to be playful.” —Edwin Friedman
Mark 2:23-3:6 CSB
The Pharisees thought Sabbath was removal to get
4 WAYS TO PRACTICE SABBATH DELIGHT
1. Delight in
.
Psalm 92:1-5
“When our brain looks for joy and does not find it, we become vulnerable to ‘pseudo-joys.’ These are substances and experiences that trick our brain to temporarily shut off the unpleasant emotions, but they are nonrelational and ultimately unsatisfying. Joy substitutes can appear on the surface to be normal things, like food, social media, and shopping. The more obvious pseudo-joys are alcohol, drugs, sugar, and porn. Low-joy cultures will see an increase in these pseudo-joy addictions. Increasing our joy will naturally calm our cravings for psuedo-joys, and building joy should be an integrated part of any addiction group.” —Michel Hendricks
2. Delight in
.
Dayenu – “It would have been enough but…”
“The Sabbath is no time for personal anxiety or care, for any activity that might dampen the spirit of joy. The Sabbath is no time to remember sins, to confess, to repent or even to pray for relief or anything we might need. It is a day for praise, not a day for petitions. Fasting, mourning, demonstrations of grief are forbidden. The period of mourning is interrupted by the Sabbath. And if one visits the sick on the Sabbath, one should say: “It is the Sabbath, one must not complain; you will soon be cured.” One must abstain from toil and strain on the seventh day, even from strain in the service of God.” —Abraham Joshua Heschel
3. Delight in
.
4. Delight in
.
Your vision of God’s delight in
shapes the version of your delight in
.
On Sabbath, we are acquainted with grief and yet anointed with gratitude.
This week’s practice is up at formedbyjesus.com/sabbath