Jesus revealed to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus that the Law and the Prophets were all about Him (See Luke 24). Jesus told the religious leaders that they search the scriptures because they think they find in them eternal life, but it is the scriptures that teach them about him (see John 5). Let’s look at the Law.
In Exodus 20, God gives Moses the ten commandments. You know them or you know of them. The fourth commandment is the most thoroughly discussed. Whereas adultery, murder, stealing, and lying are some of the shortest single verses in the Bible, the 4th commandment covers 4 long verses; Exodus 20:8-11. It goes like this: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The first word in this commandment is “remember.” I forget a lot of things! It is getting worse the older I get. Kathy will often remind me of the things I need to do. I’ve taken over some of the cooking during the week and have really enjoyed doing that but I have to remember to take frozen foods I intend to cook out of the freezer early in the day. Just this morning Kathy said, “take out the chicken.” I said, “I will.” She said, “do it now because if you don’t, you’ll forget it.” As much as I hate it when she’s right, she is right. I will get busy doing any number of other things and the next thing you know it’s 5:30 and the chicken is still in the freezer! So, I did it right away. You only tell people to remember something when there is a tendency to forget.
The passage goes on to tell us that we have six days to do all of our work. The “Sabbath” is one day in seven! It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day life of making a living, meeting expectations of others, taking care of ourselves and others, and a plethora of other things, that when we come to the Sabbath, it’s really easy to forget what it’s all about! It’s not about all that I do! It’s about what God has done. Step aside from your focus on doing for yourselves and focus on what has been done for you. Just as God did all the work of giving us the world and everything in it, Jesus did all the work required to save our souls for all eternity. Isn’t this why Jesus took the bread and the cup and said “do this in remembrance of me” (See Luke 22:19). Think about it.