Comments (1) A quote to begin the Sabbath:
The ancient rabbis teach that on the seventh day, God created menuha—tranquility, peace, and repose—rest, in the deeper possible sense of fertile, healing stillness. Until the Sabbath, creation was unfinished. Only after the birth of menuha, only with tranquility and rest, was the circle of creation made full and complete.
- Wayne Muller, Sabbath. p. 37
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
If you … call the Sabbath a delight … then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.
- Isaiah 58:13-14
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
And so we are given a commandment: Remember the Sabbath. Rest is an essential enzyme of life, as necessary as air. Without rest, we cannot sustain the energy needed to have life. We refuse to rest at our peril—and yet in a world where overwork is seen as a professional virtue, many of us feel we can legitimately be stopped only by physical illness or collapse.
- Wayne Muller, Sabbath, p. 19
Justin Martyr
I came across these words from Justin Martyr (103-165 AD) today. Being a Seventh-day Adventist, the phrase “Spirit of Prophecy” jumped out at me (It’s Jesus by the way), but so did Justin Martyr’s reference to Isaiah 2. Not the clearest translation, it seems he’s connecting Isaiah’s prophetic words about God’s coming peaceable kingdom with the transformation of Jesus’ followers, and their subsequent new allegiances to him. Justin Martyr had some radical things to say (I know, totally impractical for today, right?). So I share them for your reflection, and leave the interpretation to you:
And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks as predicting things that are to come to pass, He speaks in this way: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Isa. ii. 3. And that it did so come to pass, we can convince you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ. For that saying, “The tongue has sworn but the mind is unsworn,” Eurip., Hipp., 608. might be imitated by us in this matter. But if the soldiers enrolled by you, and who have taken the military oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it.- http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.xxxix.html
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work (Exodus 20:8). Is it possible for a human being to do all his work in six days? Does not our work always remain incomplete? What the verse means to convey is: Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done. Another interpretation: Rest even from the thought of labor.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Sabbath, p. 32
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth wrote, ‘A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.’ By that definition, I have a hard time counting many free beings among my acquaintance. I know people who can do five things at once who are incapable of doing nothing. I know people who can decide what to do without being able to do less of it. Since I have been one of these people, I know that saying no is a more difficult spiritual practice than tithing, praying on a cold stone floor, or visiting a prisoner on death row.
Barbara Brown Taylor
An Alter in the World
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
When I find a sabbath moment, hour, or day, it is like an island of calm in a hectic life. It is like a sigh of relief after putting down a knapsack full of obligations, schedules, and deadlines. It is like an invitation to enjoy a vacation with my Divine Friend. It feels like being unshackled from whatever I am allowing to enslave me and getting a new perspective on life.
Don Postema
Catch Your Breath, p. 64
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
The fact that society no longer protects a sabbath should not awaken either nostalgia for cultural homogeneity or desire for economic slowdown. Rather, it should alert all of us, whatever our faith, to become more mindful about opening the gift of time. If we are not mindful, the culture will not be mindful for us.
- Dorothy C. Bass
Receiving the Day, p. 59
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
Just as God’s shabat completes the creation of the universe—by demonstrating that the proper response to the gifts of life is celebration and delight—so too should our Sabbaths be the culmination of habits and days that express gratitude for and joy in the manifold blessings of God.
- Norman Wirzba
Living the Sabbath, p. 13
A quote to begin the Sabbath:
In the temptestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. The island is the seventh-day, the Sabbath, a day of detachments from things, instruments and practical affairs as well as attachment to the spirit.
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
