This sabbath day is a downpayment of the rest for which all things long. This Lord’s Day gathering is a foretaste of our full and final entrance into the life of the triune God. In Genesis 1 we are told that God created the world in six days, and each of those days ended with the formula, “and the evening and the morning were the ________ day.” But on the seventh day, wherein the Lord rested from his work, there is no such closing pronouncement. This is because the seventh day does not end. The rest of God does not end. Rather it is the end towards which all things long.

And then God in his kindness took a bit of that eternal rest and sprinkled it throughout all of time, every seven days to be specific. After every six days of labor, we are invited, indeed commanded, to put down out tools and burdens and to come into the King’s presence and receive his blessings. It is good to be reminded of this, as we easily slip into the mindset of thinking of this as a burden, but far from it. We can think that this is primarily a duty we owe God rather than it being an inexplicable blessing that he offers us. It can seem like a funny interruption in our otherwise important and busy lives, when in reality this Sabbath is the truly important thing, as it is the token of the final end towards which all things are drawing.  

Practical application as a result of this: 1) Most basically, keep going to church. Here the blessings of God are yours by faith. Here God offers you his word and his presence and his very self. Here is the high point of your whole life; do not neglect it. 2) Conduct yourself reverently and joyfully in the presence of God. This is particularly difficult when you have a horde of small children to manage. There’s only so reverent you can be while wiping snot off a 2-year-old. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you get to not do it. Model reverence for your children and actively train them in the same. This reverence is not dourness or gloom, rather it flows from gratitude and joy in the presence of one who is unspeakably great.