Enough!

The first two chapters of the Bible tell the story of creation. Beginning with nothing or with dark cold chaos over the course of a week, God creates light, the sky, the continents, plants, birds, bugs, fish and land animals. Last of all God creates people.

He then steps back, surveys everything he has made and announces, “It’s good, very good.”

Then he announces he’s taking tomorrow off. He rests for 24 hours. It was the first Sabbath.

The Creator of the universe takes a day off. He quits doing what he was doing. Not because it was bad or he was tired. He just quits. He’s done enough. He’s finished.

He gives us the pattern of a six days/one day as a guide for our lives.

Whatever it is you’re doing to put your stamp on the world, six days is long enough to do it. After six days stop. Quit. Cease and desist. Halt. Take a break.

Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.

You could argue that God quit too soon. After God quit creating Adam and Eve screwed up. They ate from the forbidden tree. They got into trouble. Maybe if God had worked a little longer on the garden, he could have fixed it would have been safe for Adam and Eve. Maybe he should have built a fence around the tree. Maybe he should have put up some warning signs: Beware, Toxic Tree Ahead. Caution: The fruit on the tree you are looking at is known to cause death and destruction.

We demur from this suggestion that God could have created a “better” environment. The freedom to screw up was designed into creation by God. This freedom was essential to the full development of humans. Which highlights one of the central lessons of the Sabbath. On Sabbath God quit shaping the world. He quit his work of dominating the chaos. He had done enough. His “enough” included room for Adam and Eve to screw up.

In fact, God’s perfect creation included the opportunity for all humans to screw up. If Adam and Eve had never paid the slightest attention to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree would have still been there for Cain and Abel and Seth and their grandkids and great grand kids. God’s perfect creation included freedom for people to act contrary to his wisdom and desire.

When we keep the Sabbath, we are joining God in self-limiting our drive to dominate the world. We acknowledge that no matter how wise and powerful we are, there is a time to hold back. There is a time to quit trying to shape the world according to our wisdom or desires.

We have six days to be busy. Six days to fix things, shape things, order things, dominate things. Our activity to make a better world is in line with the creative intention of God. Then Sabbath comes and we join God in stepping back and letting the world be as it is. The perfect world is not a world that is perfectly lined up with our desires and our ideas of how things ought to be. Even in a perfect world, (maybe I should say, especially in a perfect world) we do not control everything.


We see a similar lesson in the Sabbath Jesus spent in Joseph’s tomb.

Once Jesus began his ministry at age 30, he worked non-stop. He worked so intensely he and his disciples scarcely had time to eat. He was so busy, his mother and brothers decided to do an intervention. They went to see him intending to compel him to come home with them and get some needed rest.

Of course, they were unsuccessful. Jesus did not go home with them. He kept preaching. And healing. And feeding crowds. And casting out demons. And teaching. And spending nights in prayer. And calming storms. He was a whirlwind of activity.

Then he quit.

He allowed himself to be arrested and killed.

Then he spent a Sabbath doing nothing. NOTHING. At least that’s the way the gospels tell it. They describe his death and burial. Then fade to black. NOTHING. The next words in the story are, “After the Sabbath . . .”

On that climactic Sabbath, Jesus did nothing.

How dare he? There were still sick people who needed healing. Demons still stalked the land. Hunger was not yet eradicated. How could Jesus just quit?

If you don’t know the story well you might argue that he didn’t really quit. He was interrupted. The Roman soldiers and Jewish priests interrupted his work. But in the gospel of Matthew Jesus emphatically takes responsibility for his own arrest. After Peter whips out his sword to fend off the arresting mob, Jesus tells him to put his sword away. Then Jesus says, “Don’t you realize I could call on my Father for twelve armies of angels and he would immediately send them?”

So Jesus ends his ministry. Jesus stops. He spends an entire day doing nothing.

Resurrection morning was coming. Jesus was going to begin engaging the world in a whole new way. He was going to continue working to shape the world, to dominate the world through his disciples. But for that crucial Sabbath, Jesus did nothing.

Even if you are the Divine Son of God, Savior of the World, the Messiah, there comes a time to quit, to hold back exercising your power.

Many of the saints here at North Hill work in what are called “the helping professions.” Teachers, dentists, counselors, nurses, doctors, social workers, chaplains, hygenists. Your work is never done. Tooth aches don’t always happen during office hours. Birth and death and sickness do not observe the clock or the calendar. The needs of students do not end with the closing bell at school.

What business do you have taking a day off, taking a vacation? You are joining Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Sabbath becomes a time to recognize that my entire life and all of my energies are not enough to fix the world. Sabbath even reminds me that my wisdom and desires are not sufficient to form a perfect world. God calls us to be engaged, to exercise a measure of dominance, to use our influence and intellect to shape the world. And then every week to quit.

Even if you are not in what is called a “helping profession,” there is no end of work. Work that others need you to do. Work that you need to do to provide for yourself and your family.

We are appropriately busy. Then we quit. We keep Sabbath, celebrating our connection with the Creator and Redeemer of the universe.

The Christian church exists because Jesus did not stay in the grave. Death was not the end of his ministry or the end of his story. Jesus rose. His resurrection is celebrated every spring by most Christian churches (on different dates). Because Jesus rose we are gathered here as disciples. We are called to carry forward his ministry, to continue his work of healing, teaching, preaching, baptizing. We are called to the pursuit of holiness. This should be the dominant form of our lives. We called to be busy.

Then every week, we are invited to quit. What we have done is enough. For now. For this week. We can stop. We ought to stop. Quit. Do nothing.

You have enough money–for now. You have good enough grades–for now. You have done enough to teach and influence your children–for now.

You have read enough books. You have done enough community service. You have become holy enough, good enough.–for now.

Even though Jesus was only 33 years old, had never written a book, never gotten married, never experienced old age, never faced the challenges of raising children . . . he had done enough. And he rested. So may we.

Resurrection morning is coming. There will be a new call to be busy for God. But for now, quit. Take a rest. Bask in the smile and favor of God. He will call you again to work, but for today. Rest. Enjoy. Be at peace.