Article February 21, 1920 Issue

The Sabbath Rest

JOY E. R. ZINT

According to Biblical record the Sabbath was established in commemoration of God's rest on the seventh day, following the six days of creation, and in obedience to a divine command. Later the early Christians observed Sunday in commemoration of Jesus' resurrection from the grave. As its observance in a greater or less degree has been adopted into the laws and governments of civilized countries, it has become a holy day with millions of people. And yet the question comes home to many truth seekers, Are we really observing the Sabbath by mere cessation from labor and by attendance at church services? Undoubtedly the opportunities for spiritual advancement, not only for one's self but for the community, are greatly enhanced by loyal cooperation in the conduct of church services, and the good derived therefrom is above estimate; but mere regular attendance at these services does not constitute true Sabbath observance.

Mrs. Eddy has said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" beginning on page 519, "The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work." We note in the Scriptural record of creation has found in the first chapter of Genesis, that each day represented an appearing of right activity. On the seventh day, when God rests, His created ideas do not cease this right activity as manifestations of Mind. Indeed, the seventh day—which number signifies completeness—must of necessity include within itself the six periods of spiritual unfoldment referred to as the six days of creation. Christian Science teaches that every counterfeit of creation found in the so-called material universe, if reversed, points to a spiritual fact. So we see that the phenomenon of sleep may not bring rest to the sleeper, while the true sense of rest, which is the real Sabbath, is broken whenever the right activity of Love in the consciousness of man is interrupted. It was this activity of divine Love in the consciousness of Christ Jesus which produced the resurrection.

"God rests in action," Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 519); therefore man, God's image and likeness, must rest in action. This action is purely mental and spiritual, although its result is seen in the improved manifestation of all the minutiae of human living. Mrs. Eddy has also told us in the chapter on Prayer in Science and Health (p. 3) that "action expresses more gratitude than speech." Let us, then, make the Sabbath more truly a day of rest by making it a special day of gratitude, expressed in consecrated service. Too long has the world been under the mesmerism of sleep on the Sabbath day. Sunday has been the time for lying in bed in the morning, for the afternoon nap, for a period of mental and physical lethargy. Is this not breaking the Sabbath, the day of God's rest, since this rest implies all holy activity? "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," is a divine command, and through obedience thereto man inherits eternal life. This obedience includes the holy activity of every God-given faculty, awaking man from the Adam-dream of life in matter. "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." This awakening is the appearing of the Christ to consciousness,—the overcoming of apathy, inactivity, and fear. To "rest in the Lord" is to come into active harmony with God's work, to be governed by the law of Spirit, not matter, to have that Mind in us "which was also in Christ Jesus." It is impossible to conceive of inertia as rest; inertia is stagnation. The poet caught the truer sense when he wrote:—

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