When the elders of Israel came to Ezekiel in order to consult with the Lord, the Lord gave him this this instruction: “Mortal, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Why are you coming? To consult me? As I live, says the Lord God, I will not be consulted by you” (Ezekiel 20:3).

God had pledged to be faithful to the people of Israel (20:6), but they had rebelled against the Lord their God (20:8). Several signs of this rebellion are mentioned – such as idolatry and child sacrifice (20:31) – yet Ezekiel’s message to them especially insisted on the importance of Sabbath-keeping (20:12, 20) and decried their constant Sabbath-breaking (20:13, 16, 21, 24).

“I said to their children in the wilderness … I the Lord am your God; follow my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances, and hallow my sabbaths that they may be a sign between me and you, so that you may know that I the Lord am your God. But the children rebelled against me; they did not follow my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live; they profaned my sabbaths” (20:18-21).

It’s such a foreign notion to us, this idea that we should devote one whole day of the week to holy rest and reverence. We are quick to see the impracticality of it: there is work that must be attended to, after all, with doctors and police officers – and preachers! – who have jobs that still need to get done on the sabbath. Our attitude seems to be that if it’s all right for all of them to work on the sabbath, it must be all right for the rest of us, too.

Yet is it wise for us to be so hasty in explaining away one of the tenets of the Ten Commandments? The sabbath is one of the means whereby we know God: “so that you may know that I the Lord am your God” (20:20). We would do well to ponder whether one of the reasons we know so little of God in our present day is that we, like ancient Israel, have profaned God’s sabbaths.

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Help us, Lord! We are such thorough Sabbath-breakers that we scarcely recognize it anymore. It is hard for us to schedule even an hour or two of Sunday worship; we cannot imagine taking a full day, week by week, just for rest and devotion. And yet: how much more might we come to know you, if we ever had the courage to put this into practice?

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