My Sabbath Day Rest: Tetelestai

To commemorate the death of Christ on the cross, this year I used Good Friday as a Sabbath Day of solemn rest. Exodus 31:3 says:

“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.”

We no longer keep the Sabbath the way the Jews did by having a day of complete rest each week. Instead, we keep the Sabbath now by resting in the completed work of Christ everyday. It was on Good Friday, when Jesus died on the cross, that all the work for our sanctification and redemption was completed.  When Jesus gave His life on the cross, he cried out “Tetelestai.” We translate this as “It is finished.”  It means a completed, once for all action from the past with on-going implications in the present.  The completed action was that Christ paid for our sins in full. Those of us who trust in Him will never be able to or have to do anything else to pay for our sins. Christ already has! Taking a Sabbath day is a physical way of to remind us of this spiritual reality.

So, over the next week I will share

How I prepared for my “Sabbath Rest”

What happened on my “Sabbath Day”

and What I learned from my “Sabbath Rest”

The reason I would like to do this is because I think taking a Sabbath is a fairly weird concept in today’s world, and because I learned a lot from it that I would like to share.