Opus 2021-150: Sabbath Observations: Restless

I am not sure where it started.  I am going to guess it was pharmacies.  From there it probably went to coffee shops, the kind called Mabel’s Diner not the ones called Starbuck’s.  Then maybe family restaurants, donut shops and grocery stores.  I can remember when Sears broke the Lord’s Day barrier and opened on Sunday.  Sure, it was only on the afternoon, so you could still go to church.  Now we live in a culture of 24/7.

I go down this path because 24/7 has come to my hill.  I noticed that the temperature was perfect and a breeze was blowing so I got my coffee and went out on the porch to enjoy the morning.  Sunday morning is awesome.  Early in the morning there is very little traffic on the road down the hill and between cars you have stretches of what the country used to be like.  That includes roosters and braying donkeys.  Not this time.  A new house is going in close by.  The beginning stages involve leveling and tearing out the cypress that thrives up here.  It seems like the guys doing it have a day job so they are working on weekends.  Today when I went out I could hear nothing but the wood chipper as it made mulch out of the cypress.  Everything was perfect for a porch sit except the decibels.  

I don’t begrudge the local pagans their extra source of income.  That is what free enterprise is all about.  The guy who is willing to work can get ahead.  My problem is with all of us Christians who have taken a tradition of a day of rest and figured that did not apply to the waitress in the restaurant we went to on Sunday.  Or the clerk in the grocery store we shopped in on Sunday.  Or the local attraction that was going like gang-busters on Sunday.  See how it works?

In case you were not aware of it, the idea of a day of rest in rooted in the Bible.  It was called the Sabbath and runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.  It was important to God because He knew our limitations.  He declared a day of rest and set the example on the seventh day of Creation.  You will also find it listed in the Ten Commandments.  Yes, it is that important.

Think about that next time you patronize local businesses on a Sunday.  Christians moved the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday.  Some have trouble with that.  I don’t, because the principle is the same and if you have noticed the pagans in publishing have rearranged you pocket calendar so that the week begins on Monday instead of Sunday.  

Just another case of the law of unintended consequences.  

homo unius libri