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VICTORIA'S SECRET

We have a radio friend from San Francisco, who's been corresponding quite regularly with us over the last year or so. Her name's Victoria, and I am just so proud that she's a friend of the Voice of Prophecy ministry. She's a wonderful Bible student: very keen thinker, a real seeker for truth. She doesn't take the words of Lonnie Melashenko at face value; I can tell you that. But every letter she shares, written during her very busy schedule as a student and graveyard-shift employee at a Bay Area radio station, ends with these three beautiful words: "In His name."

Well, just as David was digging into the radio topic for this week, here came another letter from Victoria, with a marvelous enclosure: her recent term paper for a class she was taking: Jewish Studies 410. It's entitled The Sabbath: A Delight. Now, Victoria, I don't know what kind of grade you received there at the University, but David and I certainly give you an A+. Here's her opening quotation from Abraham Joshua Heschel:

"A thought has blown the market place away. There is a song in the wind and joy in the trees. The Sabbath arrives in the world, scattering a song in the silence of the night: eternity utters a day. Where are the words that could compete with such might?"

And then on page one is this beautiful description of what I like to call "A park in time." Again, this is by Victoria Shephard:

"Traditionally the woman of the house lights the candles 18 minutes before sundown. The table is spread with a white cloth and may have flowers to decorate it. Two loaves of bread, called challah, are braided and covered and wine or grape juice is there to drink. A special cup is set aside to be blessed. This is the kiddush cup. The house has been cleaned, the meal prepared, the family is ready." Isn't that a poetic description? She adds a bit more: "This is the beginning of the Sabbath for Jews, which they call Shabbat. The Sabbath begins at sundown Friday and lasts until three stars can be seen in the sky on Saturday night."

Well, there's much more and it's equally as good. This term paper really does capture the magic, the power, of this gift of time, this 24-hour period where people are with God and God is with His people. No wonder she quotes Ahad Ha-Am, a writer from Israel, who openly admits:

"More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jewish people."

I mentioned yesterday the marvelous book, The Ten Challenges, by Leonard Felder. He tells how, during periods of Russian persecution — the brutal pogroms — and then the Nazi horrors, Jews would live for those 24 hours.

"In Eastern Europe, when the sun would go down and the Sabbath was over, there was such a sense of loss. During the week we were peasants, outcasts, scorned people. But on Shabbat we were God's lovers in paradise. The only thing which made the weeks bearable was the taste of Shabbat that still lingered in our souls and that we knew would be ours again in just a few days."

Well, these word pictures of the bread and the white linen and the family community are so appealing, but maybe you struggle with an unstated thought.

Here's a term paper about Jewish life. And here's a book written by psychologist Leonard Felder, who is a practicing Jew. We mentioned Dr. Laura Schlessinger and her new bestseller: The Ten Commandments. But she's an orthodox Jew as well, a very recent convert. And perhaps Christians today are wondering: Why can't this magic happen to us? We drag ourselves to church for two hours, but then football starts up and the malls open up and the cell phones ring and the beepers go off, and our "(quote) day of rest" turns out to be one of the nastiest of the week. In fact, Felder himself quotes an unnamed Christian minister who confessed in disappointment:

"In my grandparents' day it was called the Holy Sabbath, in my parents' day the Sabbath, and today we just call it the weekend."

Well, friend, today we'd like to very humbly, and in a quiet spirit of cooperation, put some cards right on the table. Because it's admittedly a thrilling thing to hear how Christians around the world, in many faith communities, are saying, almost in desperation: "Don't leave us out! We need the Sabbath too — and we realize that now! We need a break of 24 hours; we need the quiet sundown bread, the holding of hands around the table, the full day away from the Thousand Oaks mall and the car dealers and the screaming TV."
In one of our research volumes, we found this expression of need — and this is written by Christians.

"God instituted the Sabbath for His people as a constant, regular source of blessing for both spiritual and physical renewal; it was to express social concern and compassion. The Sabbath was a reminder that God was in control of man's time."

But then we have to openly address the confusion which exists about the question of a Sabbath for Christians. When should it be celebrated? Is it mandatory? Should Sunday, or the Lord's Day, as it's called, be KEPT? More and more believers now are looking to accomplish that in their lives, to keep Sunday like it's a Sabbath.

Part of the dilemma is that there are so many disagreements about this. Many very faithful Christians do honestly believe and teach that the Sabbath — for Christians — was transferred from Saturday to Sunday. We have a belief statement from a prominent Florida television ministry which states very openly in their literature:

"The New Testament indicates that the Day has been changed BY GOD from the Seventh to the First Day, and . . . the Church is correct in celebrating the First Day of the week as the Day of worship and rest."

However, another very well-written Christian research book I already mentioned, entitled From Sabbath to Lord's Day, takes exactly the opposite approach. No, they say, with plenty of research to back it up. There never was a transfer that was biblical. Christians are free to keep any day, the "one-in-seven" concept, or no day at all . . . but historically, Sunday has turned out to be the most convenient.

Other groups teach very specifically that not only is Sunday right, according to the Bible, but it ought to be kept as a full 24-hour holy day, just as Jews observe Saturday. And we have many so-called Blue Laws still in effect here in the United States, as evidence of their zeal to help people do that.
The Catholic Church, by the way, plainly admits in its literature, that IT is the spiritual institution which openly changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. "We had the authority," they say, "and we did it." Here's the Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, printed back in 1910:

"Which is the Sabbath day? Saturday is the Sabbath day. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."

So friend, here's a melting pot of ideas. Obviously my own denomination, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, radio home of this ministry, has studied on its knees for many decades, sorting out God's Word on this topic. And some of the issues involved are awfully hard to present here on the radio in ten-minute chunks of time.

Let me share, though, the human experience of two people I truly admire. I mentioned Michael Card, a great musician and sincere Christian. He looked at the Bible evidence, and there ARE hard verses on all sides. But to him one simple fact shone through the clutter: God only blessed the seventh day. God only made the seventh day holy. God only mentioned the seventh day in His Fourth Commandment. And this man, along with his family, made a decision based on those facts.

I have a scholar friend who has dug into this topic as much, probably, as any man on this planet. Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi is the only non-Catholic to receive a degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. His research topic: this issue of Sabbath becoming Sunday in the early church, and how it all happened. He graduated summa cum laude, by the way, so when he explains a verse, I tend to sit up and listen.

When Pope John Paul II recently sent out his Pastoral Letter, entitled Keeping the Lord's Day Holy, Bacchiocchi responded with real Christian gratitude for the plea, coming from the Pope himself, that Christians return to the Bible idea of giving their Creator, Jesus Christ, an entire day of their lives each week. That is a tremendous invitation, a statement of real courage. But then he added these very plain words, and I pass them along to you as humbly as I can:

"The attempt," he writes, "to ground the moral obligation of Sunday observance on the Sabbath commandment, is doomed to fail, simply because theologically, historically, and existentially, Sunday is not the Sabbath."

And really, for two thousand years, Sunday has been a day to go to church; it has indeed been a wonderful day of worship, where many faithful Christians have honored the resurrection of Jesus. But is it the Sabbath? Is it consecrated TIME, the day God blessed? Is it the day God made holy back in the Garden of Eden? Friend, I must say as kindly as I can — I don't believe it is. God honors the worship of every sincere believer. But if you're looking here in 2001 for the true blessing God promises time and time again in the Bible for people who turn to Him on the Sabbath, there's only one day where that divine miracle truly happens.

And God bless us all as we seek that weekly miracle.