Sabbath and Endeavoring to Give Rest

      I hold the Lordsday, the Sabbath, in high regard. It is the New Creation day, the day the mighty Logos of Creation drew His first breath of air into His glorified, resurrected body. It is the day when Jesus, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) simultaneously defeated death, and too, raised His heel and brought down the death blow upon the Dragon's head thus fulfilling the earliest prophecy in the Scriptures (Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8). The apostles recognized this and revered it by gathering for worship (a convocation in the OT) and to break bread (1 Cor. 16:2; Acts 20:7; John 20:19) on the first day of the week. That is why Christians through all ages have gathered on the first day of week.  It is a day to savor in singing, reflect on Scripture, fellowship with others in eating the Lord's Supper, and to rest.

      Unfortunately it might not be any of those for a wife if a husband is not careful to actively, and with intentionality, lead his wife and perhaps a little flock. The Lordsday, for wives, can still be full of many of the same tasks as Monday through Saturday were. There is still activities that don't stop for the Lordsday: food to make, dishes to clean and babies bottoms to be wiped (among many other things, and not that these are necessarily only for women to do!), so how can a husband step in and intentionally give sabbath to his wife?

      Now, while I certainly do not do it perfectly nor competently at times, I do have a few suggestions I like to share that I have found to be a real blessing in my home. What I've done in endeavoring to give rest to Racheal on the Lordsday, and consequently to Esther and Lillia as well, is to take care of the food cleanup and kitchen cleanup all day long. It's a well known Ankeny fact that no one wants me cooking any food around my house, especially myself, so I do what I can with what I have a "skill set" in, and that skill happens to be handling dirty work ("If they don't find ya handsome, they should find ya handy."). This is orthopraxy in motion with the sleeves rolled up, baby! Or, as I've heard Pastor Doug Wilson say, this is orthodoxy "coming out the finger tips". So, I clean dishes, sweep the floor, wipe down the table, clear off the table and generally try to keep Racheal away from anything and everything that is normal labor for her the other six days of the week. This is what I do and Racheal digs it, and she receives a sabbath that is well deserved.

      Now, please, please understand I send this out not to boast or brag, for I in fact received this idea from someone else myself, but rather I write about it in the hope that it will motivate those men, like myself, who revere the Lordsday (i.e. sabbatarians) to intentionally love and consider their wives in all ways just as Jesus does with His Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:25-30). More broadly though, I hope it helps anyone who reads this to think more deliberately about giving others around them sabbath, especially those in their own home.

      For giving sabbath, or rest, to others should be a pattern of life in the Spirit at all times, and not just on the Lordsday and not just narrowly focused on physical rest either. In other words, we are to look out for the interests of others and to count them to be more important than even ourselves (Phillipians 2:3-11). We should be giddy and ready "on our toes" to lay down our lives for others (1 John 3:16-18) and thus be found reflecting our Lord the Arch-servant who was always on the look-out to give others sabbath. Jesus did this in a myriad of ways too, either by heralding the Good News of the Son of Man, or explaining to a true Jew the freedom found in God's Law, or relieving actual physical maladies, or of course, securing final, justifying sabbath rest for all His chosen people by His death on a tree.

      Giving sabbath to others really should be in the warp and woof of all baptised, Christian people, but especially for Christian husbands, because husbands in particular show forth to the watching world what Christ is like to His Bride the Church. That is to say, that the husbands of the Christ's Church end up having the weighty responsibility of being a hermeneutic -- a way of understanding -- of and to Jesus for the unsaved world. If we are unfaithful or apathetic in our Gospel role and duties as husbands to our wives we will misrepresent Jesus to the unbelieving world, and will most certainly be held accountable. Not a pleasant thought! (Wanna trade ladies?!)

      So husbands are called by Jesus to represent Him to their wife, family and to their unbelieving neighbors, and are not called by Christ to a life of ease, leisure and retirement. Rather Christ Jesus calls us men and husbands to a full, strenuous, cross-bearing public life to the very end of our days just as He did, and incidentally, being in the kitchen on the Lordsday giving sabbath to one's bride is a glorious place to teach oneself, and to do, just that.