WHY SAVE THE LORD'S DAY?
HAVE WE OUTGROWN THE SABBATH DAY?
Is this king of days, created by our Father, sanctified by our Saviour, preserved by the Church, worth saving? Some would have us think we have outgrown it, that it belongs to another time, governed by different conditions. A moment's thought will show that it is impossible to outgrow a law of nature, such as this septenary law is proved to be. And here are a few of the reasons:
THE BODY NEEDS IT
First, man has a body. Experience proves that the normal level of bodily energy cannot be maintained without the regular observance of a stated day of rest. We are like seven-day clocks that run down and have to be rewound. We are like musical instruments that play well for a time and get out of tune. We are storage batteries that leak their vital currents, and must be recharged. There was never an age when humanity needed this weekly rest-day more than now. Think of the fierce competition of modern business, and the relentless law of the survival of the strongest! Think of the feverish hurry and hustle of our American people! Ian Maclaren wrote thus about us: "I am now in New York, where everybody seems to be in a hurry. I asked a policeman what the excitement was all about. He thought I was joking. No one walks to business who can ride in a street car; none rides in a street car who can ride in a steam car, and he regrets there, is no pneumatic tube by which he might be shot to his office or shop. When there, he does not write letters if he can telegraph, or telegraph if he can telephone, and regrets there is no occupation for his feet while waiting at the phone." There is magnetism in our oxygen which stimulates our blood and explains our American push and rush.
The difficulty, with our splendid American activity and achievement, is to arrest the momentum. Men rush so hard through the week that the Day of Rest finds them in the rushing mood. It is hard to stop. They want to do something or go somewhere, or keep up the pace by some dissipating use of the Lord's Day. Hence the Sunday excursions which generally make an incursion into the week's wages, and leave the working man more tired on that night than any other of the week. And there are Sunday amusements and dinner parties and receptions. But the human organism is not a machine of iron to run without rest, but a delicate bundle of nerves and tissues. But even iron machinery does better work and lasts longer when it has periodic rests, as the superintendent of the Pennsylvania railroad said recently about their locomotives.
About Us
WHY SAVE THE LORD'S DAY?
WHY THE FIRST DAY INSTEAD OF THE SEVENTH?
If you ask why the Jewish Saturday once observed as Lord's Day was changed to the First Day, the answer is that Jesus proclaimed Himself Lord also of the Sabbath day, therefore greater than the statute law of Moses. Jesus is the incarnate Legislator of the world. As Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus had the right to interpret and ennoble the day, so that it might be the greatest institution for the culture of the three-fold man. The Scribes and Pharisees had misconceived the genius of the Sabbath law. They missed its underlying principle, encumbered it with intricate and inflexible rules, assuming themselves to be the judges of every act. "The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." Jesus rescued the Sabbath from its burial under a mass of ceremonialism, and revealed its true spirit and meaning. "Jesus did for the Sabbath what a skipper does for his ship, when she comes laboring into port, unable to make headway, because her hulk is covered with barnacles. He puts her into dry-dock, and scrapes off the barnacles. He does not scuttle the ship. So our Lord does not repeal nor annul the Sabbath law when He strips it of the intolerable burdens which the ceremonialists had heaped upon it." In order to emphasize His new idea of the old Sabbath the disciples chose a new day as Lord's Day.
The disciples also desired to commemorate the greatest of all events Since the world's creation, namely, the resurrection of our Lord, for it was on the first day of the week that Jesus made His first five appearances. It was also on the first day of the week that the Holy Spirit was given, therefore Pentecost was commemorated on that day (Acts 2). It was on this day also that the great tidings of salvation were first preached to the multitudes (Acts 2). The first day became the day in which all the early Christians assembled for worship, and for communion (Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 11:23). It was the day also in which the prophecy of Revelation was granted to John on Patmos (Rev 1:10). All the church fathers kept the Lord's Day instead of the Jewish Sabbath, and thus the Christian Sabbath became the weekly holy day of the Christian dispensation, and is the only Sabbath day mentioned as a sacred rest day after the resurrection.
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