Sundays

This was first published in the Church of the Holy Trinity Sunday bulletin, 11th Sunday after Pentecost (Aug 5), 2018

The 4^th Commandment is “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. ...  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:8, 9)."  

For us Christians, however, our holy day of Sabbath rest is not the 7^th day of the week, Saturday, but Sunday, the 1^st day of the week.  Why is this?  The simple answer is that the Resurrection of our Lord was on the first day of the week, and we Christians are Resurrection People.  Sundays became Resurrection celebrations, each Sunday being a little Easter.  Very early in the life of the Church, Christians could not help but make Sundays their holy day of worship and rest.  This is first mentioned in Acts 23:7-  “On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread…”  Sundays came to be known as The Lord's Day.  This is first mentioned in Revelation 1:10- “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.”

Rather than thinking of Sunday as the 1^st day of the week, it is useful to think of it as the 8^th day, a day that represents new beginnings and new creation.  This thinking comes to us from the Early Church Fathers who understood the Resurrection as opening the door to a new life and a new time.  Our lives in this world and our hope for the next are centered on the 8^th day of the week, the Day of the Lord's Resurrection.  All Sundays are our day of feasting and celebration, and feasting at the Lord's Table and breaking bread together on The Lord’s Day is the single most important thing we do together as the New Testament People of God.

Father Rob