As we’re entering what seems to be the post-pandemic era, I can finally admit: I had a wonderful quarantine.
I hold a lot of guilt for even saying that; I know of far too many people who suffered get loss and tragedy in this time. Yet in our household, we were able to maintain our health and gain quality time. Forced to pause my normally hectic travel schedule, I found time to complete unfinished tasks. The isolation from the outside world also brought our family closer together. I’m refreshed and ready for what lies ahead.
Regardless of how you endured the pandemic, now is a good time to take stock of the lessons learned during the process. For me, perhaps the greatest takeaway was that I truly need to structure my life with times of Sabbath.
When I was preaching regularly, I always found opportunities to discuss the topic of Sabbath in sermons. There’s an old adage that says, “if you want to find out what your preacher struggles with, listen to the sins he brings up most regularly,” and for me, it was lack of Sabbath. The step back brought about by COVID seemingly made me more contemplative, calmer, and content with what I have in life.
While Jesus observed, “The Sabbath was created for the sake of man and not man for the sake of the Sabbath,” it doesn’t mean we Christians are designed solely for work. One of the issues of the Protestant Work Ethic (identified by German sociologist Max Weber) and the intermingling of call and vocation is that we feel as if it’s a sin to rest and reflect. While sloth ought to be avoided, Sabbath is a discipline to be pursued.
Early on in the pandemic, I ran across a sermon delivered by a man named Fletcher Parrish. He served as pastor of the Eleventh Avenue Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The sermon was from October 1918, delivered in the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Over 100 years later, his spiritual observations on rest seemed incredibly apt as I maneuvered through social distancing:
“Meditation is very profitable for the soul, but the rush of the world is so great at present that very little time is given to cogitation and reflection . . . Men think they have no time to walk out in the fields for contemplation, or to sit quietly by the fireside and muse.
"However, we have a God-given opportunity for this helpful indulgence by reason of this unique Sabbath which has dawned upon us. Out of necessity our churches are closed, and all public gatherings must be discontinued. We cannot go motoring, and we would not go to business if we could, and even the fields are dangerous lest we should come in contact with goldenrod and ragweed and take influenza. But we can sit by the fire and give ourselves to thought and reflection which will bring great profit to us.”
I found this encouraging as, even in a time before the internet and smart phones, a preacher from Alabama observed that the world was moving far too quickly . . . that people never found sufficient time to Sabbath. The question for us moderns is will we resume our full-throttled lifestyle now that the pandemic is over or will we carve our moments to break our rhythm? Will we continue to rest?
John Mark Comer in his book, Garden City, summarized it well and I offer his words here:
“Sabbath is an expression of faith. Faith that there is a Creator and he’s good. We are his creation. This is his world. We live under his roof, drink his water, eat his food, breathe his oxygen. So on the Sabbath, we don’t just take a day off from work; we take a day off from toil. We give him all our fear and anxiety and stress and worry. We let go. We stop ruling and subduing, and we just be . . . It’s more of a rhythm in creation than a rule in a book . . . Sabbath isn’t just a Pause button — it’s a full, complete, total system restart. We power down, cool off, let the fan wind down, and then reboot. Sabbath is a chance to take a long, hard look at our lives and to retune them to the right key.”
How are you retuning your life? How are you handing over your burdens to God?