I had on my three quarter baggy pants stuffed into my black military boots, on top I had on a thin powder blue jersey. I sat confidently with my legs crossed and waited patiently for my cousin to come out of her bedroom when suddenly her good friend barged into the lounge. She was excited to see me and so I stood up, gave her a hug and afterwards watched her as she scanned my outfit from top to bottom. “I like your jersey but those boots are ugly” she said and looked at me disappointingly. I smiled and looked at them. “But I must really get that jersey” she said as if trying to deflect my attention away from the boots. I told her where she could get the jersey, sat down, crossed my legs and watched the television.
What my cousin’s friend would have me do is to have followed the season’s trend and wear boots that were in season like the ugg boots or suede boots or the pixie boots anything but my hardcore military boots. What my cousin’s friend did not know is style and with my military boots on I had it. Most people misuse the word style; they use it to mean someone looks good or well matched in their clothes. If someone looks like a photocopy of fashion catalogue found in a cheap general magazine then they truthfully do not have style; they may look good but they certainly do not have style. My outfit was not typical of the season’s trend, it was different and that is what style is about; it is about being different, rebelling a little and deviating from the trend; it is ultimately about making a statement so strong no-one else could plagiarize it.
The trend in Christian world is to obey and observe the Sabbath commandment on Sunday which as we all know is the first day of the week but there are those Christians who observe the Sabbath on Saturdays- these Christians believe that observing the Sabbath on Saturdays is the only way to keep the Sabbath holy, they are strict on themselves, vegetarian or vegan diets are encouraged, women should only wear dresses, women and men should not pierce their ears and the Sabbath is observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening. Those who observe the Sabbath on the Sunday dress as they please, go to church for only a few hours and eat whatever they like.
A person new to the faith of Christianity would whether it really matter when the Sabbath is observed. Such a person would be confused between the popular trend of going to church on a Sunday and the different traditional choice of attending church on a Saturday. In this argument the Saturday church goers would win but only so far. Jesus Christ was Jewish and he observed the Sabbath on Saturdays. Paul and the other followers of Christ were culturally and ethnically Jews so they too observed the Sabbath on Saturdays.
I have a diluted version of why the Saturday Sabbath observance was changed to the Sunday Sabbath observance. Basically the first Christian emperor of Rome (Constantine) realized that Christianity was growing beyond borders, the Romans hated the Jews and Constantine thought of a way to integrate Christianity into the ever stylish and idol worshipping Romans by making sure that the Sabbath was observed on the same day the roman pagans worshipped their sun god. With this change the Roman Catholic Church grew in abundance, the popes wore rich clothes and jewelry; they added a whole lot of rituals and even changed the Sabbath commandment to suit their church. Today the Roman Catholic Church is the largest and most powerful church on earth, its members have reserved seats in international bodies such as the UN and EU and it is because of it that traditional and modern churches observe the Sabbath on Sundays. The Catholic Church had many scandals and as a result many break away churched formed, but back to the basic question: does it really matter when we observe the Sabbath?
While many Christians may ask what would Jesus say, I ask what would Paul say because in all truthfulness Paul built the church; he wrote to the Corinthians about love, to the Jews (Hebrews) about Jesus being Lord, to young Timothy about not being discouraged because of his age; in all his letters he leaves instructions about how Christians should behave, how Deacons should act and how the dynamics of relationships between fathers and sons, daughters and mothers, husbands and wives should flow. In Colossians 2:16 Paul writes “let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days”. While Seven Day Adventists seek righteousness and holiness through what they eat, drink and when they observe the holy Sabbath; most Christians seek only Jesus and His love and it is in Him that we find righteousness and holiness.
We (Christians) do not seek holiness or righteousness because that would make us no different from other pagan religions because we understand that we are merely human and what we eat or drink does not make us any holier, that no amount of meditation could make us reach the God and His holy place, that what he seeks is our hearts and not our religiosity and that when we accept Jesus we get into the holy place, we become holy and are righteous.
The Sabbath is holy not because it is on the seventh day but because the Lord made it so. God looks at the heart so while you are physically at church on Saturday but the heart is somewhere else trust me you are not doing God a favour but when you wake up on a Sunday morning and are happy because the day of the Lord has come, trust me the Lord is happy and pleased with you because you are happy that the Lord made the Sabbath and whether you are observing it on the seventh or first day of the week does not matter to you; it’s the fact that the Sabbath was created in the first place. Paul died for Christianity, for Christ, for the advancement of the church not for the Sabbath. How many times had Jesus Christ broken the laws of the Sabbath? He was trying to show us that the Sabbath mattered not because we blindly followed its laws but because we had seen through its creation the greatness of the father, the might of the father but most importantly the love of the father. Jesus died not for the Ten Commandments, not for the Jewish laws and customs but for the love of the Father and of the Father’s love for us.
There is a thread that holds Christianity together, a thread that is not found in other religions and that thread is love, true love, the Jesus kind of love. It is with this love that we come to the father and whether we come to Him on a Saturday or Sunday does not matter, what matters is we come with love and with style.
