Michaela Bruzzese is to be commended for her article regarding the Sabbath ("The Sabbath Promise," May 2005). Christians have much to benefit from its restoration in life and practice.
Growing up in a pastors family of German-Jewish heritage, I found that our Friday Shabbat service not only synthesized Passover and Eucharist through the ceremony of bread and wine, it also broke the weeks bustling pace and ushered in a centered rhythm of sacred rest with a view toward Sundays congregational worship.
Each week is a Holy Week "in miniature." Observing Friday as the day of our creation and Christs crucifixion allows an emphasis on prayer, fasting, and sacrificial acts of love. Saturday then becomes more than Gods rest from the work of creation; it also becomes Christs "rest" in the tomb and our rest as baptized (or "buried") people. Keeping Saturday as the seventh day of rest it is, through restraint of labor and attention to spiritual rest as well, heightens anticipation for Sunday as the beginning of the new week - the first day of Gods creative work; the day of light, resurrection, and the churchs communal feast.
Bruzzeses call to reclaim the Sabbath as a day of holy rest should remind us that we need respite from the work that wearies, just as we need respite for carrying out our tasks as disciples in the Lords redemptive community and renewed creation.
Joel Kurz
Forsyth, Missouri
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