The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Exodus 35-36; Romans 6-7; Psalm 75

Moses comes out from the presence of the LORD and his face shines. [As one mentor of mine once said – ‘you can always tell when someone has spent time with God, there is a quality in their very being’]

And Moses declares “these are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do. . .” He then gives them two Commands, one the observance of the Sabbath, and then the instructions for the tabernacle. Thus we are reminded that all we are commanded to do is Worship the LORD our God, and that this is our Life.

The Sabbath – a day of solemn rest to the LORD – God rested on the seventh day, and made it holy – it is set apart. Like the priests, like the holy things, it is consecrated time – it is of another quality, and an essential quality. Whoever works on the Sabbath cuts themselves off from the life of God. It is that simple. In many respects the Sabbath command is the quintissential command of faith – the Absolute recognition that our life comes from God, that we do not live by bread alone. To fail to recognise this is to live in unbelief, sin, the wages of which are death.

In our anthopocentric culture we have no ears for this word of life. We think little of observing this Command of God. 24/7 is the way we are told to live and even within the company of God’s people, there are few who observe Holy Leisure. We find every way possible to avoid it, even to the point of saying, it doesn’t matter when you rest as long as you get some, ‘spread your Sabbath through the week!’

As we have previously reflected, the heart of our dis-ease is the loss of the sense of the Holy amongst us. Worship is directed to our tastes, be they ever so refined, or no. And the command to rest on the Seventh Day – to consecrate a day every week as Holy to the Lord similarly is mangled into a convenient and ugly caricature.

Perhaps it is no surprise that there are so few shining faces amongst us