Jun 25, 2018
by Greg Olson
I finished my undergraduate degree by taking my last class from Jerusalem University College on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Israel. Being in Israel was my first exposure to Sabbath, but that was long before I had heard about Christians keeping the Sabbath. Back then, I thought Sabbath was weird, “a whole country shutting down for a day?”
Years later, after getting married, I had the chance to bring my wife to Israel for her first time. That was not long after we had both come to the Sabbath. The feeling we shared on our first Sabbath together in Jerusalem is one that neither of us will forget. Instead of feeling weird for keeping the Sabbath, we felt completely at home.
Being in Israel on the Sabbath feels like stepping inside the Bible. The Gospels refer to the day before Sabbath as “the day of preparation” (Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54). Fridays in Israel, you can still experience the day of preparation. Friday is a busy day in the markets. With the abundance of fresh produce produced in Israel, many Israelis wait until Friday to buy the food they need for Sabbath. Prolific in their land and diet are cucumbers, tomatoes, figs, mangoes, dates, eggplant, and more. As Friday afternoon arrives, things really begin to intensify. Businesses and stores all start to close by about 3 pm—even in the summer, when sunset isn’t until 9 pm—to make sure their employees can reach home before the Sabbath begins.
As the sun sets on Friday evening and the Sabbath begins (Genesis 1:5b, 1:8b), the Sabbath dinner begins. It is the most special meal of the week. In a traditional Jewish home, before the sun goes down, candles are lit and each family has two loaves of a special bread called challah (pronounced “hallah”). The reason there are two loaves of this bread is in memory of the manna God provided in the wilderness and God’s instruction to gather a double portion of it on Friday so they wouldn’t need to gather more on the Sabbath (Exodus 16:29).Once the sun goes down, everything stops. In Jerusalem, the light rail and buses all stop running, traffic becomes non-existent and the busy city becomes nearly silent—except at the Western Wall, where the start of the Sabbath is met with exuberant celebration and dancing.
In the morning, families walk together to their local synagogue. Even after their synagogue services come to end, the stillness persists all day. On our last trip there, my wife, Carol, counted cars on the six-lane road that went by the front of our hotel one Sabbath. Instead of cars, she just saw mostly kids riding their bikes down that road, with a single car maybe once in five minutes. That same Sabbath, I went for a walk to the Mount of Olives and passed by a local park that was filled with families just picnicking and playing together, enjoying each other’s company.
The weekly Sabbath is a gift from God to all of mankind (Mark 2:27)—it is the gift of rest (Exodus 16:29, 20:9-10). Besides the immediate value of the gift itself, the Sabbath also serves as a shadow of the rest still to come for those that follow Christ (Hebrews 4:1-11). The Sabbaths I have spent in Jerusalem have made the Sabbath more precious to me and provided me with a vivid picture of the rest to come. In fact, my wife and I have been so inspired by the way our trips to Israel have deepened our faith and understanding of the Bible, that we started “Bible
Expeditions” (www.bibleexpeditions.com). Our goal is to help as many people as possible experience the Bible by visiting Israel.
We live in a time where everyone is so busy. On Sabbath, we need to just stop! Stop working, stop being busy, stop doing. Take a break, relax, rest, and listen for the still small voice. Sabbath is God’s gift—take time to enjoy it.
