Tuesday: Two Things Transferred to the New Sabbath
WEEK 36
TUESDAY
TWO THINGS TRANSFERRED TO THE NEW SABBATH
Galatians 4:8-10
We saw yesterday that alongside the Jewish Sabbath there grew up the Christian Sabbath; the one commemorates the first creation and the other the second creation, the resurrection. And into that new Sabbath, commemorating the new beginning, were put new meanings and practices.
One of the new practices was to break bread. “On the first day of the week, we were gathered together to break bread” (Acts 20:7 RSV). Now the breaking of bread was not the partaking of an ordinary meal, for the account says, “And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten” (Acts 20:11 RSV); the breaking of bread was different from the eating. It was the same as that found in Acts 2:42 (RSV): “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Obviously the breaking of bread was the Love Feast, a distinctly Christian rite. This was transferred to the first day of the week, the Christian Sabbath.
The second religious act transferred to the Christian Sabbath was the taking up of contributions: “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up . . . so that contributions need not be made when I come “(1 Cor 16:2 RSV). “Store it up” meant obviously to put it into the common treasury, the church treasury; so there would be no collections taken when Paul came.
So the Love Feast and collection were transferred to the Christian Sabbath and gradually everything else connected with Christian worship. The transition was made from an impossibly legalistic Jewish Sabbath to a Christian Sabbath, and it was done not by a verbal command of Jesus but by a vital urge of the Spirit. The new wine of the gospel had to be put into the new wineskins of a Christian Sabbath. The change was not made by a Roman Catholic pope as some claim; it was made in the pages of the Acts by the Christian insight that the old Sabbath could not contain the new meanings; so under the guidance of the Spirit, the new was adopted. And how grateful I am that it was! The new has the life of the resurrection within it.
O Blessed Christ, you are gently putting aside the outworn old and replacing it with the glorious new. Help me to accept the new with gratitude. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Since I belong to the expansive new, I shall lay aside all the outworn old in my life.