Growing in True Faith: Lord's day - taking time to love!

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday after Ash Wednesday

February 20, 2021: Isaiah 58: 9-14; Luke 5: 27-32

Sabbath for the Jews, we know, was sacred and there was a beautiful lesson within it. People are busy making a living, that they forget truly living their life. Jesus did not despise Sabbath, but brought back strongly home the original purpose behind this observance. Jesus teaches us: Sabbath is the time taken to love - to love God and to love neighbours! It is a time to forget about me, mine and my job, and look at the Lord, the persons around me and spend time with them.

Today in our hectic lives, we are so busy running after our work, our so-called progress and our career that we lose sight of so many beautiful things in life - like a filial relationship with God, a loving relationship with our families, a rejuvenating time with our friends...even these have become some corporate affairs to be planned and executed, lacking its spontaneity and warmth. 

I remember once, ringing up to a caterer asking for a meal to be arranged for a big group of persons on a Sunday - he bluntly told me that he cannot, because it was Sunday. "It is enough you arrange it later during the day", I insisted. But he replied with the same determination and clarity of priorities, "I go to Church in the morning and the rest of the day I spend with the family, I don't take up orders on Sunday". He is not one of those top notch business persons to forego an order so lucrative, but he was clear about his priorities - he was absolute about the time set apart for God and for his loved ones.

We would do good to look at Sabbath of the Lord's day not as a legal requirement or as Sunday obligation. As Jesus insists, so does Isaiah - taking time to be with people, to spend time with persons, to share love and be rejuvenated: that is the purpose of the Lord's day. 

Sabbath or the Lord's day therefore is not one day, or certain days; it is a mindset, an attitude, a love with which we give importance to the Other and to the others. Just as this season of Lent, Sabbath should be a time taken regularly to refill our lives with love - for God and for others.