Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23:2
2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.

Reflection: Holidays are Tabernacles
By Erin Newton

Imagine you are far from home, perhaps forced away or maybe you’ve never found a place to call home. It is easy to become discouraged and lonely. You begin to wonder, “Who am I?”

Israel wandered the wilderness for forty years waiting for the place they would call home. In the exile, they watched their livelihood burn to the ground as they were forced into another wilderness.

The book of Leviticus has painstakingly detailed Israel’s religious identity. From the foods to eat to the clothes to wear, this book has covered seemingly every nook and cranny of their lives. Leviticus has brought order to their worship, cleanliness, relationships, and physical bodies. Now God will remind them of the order of time.

Israel participated in seven festivals a year and every seventh day was set aside as holy. The festivals were a periodic means of organizing time, making the calendar something that could define the people even when they were not in their land and felt far from God’s presence.

Richard Boyce summarizes the purpose of the festivals, “Every week, every month, every year now becomes a ‘camp’ wherein God’s holy presence might be manifest, through the observance of festivals.”

Even when they are far from home, God has created a temporal map to routinely bring them into his presence.

As Christians, we mark our calendar with different holy days. We focus on Christmas and Easter with some attention to Good Friday. Some churches also include celebrations for Epiphany, Pentecost, All Saints Day, and others.

We celebrate our holidays, but so do our neighbors. We are not distinguished because of our festivals.

The question becomes: Do we need more holidays to regain our religious identity, or do we need to reclaim our focus on the days already marked out for us?

We may feel lost, homesick, or unsure about where we fit in. We either can’t find our home or it’s out of our reach. It could be strained relationships or spiritual abuse that has created the distance. No matter the reason, at home or in exile, we can remember that our time is marked out for God.

At home or in pursuit of a new community, taking periodic days to focus on our relationship with God will help us gain a sense of identity. There is peace when we take the time to rest, remember, and reunite with God’s presence.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse
Let me seek the Lord while he may still be found. I will call upon his name while he is near.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Reading
Leviticus 23 (Listen 6:31)
Acts 19 (Listen 5:47)

Read more about What Time is It?
Today, let us pray that we will understand the times and seasons that we find ourselves in.

Read more about Supporting Our Work
Please consider becoming a donor. Support ad-free content that brings biblical devotionals to inboxes across the world.

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 23.3
3 “ ‘There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord. 

From John: Later this week, we will look at the expanded Sabbath applied to years and how it applies to the concept of Jubilee. Today we look back at Rabbi Heschel’s perspective on the weekly Sabbath.

Reflection: A Taste of Eternity
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

It must always be remembered that the Sabbath is not an occasion for diversion or frivolity; not a day to shoot fireworks or to turn somersaults, but an opportunity to mend our tattered lives; to collect rather than to dissipate time.

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man.

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life. Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work. “Last in creation, first in intention,” the Sabbath is “the end of the creation of heaven and earth.”

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.

Three acts of God denoted the seventh day: He rested, He blessed, and He hallowed the seventh day. To the prohibition of labor is, therefore, added the blessing of delight and the accent of sanctity. Not only the hands of man celebrate the day; the tongue and the soul keep the Sabbath.

Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art. It is the result of an accord of body, mind, and imagination. To attain a degree of excellence in art, one must accept its discipline, one must adjure slothfulness. The seventh day is a palace in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence. In its atmosphere, a discipline is a reminder of adjacency to eternity.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
For the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me. — Psalm 31.3

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 23 (Listen – 6:31)
Psalms 30– (Listen – 1:32)

Read more about Keeping the Sabbath by Action
Keeping the Sabbath holy, maintaining God’s justice, and establishing righteousness are not passive, actionless, states of spiritual attainment.

Read more about A Restoring Sabbath
Weekly sabbaths teach us that the sabbath doesn’t condemn the week of work, but it blesses it and redeems it.