Keeping the Sabbath Wholly

Before I was married and a mother, keeping the sabbath was easy. I read Keeping the Sabbath Wholly by Marva Dawn to remind myself why I need to press on towards making my Sundays the way they ought to be, even in the midst of all of my busyness.

I really appreciated Keeping the Sabbath Wholly. Dawn works her way through four elements of sabbath keeping: ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting. As Christians, when we cease, we don’t just run away from everyday life, we assert that the things that drive our everyday lives don’t have ultimate authority over us. We mustn’t just take a nap or avoid exerting ourselves, we have to let our rest extend from the physical to the emotional and the intellectual so that it can renew our whole beings. By our ceasing and resting, we have room to embrace the values that we ought: intentionality, the Christian community, our callings, time instead of space, people instead of things and giving instead of requiring. And then, after the ceasing, resting and embracing, our feasting is that much sweeter.

Dawn makes sabbath keeping to her readers more than just a sound theological practice, but something that is inherently necessary for them to be all that God made them to be, and remarkably, does all of that without making the book one big guilt trip. “Sabbath keeping is not a dry duty or an oppressive obligation. It is a delight, a feasting on that which is eternal rather than a scrambling after the ephemeral success, the amassed wealth, the ceaseless activities, the elegant refinement that Americans think will grant them permanent happiness. Instead of trying to create our own security, we worship the one who is our security.”

I enjoyed Keeping the Sabbath Wholly a great deal and it was a wonderful reminder of truths that I used to know for myself but have lost along the way. My only major objections to it lie in Dawn’s practical application. She puts far too much emphasis on Jewish traditions of Sabbath keeping, which are extra-biblical. I do not think that lighting candles or saying the Kiddush and Havdalah are wrong. But her emphasis on them in her own practice might make readers feel that is the right way to keep the sabbath and there is certainly freedom to take or leave those practices. Personally, we are adapting prayers from the Christian tradition that fulfill the same purposes for our family. Overall, it’s an excellent book that I have and would recommend highly.

Cross-posted at This Classical Life