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J.R. Miller speaks of how setting apart the Lord’s Day, in which we are elevated to the loftiest of spiritual heights, has a tremendous blessing which carries over throughout the other days of the week.
In The Joy of Service (1898), pp. 244-248, he writes:
The influence of the Sabbath, like a precious perfume, should pervade all the days of the week. Its spirit of holiness and reverence should flow down into all the paths of the other days. Its voices of hope and joy should become inspirations in all our cares and toils in the outside world. Its teaching should be the guide of hand and foot in the midst of all trials and temptation. Its words of comfort should be as lamps shining in the sick-room and in the chambers of sorrow. Its visions of spiritual beauty should be translated into reality in conduct, disposition, and character.
A well-spent Sabbath is an excellent preparation for a week amid cares and struggles. There is blessing in the Sabbath rest. We cannot go on forever; we pause here and there to renew our strength.
“Birds cannot always sing;
Silence at times they ask, to nurse spent feeling,
To see some new, bright thing,
Ere a fresh burst of song, fresh joy revealing.Flowers cannot always blow;
Some Sabbath rest they need of silent winter,
Ere from its sheath below
Shoots up a small green blade, brown earth to splinter.Tongues cannot always speak;
O God! in this loud world of noise and clatter,
Save us this once a week,
To let the sown seed grow, not always scatter.”True Sabbath rest, however, is not merely the cessation of all effort, the dropping of all work. As far as possible we should seek to be freed from the common tasks of the other days. Happy is he who can leave behind him, on Saturday night, all his week-day affairs, to enjoy a Sabbath in heavenly places, as it were, engaged with thoughts and occupations altogether different from those of the busy week. This even alone gives rest.
As for the Sabbath itself, it should be a day for the uplifting of the whole life. A tourist among the Alps tells of climbing one of the mountains in a dense and dripping mist, until at length he passed through the clouds, and stood on a lofty peak in the clear sunlight. Beneath him lay the fog, like a waveless sea of white vapor; and,, as he listened, he could hear the sounds of labor, the lowing of the cattle, and the peals of the village bells, coming up from the vales below. As he stood there, he saw a bird fly up out of the mists, soar about for a little while, and then dart down again and disappear. What those moments of sunshine were to the bird, coming up out of the cloud, the Sabbath should be to us. During week-days we live down in the low vales of life, amid the mists. Life is not easy for us; it is full of struggle and burden-bearing. The Sabbath comes; and we fly up out of the low climes of care, toil, and tears, and spend one day in the pure, sweet air of God’s love and peace. There we have new visions of beauty. We get near to the heart of Christ; into the warmth of his love. We come into the goodly fellowship of Christian people, and get fresh inspiration from the contact.
Thus we are lifted up for one day out of the atmosphere of earthliness into a region of peace, calm, and quiet. We see all things more plainly in the unclouded sky; and we are prepared to begin another week with new views of duty, under the influence of fresh motives, and with our life fountains refilled. Thus the Sabbath rest prepares us for the work and the struggle of the other days. We learn new lessons, which we are to live out in the common experience of the life before us. We see the patterns of heavenly things as we read our Bible, and bow before God in prayer; and we are to go down from the holy mount to weave the fashion of these new patterns into the fabric of our character. We should be better, truer-souled, and richer-hearted al the week because of the Sabbath inspirations. We should carry the holy impressions, the sacred influences, in our heart as we go out into the world, singing the songs of heaven amid earth’s clatter and noise. True Sabbath-keeping makes us ready for true week-day living.
“There are, in this loud, stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of th’ everlasting chime —
Who carry music in their heart,
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.”
Sweet words to contemplate on the Sabbath day and indeed throughout the week. The Lord’s Day is the pinnacle of days, a holy mount, from which we may be refreshed by the beatific vision, and strengthened for all the days of our Christian pilgrimage. Read more by J.R. Miller here.
