To God what belongs to God

Today, we reflect on Isaiah 58:9-14.
Unlike histories which have plots to follow, prophecies are difficult to handle. They are bits and pieces without any chronology. If we take them as snapshots of God's revelation, and trust the prophets in their efforts to capture and articulate God's words, we lack a structure to piece these jigsaws together. Despite the difficulty, trying to interpret these prophecies is exciting. Somehow, the revelation is progressively clearer to us.
"If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken" (Isaiah 58:13-14).
Isaiah does not complain too much about the observance of Sabbath. There are only 4 places out of 66 chapters where he warns against profaning it [doing your pleasure, talking idly] (Isaiah 1:13; 56:2, 6; 58:13). Keeping the Sabbath is one of the major features of Judaism. Jews celebrate Sabbath because God rested after 6 days of Creation. Moreover, they remember God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage on Sabbath. It was important for them because in Egypt, they were slaves and were denied rests. Therefore, celebrating Sabbath is, in fact, a celebration of being a freed man. In the Gospels, the Pharisees challenged Jesus for healings on Sabbath, for allowing his disciples to pluck the ears of the wheat on Sabbath. They had been freed from Egyptian bondage, but had fallen back into the bondage of rigid ritual observances. Of course, Jesus observed the Sabbath but he transcended the observance. He observed it while retaining his freedom to do charity. The Son of Man is the Lord of Sabbath.
Observing the Sabbath is essential for our well being. It sanctifies our freedom from labour. We can leisurely enjoy God's creation on Sabbath. Sabbath makes sure that we maintain a healthy relation with God's creation and reminds us that we are also God's creatures. After labouring ourselves for six days, observing the Sabbath uplifts our souls and carries us closer to God, our Creator. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17).
Modern men profane the Sabbath at their peril. They do not respect God's creation and abuse her. Pollutions and natural disasters fight back. They accumulate their wealth and exploit their fellow men. Human history is laid out with corpses of social unrests and revolutions. They know no God and starve their own souls. Many fall prey to Satanism ... Men! Repent and turn back to your God, to your fellow men and His creation!

My God, I thank You for giving us the Sabbath to lay back, to appreciate Your wonderful creation and to remember our salvation. May we make good use of it to mend fences with our neighbour and to celebrate with them our undeserved redemption. Amen.