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The Lamb’s SupperWeek 16 Sabbath Rest – Part 1

Sunday Mass is a day of obligation for all Catholics, but seldom do we here “why”. The Book of Revelation has so many liturgical cues, many we have discussed, and our Sunday obligation as Catholics is very clear in the Apocalypse, if we are willing to dig just a little. First let’s look at one of the opening verses in Revelation.

Revelation 1:3 (RSV2CE) 3 Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near.

So, Catholics, here is an easy one, when you think of the liturgy of the Mass what do you hear in this verse?

If you say anything other the liturgy of the word, or the lector and the congregation, I am going to send you back to PSR. Right out of the box, a blessing is promised for both the reader and the listener of the Book of Revelation, and the very same can be said for the lector and the congregation in every Mass we participate in. Yes, you could sleep right through it, and some do, but they are missing a blessing.

All the historical evidence from both sacred scripture and sacred tradition tells us Sunday was a day of obligation for the Church all the way back to the beginning of Christianity. Look at this verse, Revelation 1:10 (RSV2CE) 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. The Lord’s Day, or the Day of the Lord has a very interesting history. In the Old Covenant, the

prophets would speak of the “Day of the Lord” in the sense of a solemn judgement that was coming from Yahweh, and there are certainly some echoes from the Old Covenant resonating in the many judgements we read in the Book of Revelation. But all the history we have of the first three centuries of the Church is that Lord’s

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Day here in Revelation was talking in fact about Sunday, the first day of the week, not a coming judgement from the Lord. The Lord’s Day or Day of the Lord was in reference to Sunday.

Once again, we see in the passing of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, the old gives way to the new, Passover becomes the Eucharist, in the sense that the Eucharist is a fulfilling of the Passover, not a complete obliterating of the it. The Eucharist is the “New Passover”. Another example is circumcision giving way to baptism, and finally the Sabbath Day, the 7th day gives way to Sunday, the Lord’s Day, being the first day of the week, since we have 7 days in our week. Which begs the question, why did the earliest Christians call Sunday the 8th Day? Anyone what to guess? Scott was reading one of the foremost rabbis of the 20th century, Rabbi Hirsh, talking about a rabbinic tradition dating all the way back to an ancient time written about in Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17:9–12 (RSV2CE) 9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

So, the idea of the 8th day as the day Jewish males entered into covenant life with the liturgy of circumcision had a very strong divine life understanding back in the Old Covenant. Fast forward to the resurrection of Jesus that happened on…Sunday. And…all the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, according to sacred scripture happened on…Sunday, right up to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost on once again…Sunday. I love this stuff. Even though there is no specific verse in the Bible that decrees that we Christians are now to worship on Sunday, and no longer on Saturday,

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Sacred Tradition says it is so, including, I believe, all but one protestant denomination. Do you know which one? You guessed it, Seventh Day Adventist. Remember Catholics, most protestants have a allergic reaction to the mere mention of Sacred Tradition. That is so interesting to me, because the five or so denominations I was a part of, had traditions they guarded fiercely. The understanding of the Sabbath being a day of obligation to the Jews goes back to the Bible and the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:8–10 (RSV2CE) 8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates;

The phrase “remember the sabbath day” is very interesting in the Hebrew language and the ancient Jewish culture. The word remember in this context really means to honor, or to commemorate the sabbath day. It wasn’t speaking of a memory problem, instead it warned of not honoring it, or not “keeping” it. The idea is similar to what we do with our kids, celebrating their birthdays. The Jewish understanding would be that we are remembering, or commemorating their day of birth. Not because we forgot it, and suddenly we remembered, but because we make that day special, we honor it and keep it special. It is the same idea at several different times in the Bible where we read, God “remembered His covenant”. He didn’t forget it…never. But instead, God enacted a special event at a specific time and in that specific generation, to honor and celebrate His covenant with mankind. Noah building the ark was one of those times that God “remembered” His covenant.

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That commandment of the Holy Sabbath was for man to cease from his work on the seventh day, the Sabbath, and spend that entire day resting, by worshipping the Lord. Unfortunately, Mike Aquilina come up with the sad pun of, by not keeping the Sabbath, you are resisting a “rest”. Sounds like something Father Mike might come up with. Then Scott took this understanding of the seventh day back to creation itself, where God made man and the earthly beasts on the same day, the sixth day. But it is clear that man was made for more than just an earthly existence, separating us clearly from all the earthly beasts. Think about this, God gave man the responsibility of having dominion over the earth and all the living creatures, preparing us for a higher existence being made in the image of God Himself. The seventh day God blessed, and He made it sacred. The seventh day, the Sabbath, became the symbol of sacred covenant between mankind and God. Remember the ancient expression of God initiating the covenant, that God

“sevened” Himself entering into blood covenant with man. Seven is, and always has been, the number of perfection in the Bible.

Mike Aquilina makes this profound statement that Scott passionately agreed with, the Sabbath or seventh day was to time, what the Temple was to space, the Sabbath was sacred

time, and the Temple was sacred space, or maybe better understood as a sacred place. God was making Himself known in man’s time and man’s space, He was revealing Himself with His very presence. Then Scott spent some time with the symbolic number of six, recounting that man and the “beasts” were made on day six of creation, but with the intent of defining man’s royal purpose on day seven, to honor and worship God. God created for six days, and rested on the seventh, that was our pattern imaged by God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The pattern of divine life for mankind made in God’s image is to work six days, and consecrate

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and offer sacrificially those six days of work to God on the seventh day, the blood covenant day, the day of worship, the day of rest. The seventh day gives holy meaning to the six days that come before. Without the 7th day, the six days that come before lose their meaning. Genesis 2:3 (RSV2CE) 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.

The Sacred Sabbath and the Holy Temple in reality is God carving into our time and space His blood covenant divine life. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus are all the human mediators of those blood covenants, elevating their offices on this earth to more that powerful leaders and kings, raised to God ordained priests offering sacrifices to God through those life or death covenant vows. What is unique about Jesus in that list of Bible giants? How does He stand out from all the rest? He was not only the human representative and mediator of the New (blood) Covenant, He was also the covenant representative as God, and it was His blood that sealed and ratified that eternal covenant initiated at the Last Supper.

Hebrews 8:5–6 (RSV2CE) 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” 6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Here comes the million-dollar question. What happens if you work those six days, but you chose to not to acknowledge God as God, or keep His Sabbath, and all that work ends up being only for your own selfish gain, either snubbing your nose at your creator, or not even believing that He exists at all? Then what? It’s not that you simply forgot the Sabbath, that would be bad enough. You are choosing to defile the Sabbath, and it is clear you have no intention of offering up

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your six days of work in honor and worship of God on the 7th day? There it is again, that ugly original sin taking center stage all over again. Man buys the lie that started way back when, “I don’t need God, I can be my own god, and make my own way, and do everything the way I want to do it”. It didn’t work way back then and guess what…it doesn’t work any better now. When we buy into that ancient life, it puts you and I outside the realm of blood covenant blessings, and in opposition to the very God who gave you the gift of life on this earth.

This is where everything began to make perfect sense to me concerning the famous series of numbers in Revelation, 666, sometimes known as the sign of the devil or the sign of the beast. We have a choice as human beings to be “sevened” worshippers of God, or “sixed” enemies of God, living as those created on the sixth day, but rejecting the 7th day, the day of giving honor and worship to God. The Gentiles in the time of Moses were not just guilty of not remembering the

covenant, their ultimate demise was to not recognize Yahweh, or His blood covenant with the children of Israel, starting with Egypt and then all those pagan kingdoms in the Promised Land. Jericho laughed at the Israelites marching around their impenetrable city walls, so thick you could run chariot races on top of them. They mocked God’s people,

and God, right up until the walls came tumbling down. They worked six days like all the rest of the world, but would not honor the one true God on the Sabbath, the 7th day. Instead they used those 6 days to build their own kingdoms, and create their own idols, ignoring their creator, and marking themselves with the number 6, they were 6-day people, and refused to be “sevened” with God. They were no better than the beasts that were also created on the 6th day. Beasts don’t know any better, the Gentiles knew better, and still refused to bow down to their creator God. The way they chose to live, and their very lives bore the mark of the beast, 666.

This number 6 is all over the Bible, the giant Goliath, who defied God, and mocked the shepherd boy that dared to confront him in battle. Goliath stood “6” cubits tall, and down came the giant by the hand of God. King Nebuchadnezzar, the

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prophet Daniel described as a beast, mocking God he created a massive statue of himself that stood 60 by 6 cubits tall. Then we read this in Revelation chapter 13,Revelation 13:18 (RSV2CE) 18 This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Fast forward to our generation, the new Sabbath day for the Church, for the last 2000+ years that day is Sunday, the day of the resurrection. They early Church called themselves 8th day believers. The 8th day circumcision, the mark of the Old Covenant, had now been replaced with baptism, the mark of entering into the New Covenant. Over time the new converts were baptized into the Church on Easter Sunday, the 8th day, as they are today. But we are part of an entire generation that has for the most part forsaken our creator God, much of America now bows down to the almighty dollar. This generation, including a high percentage of Catholics have not only forgotten the New Sabbath, Sunday Mass, they have patterned their lives in such a way that are violating the Sabbath and have taken on the mark of the beast, 666, working feverishly those six days of the week to build their own little kingdoms, and forsaking Sunday worship and rest in our Father.

The protestant world, by taking the Book of Revelation and making it all about a “rapture theology”, have unknowingly made the 666, the mark of the beast all about the mysterious “anti-Christ”. In reality there is no mystery here, the simple explanation is mankind trying to be his own god. In some ways, that understanding is “anti-Christ”, but not because of a looming apocalyptic rapture. 666 is each and every one of us that choose to not keep the sabbath, and not to honor God with the work of our hands that we accomplished in the previous 6 days. By simply ignoring Sunday Mass, or sadly, just going through the motions and not truly encountering God on the 8th day, the day of resurrection, we might as well have 666 tattooed on our foreheads. We are already marked, and we are telling the world that we are building our own kingdom. This is a powerful understanding, in many ways, more powerful than the “rapture theology” assigns to it. There are a whole bunch of folks trying to figure out the mysterious 666 mark of the beast, totally blind to the fact they carry the mark of the beast in the way they ignore God, and selfishly build kingdoms of their own. Now that I think about it, it is no coincidence that graves are dug, 6 feet deep. Why three, 666, instead of just 6. Remember the Hebrew language does not have the concept in

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words of strong, stronger, strongest. So, to emphasize an idea, they either say it twice for emphasis or three times to really make a point. So, in this case 666 is a very strong emphasis on the 6th day beast…beast, beastier, beastiest. I want my life to be marked with a different number, and I know you are with me, Father God mark everything we do in this life with 777. Amen.

Not this one…

This one…

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