God's cosmic opus and why we
need a rest day each week
Astronomers tell us we need the 29th day of February from time to time. The Ten Commandments tell us we need a day for God once every seven days. A schoolboy once asked: If God is so powerful, why didn't he create everything on the first day and take the rest of the week off? He would have six days dedicated to him and life would be much easier.
Centuries before Christians decided to make this the Lord's Day (because of Jesus' resurrection), a curious phenomenon took hold of the human psyche and has ruled the world ever since. Ancient man could see seven heavenly lights forever changing their position against a background of fixed stars. The Babylonians came up with the idea of naming a day for each one, thinking they were gods. We have stuck to a seven-day week ever since, using more or less the same names: Sunday for the sun, Monday for the moon, Saturday for Saturn. The Anglo-Saxon equivalents for the other visible planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus) are Tiw, Woden, Thor and Freya. Add the possessive "s" and you get Tiwsday, Wodensday, Thorsday and Freyasday.
Since the seven-day week has an unapologetically pagan pedigree, some people feel a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. They fret when atheists accuse Christianity of being nothing more than a pious elaboration on creation myths and fertility cults. The first page of Genesis starts to look less like divine wisdom and more like a heretical holdover. It looks even worse when considering the scientific data. Coherent believers had to abandon the idea that God's cosmic opus was neatly squeezed into half a dozen 24-hour periods. Since it took a lot longer than six days to get from "Let there be light" to Adam and Eve, a lot of ink has covered a lot of pages trying to explain where that leaves the "seventh day" of the "first week".
When revealing everything to Moses on top of the mountain, God may have been content to go along with the Israelites' cultural prejudices about the proper number of days for a week as long as one day was dedicated to him. Or maybe there is a mysterious parallel with the seven angels standing before God's throne. In either case, the Law of Moses stresses an equally odd element in the story, namely, rest. Which brings us back to the main question. Why do we need to rest every seven days? Why not every twelve? Why not every three?
The ultimate proof that the biblical notion of the seventh day transcends anything Abraham picked up from his days in Babylon lies here. It enshrines not only a custom that helps us relax in a hectic world but a belief that this world will come to an end � to be followed by another world where nothing ever changes. No other civilisation came up with this idea. The Jews were unique in holding this faith. They insisted that God has a plan and that we are the plan. God wants a creature who is as perfect an image of his infinite, immutable being as anything finite and fragile can possibly be. Once he gets what he wants, creation will be finished, this world will come to an end and eternity will take over.
It is good to worry about constitutions and presidential powers. Peace and justice depend on having good laws and keeping them. It is good to go to Mars and all the planets. We might find signs of life and get a better idea of how God created it. But the day is coming when none of this will matter any more. The only law will be the law of love. The only ruler will be the Prince of Peace. No more Bomas. No more Goldenberg. No more politics. No more evolution. No more births. No more deaths.
Take a day off, God seems to say to us every Sunday, and remember: "I shall make the earth shake once more and not only the earth but heaven as well. The things being shaken are created things. They are going to be changed, so that the unshakeable things will be left."
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