Complicated Simplicity

Growing up Adventist I was exposed to a lot of “dos” and “don’ts” in my life. I was allowed to watch nature shows on Sabbath, but I wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons (unless they were about Biblical characters). I was allowed eat whatever I wanted, as long as it wasn’t meat. You could go swimming…so long as the water didn’t come past your ankles. Is this starting to sound familiar?

Now that I’m older I’ve given some thought to all these rules and regulations. It seems to me that the Christian Church as a whole tends to be very official and demanding in what it says God wants of us. Now, most Christian religions won’t go so far as to say you won’t be saved if you break some of the lifestyle rules the church has laid out, but for most it is implied. No one says you will be saved even if you happen to break a rule here or there.

Well, in my experience, being told you couldn’t do this, than, and the next thing on Sabbath gave me a very distorted view of God. I saw a God who was like a policeman, waiting for me to do something bad so He could zap me. The sad thing is that at church, in Sabbath school, this idea was perpetuated to the point where I left the church for awhile.

To me this goes against everything the Bible says about God. The Jews in Jesus’ time were even more into rules and regulations about God and the Sabbath than most religions today. You couldn’t walk more than a certain amount of paces outside your house, you couldn’t spit, you couldn’t do this, that, or the other thing because you were supposed be focused totally on God. But then God Himself, in His Son Jesus, set it all straight.

Jesus practiced a simple lifestyle. He didn’t seek wealth, riches, and to force people to worship Him through action or inaction. Jesus wanted people to follow Him because they chose to out of love. Not only that, but Jesus said that we should always be willing to help our fellow man, no matter what day of the week it is. This simplistic teaching, which made salvation so easy to obtain for all men, did not go over well with the religious leaders of the day, and eventually they had Jesus crucified. In doing so, however, they reinforced everything He taught.

One thing Jesus said when talking to the Pharisees really sticks out in my mind. He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus wanted us to take a day out of the week to relax, get away from our daily stressors, and just enjoy the simplicity of things. He didn’t want the Sabbath to become and even more stressful day just because we were so caught up in doing or not doing something to please Him. God’s reasoning behind the Sabbath was to designate a day that we could hang out with Him, as friends, and just enjoy each others company. How complicated is that?