Describe the importance and meaning of the Sabbath both in the time of Jesus and for Christians today.

Through the years this attitude has changed a great deal and in my opinion will keep going until the Sabbath becomes “just another day”. People have begun to think, ”If nobody makes us worship, then why should we.” People who had just been relieved from pressure to follow the laws on the Sabbath would probably thought that they have been given a break so would choose not to abide by the Sabbath rules any longer. This perhaps started the “trend” of not following the laws on a Sabbath. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if the earlier Christians had of only taken the Sabbath laws slightly less strictly, no gone off them all together nearly.

The book of Exodus gets the point across about how fierce and strict the laws were. “He that shall do any work, shall be put to death”, showing how important it is not to work and showing how relevant not working on the Sabbath is as it is written in the bible in such a stern manner. The book of Genesis says about how Jesus rested on the Seventh day and implies that we too ,should do the same, as with most of Jesus’ acts.

This change in attitude to the Sabbath sparked a chain of events, which was and will continue to turn everybody’s attitude round to it. Things will never improve to as they were back in the time of Jesus, they will only get worse. It has ended up in the majority of the places that worship the Sabbath, that most shops open for business, major football and other sports events are showed in pubs on the Sabbath and many normal citizens get on with work in their extra time. Some of the above acts would nearly be as bad as murder in the court of law in the time of Jesus, and would result in extremely serious punishments. These days it is “the norm’”

Some people, like the Orthodox and Liberal reform Jews still take the Sabbath very seriously, like in the time of Jesus. It would seem that the above “trends” have not caught on to these branches of religion and they have still managed to keep Sunday special and Gods day. People who worship God in this way will most likely be the people who keep religion going whereas with the Roman Catholics who go to mass because of pressure from parents and tradition, not because they want to go to express their faith have a good chance of dragging their religion down to the point where it will no longer exist. This, the survival of the religion is why attitude to the Sabbath is so vital.

                                        Philip O’ Hare