Scripture frames the Sabbath not merely as sacred time, but as sacred relationship. It is a sign, visible, embodied, unmistakable, that God is Creator, Sustainer, and Restorer. Psalm 92 gives voice to this reality: morning and night, melody and gratitude, joy rising from the works of God’s hands. The Sabbath sings because creation is being made whole again.
1 It is good to praise the Lord
and make music to your name, O Most High,
2 proclaiming your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night,
3 to the music of the ten-stringed lyre
and the melody of the harp.
4 For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I sing for joy at what your hands have done.
5 How great are your works, Lord,
how profound your thoughts!
6 Senseless people do not know,
fools do not understand,
7 that though the wicked spring up like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they will be destroyed forever.
There are many theological conversations surrounding the Sabbath, but I do not experience it as an either/or debate. I experience it as contextual and lived. In this season, the sign between God and His people looks like Jesus turning human lives into billboards of grace. Again and again, Jesus healed on the Sabbath. These were not accidental acts or theological provocations for their own sake. They were signs. Every restored body, every liberated soul, every life pulled back from the edge of death became a walking billboard, evidence that the relationship between God and humanity was being repaired. Within those twenty-four sacred hours, Jesus replayed the creation story repeatedly. He used dust, breath, touch, word, and will to show that He is both Lord of Creation and Lord of the Sabbath.
When Jesus declares, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28), He reveals its heart. Sabbath is not passive inactivity; it is restorative justice. It is the undoing of what sin and evil have stolen: peace, relationships, community, fellowship, worship. Illness and death are signs of loss, but on the Sabbath, Jesus dismantled those signs and replaced them with living testimony: people walking, praising, singing, exactly as the psalmist describes.
John reminds us that what is written is only a fraction:
“There are also many other things which Jesus did… I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25, KJ21).
Like the stars promised to Abraham, the miracles of Christ cannot be counted. And one day, when we stand restored on the sea of glass, we ourselves will be the billboards, living signs of what God has done. It will take ages to read every testimony. For me, this is not abstract theology. My surgery was on a Friday. By Sabbath evening, there was marked improvement, so much so that the medical team stood in awe. I became a sign to them of the relationship between my God and me. Some even calling on the name of God for the first time from seeing how rapidly I was improving before their eyes. Medicine was being confounded and the language of healing was used to explain. Two Sabbaths later, the sign continues. I am walking without aid. Healing has advanced weeks ahead of expectation. Restoration is still speaking.
The Sabbath, then, is a gift: rest in connection, rest in healing, rest in the quiet confidence that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. This is why I delight in the Sabbath. This is why Psalm 92 is my call to action, gratitude as testimony, joy as witness, healing as sign. Even contemporary research affirms what Scripture has long proclaimed: rhythms of rest are deeply connected to healing and restoration in the human body and mind (see: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30972608/).
The Sabbath still erects signs.
And some of the most powerful ones walk among us.
Amen.
