The secret is out: the Sabbath is a godsend. And people throughout the Christian world are getting excited about it. A glowing Los Angeles Times (6/30/01) review of Wayne Muller’s book, Sabbath: Finding Rest Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, asserts that the volume should contain a warning label: "This book will change your life." It goes on to talk about the value of a Sabbath for a balanced life, the importance of Sabbath (it’s a commandment, after all), and the tremendous benefits that observing a Sabbath can bring. The Sabbath could change the world, Muller believes, if enough people kept it.

Actually, I first ran across Muller’s book on Sabbath a couple of years ago while browsing at Powells, the famous bookstore in Portland, and glanced at the opening pages. Muller explained the book’s background by saying he felt a need for something that would enhance his spiritual life on a substantial level, something beyond "five minutes to live by" and that sort of thing. He wanted a way to feed his soul for a significant period of time on a regular basis. So, he says, he decided to talk to people who knew how to do this. I held my breath, hoping he would say "Seventh-day Adventists." But, instead, he said, "Orthodox Jews." He went to a good source, as anyone who has read Heschel’s classic on the Sabbath can testify. But I couldn’t help feeling a letdown. Seventh-day Adventists have been observing Sabbath for a century and a half, we are the largest Sabbath-keeping Christian community, and we even emphasize Sabbath in our denominational name. Wouldn’t we be a natural resource for fellow Christians who want a Sabbath experience?

Like a lot of Adventists, I believe that Sabbath is the best thing Adventism has going for it. It is the one thing former Adventists miss most. And to some fellow Christians, it is the most attractive thing about our community. My wife and I developed a close friendship with another couple during my years as a graduate student in Chicago. They were active members of a local Christian congregation, but they were interested in what we believed. We studied the Bible together for quite a while. They saw the central role that Sabbath played in our personal lives. And they liked what they saw. If we had plans for a Saturday evening together, they would often say, "Could we come to your apartment a little early, so we could share part of Sabbath with you?"

This was a far cry from the reaction to Sabbath I had encountered in high school several years before. There, I bore a strong witness to the importance of the Sabbath. I carefully explained to the band director, the track coach, the Latin teacher, the girl who asked me to a dance, and numerous classmates what I could and couldn’t do between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday each week. Everyone seemed to respect my dedication, but nobody said, "Boy, I wish our church had a Sabbath!" So, our Chicago friends were different.

I think the difference between these responses lies in the contrast between "Sabbath observance" and "Sabbath experience." Like many Adventists, I grew up observing the Sabbath. Our family and friends were very clear on what we could and couldn’t do during the sacred hours. As I grew older, I began to experience the Sabbath in a more profound way. I became less worried about commandment keeping and more interested in spiritual fulfillment. The meaning of Sabbath really hit me one day in the middle of my comprehensive examinations in graduate school. I took three exams at the end of one week and faced two more at the beginning of the next, so I had a Sabbath in between. As my wife and I strolled the sidewalks of southside Chicago that day, I realized that the value of my life did not depend on the outcome of those tests. The Sabbath confers a significance that nothing in the world can take away. The blessed interruption of Sabbath put my priorities in order.

This general shift in the thinking of many Adventists from Sabbath observance to Sabbath experience accompanied a similar shift from a doctrine of the Sabbath to a theology of the Sabbath. We can pinpoint this transition to a date in the early 1960s when the Claremont SDA church in southern California invited Abraham Joshua Heschel to speak on the Sabbath. (A college sophomore at the time, I went surfing instead of hearing Heschel, I am sorry to report.) The rabbi’s exploration of the Sabbath’s significance directed Adventist attention to the immense theological potential of Sabbath, and from then on, numerous Adventists, including Niels-Erik Andreasen, Samuele Bacchiocchi, Roy Branson, John Brunt, Fritz Guy, and Sakae Kubo, to name just a few, have explored its meaning in depth. Instead of the "which day and why" approach that Adventists had traditionally taken to the Sabbath, scholars began to explore the meaning of the Sabbath for all of Christian faith and life.

Now we have an opportunity to expand our efforts. The larger Christian world is taking an interest in Sabbath, both theologically and experientially. Influential theologians like Jurgen Moltmann have discussed it, the Pope spoke of it in a recent encyclical (see Spectrum for some reactions), and articles on the value of Sabbath have appeared in mainstream religious publications like Christianity Today and The Christian Century. A thoughtful perspective on the meaning and the experience of Sabbath is something we are uniquely equipped to offer the larger Christian world. So, how should we do it? More books on Sabbath meaning and Sabbath experience will be helpful. What about Sabbath retreats designed specifically for non-Adventists or for non-Adventist pastors? How about how-to manuals for families on making a whole twenty-four hours spiritually meaningful, from a candle-lit welcome to a stirring farewell?

There’s one question that may nag some Adventists at this point, and that’s the relation between the Sabbath experience and the Sabbath day. What if we succeeded in making people better Sunday keepers? What would that mean for our theology? Or our eschatology? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that it should hinder us. After all, we are perfectly willing to share other aspects of the Adventist experience with the world at large, like our commitment to healthful living. If all God’s gifts are meant to be shared, this is surely true of one as important as Sabbath rest.

I like a good deal of what I’ve read about Muller’s book, and I look forward to reading it. But I hope the next time I see a book about the joy of Sabbath for the general public, it will come from an Adventist author.

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