Why the Early
Christians Celebrated the
Lord's Day
.
edited by Mark Kinzer
In the Book of Nehemiah, there is a passage which
is puzzling to many people today:
“And Nehemiah, who was the governor,
and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites
who taught the people said to all the people,
“This day is holy to the Lord your God do not
mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when
they heard the words of the law. Then he said to
them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet
wine and send portions to him for whom nothing
is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord;
and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord
is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:9-10
It is puzzling because we have lost an
understanding of celebration (and of mourning as
well). The people described in the passage had
just heard and understood the words of the law,
and they had discovered that they were not keeping
them. They began to mourn out of repentance when
Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites told the people
not to mourn. They said that the people should
rejoice because the day was holy to the Lord (the
first day of the seventh month, “the feast of
trumpets,” cf. Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers
29:1-6). So the people began to celebrate.
This passage illustrates some important truths for
us. It shows, first of all, that joy or rejoicing
is more than feeling happy. When the Levites told
the people to rejoice, they told them to hold a
feast. They told them, in other words, to
celebrate. Rejoicing (or joy) for the Israelites
was not just a feeling, but it was something they
did. To rejoice is to celebrate, to express the
goodness of the occasion in a joyful way. We can
see this also in the Book of Deuteronomy when it
instructs the people to celebrate the great feasts
like Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles. It tells
them to come to Jerusalem, make an offering, and
“rejoice before the Lord your God” (16:11), that
is, it tells them to celebrate in God’s presence.
We celebrate certain days or events because it is
good and right to do so. It would not have been
proper for the Israelites to mourn on a festival
day. We celebrate because celebrating is a way of
honoring God. Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites told
the people that the day was “holy to the Lord your
God.” That meant that it was set apart (holy) to
honor the Lord. The people, therefore, were
supposed to celebrate in order to honor the Lord.
Finally, we celebrate as an expression of
gratitude for the good things God has done for us.
Celebrating is also a great benefit to us. ‘The
joy of the Lord (rejoicing in the Lord) is our
strength.” When we celebrate God’s goodness and
what he has done for us, we are strengthened and
refreshed. Our God is a God who wishes us to share
his joy (and his strength) when we worship him. To
be sure, sometimes we should worship him soberly,
humbling ourselves in repentance and mourning. But
the main times of worship under the old covenant
and the new covenant are times of
celebration—rejoicing in God’s presence. The
Lord’s Day is one of these times of celebration.
The Early Christians
Celebrated the Lord’s Day
We can see in the Scripture indications that the
early Christians observed the Lord’s Day. John, in
the Book of Revelation, says, “I was in the Spirit
on the Lord’s Day” (1:10). Likewise, we read of
Paul gathering with the Christians at Troas on the
first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and instructing
the Christians at Corinth to set aside
contributions for the community at Jerusalem on
the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2).
Sunday seems to have been a special day for the
first Christians and was used as a day for
gathering together. Probably it was the day of
assembly because it commemorated the resurrection
of the Lord which had occurred on Sunday.
The earliest writings from within a hundred years
of the death of the last apostle indicate even
more clearly the way the Christians marked Sunday.
Some of these writings explain what they
understood the Lord’s Day to be:
The celebration of the
resurrection: Ignatius of Antioch,
writing within twenty years of the death of the
apostle John, said, “every friend of Christ keep
the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection
day, the queen and chief of all days of the week
and on which our life sprang up again and
victory over death was obtained in Christ.”
To the Magnesians, 9
The celebration of creation and the new
creation: Justin Martyr, a convert who was
born and raised near Jacob’s well, writing about
forty years later, said, “But Sunday is the day
on which we hold our common assembly, because it
is the first day on which God, having wrought a
change in the darkness and matter, made the
world; and Jesus Christ, our Savior, on the same
day rose from the dead.”
First Apology, 67
The celebration of the beginning of the age
to come: The Epistle of Barnabas, written
about the time Ignatius wrote, says, “I will
make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, the
beginning of another world. Wherefore, also we
keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day on
which Jesus rose again from the dead.” section
15
Since Sunday was the day after the seventh day, it
was the eighth day as well as the first day. Since
the seven days symbolized God’s original creation
of the world, the eighth day can be seen as the
beginning of the new creation, the world to come.
In the New Testament as well (1 Peter 3:20; 2
Peter 2:5) the number eight seems to have been
seen as a symbol of the new creation. The early
Christians knew that they were participating
through the Spirit in the age to come and prayed
on the Lord’s Day that Jesus might come and bring
in the new age completely: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
(Revelation 22:20).
Sunday Is the Lord’s
Day for Christians
Sunday, then, is the weekly celebration of the
Christian people. It is the day on which they
gather together to celebrate the resurrection, the
completion of the work of redemption, the day in
which the new creation was inaugurated and
therefore the day on which the age to come was
opened to the human race. It is the day on which
the true sun of righteousness rose with healing in
his rays (Malachi 4:2). Just as Easter is the
major yearly celebration for Christians, so Sunday
is the major weekly celebration for Christians. It
is a day to rejoice in our hope (Romans 12:12).
The celebration of the Lord’s Day holds a similar
place for Christians to the place the celebration
of the Sabbath held for Jews. Christians who were
not born or circumcised as Jews were not obligated
by the New Testament to keep the seventh day (cf.
Colossians 2:16; Galatians 4:10). That was the day
of celebration for those who were under the Mosaic
law. However, Christians since then have usually
seen a connection between the Sabbath and the
Lord’s Day.
Some Christians have said simply that the Lord’s
Day is the Christian Sabbath. Christians keep the
Sabbath commandment on Sunday rather than
Saturday, and so Sunday is the new covenant
Sabbath. Others have said that the Sabbath
commandment was given to teach that one day a week
should be set aside for the worship of God.
Christians have to keep the commandment, but they
do not have to do it on the seventh day. Taking a
day of rest and worship is part of God’s purpose
for the human race and therefore obligatory, but
doing it on the seventh day was only obligatory
for the Jews. For Christians, it is more fitting
to do soon the first day, the day of the
resurrection. Finally, other Christians have said
that setting aside a day of rest and worship is
not obligatory at all, but nonetheless it is very
valuable to do, and one of the purposes of the
Sabbath commandment is to teach us the value of
such a custom. Although these views show some
difference among Christians as to the relationship
of the observance of the Lord’s Day to the Sabbath
commandment, almost all Christians see the
importance of having such a day and accept the
first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, as the
weekly day of celebration for Christians.
What Christians have
learned about the Lord’s Day
There are many truths that Christians have learned
from the Sabbath celebration and applied through
the centuries. They have, as we have said, learned
first of all the value of setting aside one day
for the worship of God. They have also learned the
value of the day of rest. The true rest is to
cease from our sins, but that rest is symbolized
by a day of rest in which we cease form our work.
Rest is not inactivity, but it is a change of
activity. In this case, rest is ceasing from the
work by which we support ourselves and maintain
our life and instead taking on the activity of
worshiping. It is therefore a day of gathering
together, of prayer and Christian study, of giving
alms and doing good (like visiting the sick). It
is a day for the Christian community and for the
family. It is not so much a “day off,” though it
can be that, but a day in which we do “not go our
own ways or seek our own pleasure or talk idly”
(Isaiah 58:13), a day to honor God.
Finally, Christians have learned from the Sabbath
that the Lord’s Day is a time of celebration, a
time to “take delight in the Lord.” It is a day in
which the joy of the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord,
can be our strength. Here, especially, modern
Christians need to learn something. They need to
learn how to celebrate again. There was a time
when Christians knew how to take a feast day and
celebrate, and Christians in many places of the
world still do. But for most Christians modern
life has eroded an understanding of how to keep a
feast. For that reason, we can learn again an old
truth from the celebration of the Sabbath.
The
article is adapted from Family
Worship , edited by Mark Kinzer
and Jim Berlucchi, previously
published by Servant Publications in
1990, and a new expanded edition
published in 2004 by (c) The Sword of
the Spirit.
Top
image: Christian Agape Meal, late 3rd
century AD, from the sarcophagus of Baebia
Hertofilae
|
