There is this fascinating statement very early on in the Hebrew Scriptures which makes a statement about the divine, that, frankly, no one sees coming.  We are told this about the Giver of all things: “On the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.”

Huh?

In case we forgot who we are told it was that rested and was refreshed, in case we forgot what he was capable of doing, we are reminded as a preface to this confounding statement, “for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth.”

Wait a sec.  The One who is capable of making the heavens and the earth in six days needed to rest and be refreshed?

Many of us who grew up in the Christian tradition instinctively try and find ways of working around this.  We grew up being told that God is all powerful and all knowing and all present and all and all and all.  God doesn’t need to rest.  God doesn’t need to be refreshed.

And yet there it is.

The word for refreshed here literally means to catch one’s breath.  The Scriptures speak of God needing to stop—cease and desist—and catch his breath.

God, out of breath.

The implications of this become quite clear when you notice that this comes at the end of a passage that begins like this, “Observe the Sabbath…” (Sabbath, in Hebrew, literally means to “cease and desist”.)

In other words, if God needs to stop after six days to catch His breath…

Who do we think we are not to?

At the very beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures, we are told that God formed the universe in the rhythm of a week, building all that is on the first six days of the week, and resting on the seventh.  What follows is this repeating command for us to do the same.  It is repeated again…and again…and again…and again.

(Those of us who are parents know exactly what is going on here.  There is only one reason you repeat something over and over and over again to your child.)

The Giver continues to communicate to us that this is how we are made, this is how the world really works.  This command is given to a people who had been in slavery for over 400 years.  In the story that recounts their being freed by this God, we hear that the political powers at the time were working them as you would a slave: constantly.  And when they wanted a day to gather as a community simply to pay attention to the Sacred in their midst, the authorities increased their labor.  And when the people complained, they were told that they were lazy.

Can you imagine living in a world that required you to always be on, to constantly be available, that looked down on you if you weren’t perpetually in motion?

I mean, what would happen to a people who actually lived like that?

The ancient Hebrew texts mapped out what happens to a people who live as if everyday is a workday of some kind: the people fall back into slavery, they begin to fight with one another, and even the land begins to suffer.

For thousands of years, there has been this wisdom that there needs to be a rhythm to how we work, and how we rest.  Working, going, striving is good, but not apart from appropriately resting, stopping, and simply being.  Every week is meant to rhyme with every other week in this way.

And when people don’t live into this symmetry, their bodies…and their homes…and their land begin to fall apart.  Maybe not at first.  But eventually.

What if our broken families…and broken climate…and broken bodies…were on some level the result of our inability to pay attention to this one very specific invitation to weekly cease and desist?

What if we’ve gotten too used to being out of breath?

What if we need to be more intentional about catching our breath again?