Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

by A.J. Swoboda

The Sabbath creates space for rest and play in our lives. The prophet Zechariah looks hopefully to a future day in which our cities would have space for play: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there” (Zech. 8:4–5). Such an urban environment has space, places for play, for walking, for talking. Even children play in the street. Can you imagine New York City without Central Park? Whenever God dreams of a city, like a dream for our lives, he dreams of places where we are not so crowded and full that we have no room to play in the streets. The Sabbath makes room for us to play outside once again, like when we were kids. Rather than rest God’s way, we have replaced Sabbath with a kind of therapeutic individualism that seeks to self-entertain, self-please, self-soothe. Christopher Lasch has described this kind of therapeutic culture that is focused on getting the self to sense bliss: “People today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.”56