circle of prayer 10. the week. one

i am putting the week after the month because it is "discoverable," i think, only as a derivitve, a sub-division of the month. yet of all the divisions of time, with the possible exception of a human life, it is the one most loaded wtih meaning. i have mentioned the background for the week's density of metaphor when i looked at the day, evening and morning, as the basic unit of creation and therefore of revelation.

six days of creation plus the one holy day of the sabbath is the week. although it is an understanding that is largely lost in the modern industrial world of work week and "week end," except by observant jews, it is this week that is fulfilled in the christian week of the new creation: six days of creation, plus the one holy day of the sabbath, plus the eighth day, the first day of the new creation which is not just holy, but the day of the lord.

it was the sabbath that first brought the jews the understanding that the holy one dwells, and is revealed, and is worshipped, in time as well as space. (abraham j. heschel discusses this understanding beautifully in sabbath: its meanings for modern man.) the week becomes a spiritual bracelet, a setting for this holy and glorious jewel, the sabbath.

of course it was possible to misuse this bracelet, to turn something spiritual and glorious into something legalistic and pedantic, and the gospels provide us ample of illustrations of how that happens. but we would be in grave error if we let ourselves mistake misunderstanding for reality.

the most glorious thing about the week adorned by the sabbath is that it was only a prophecy of the more wonderfully bejewelled week to come. the week that remembers the holy one's creation of all things is a foreshadowing of the holy one's recreation of all things in christ jesus. (see, for example, the gospel according to matthew 19:28, and 2 corinthians 5:17.) the seventh day of the week, the day the holy one rested from all the work of creation, becomes the day christ jesus rests in the earth, having finished (see the gospel according to john 19:30) the work of the new creation.

then comes the most amazing event. early in the morning of the first day of the week, jesus' disciples find that his tomb is empty, that he is risen. the first day of the week becomes the first day of the new creation, a day so wondrous it is called by the early church the eighth day.

the first day becomes the lord's day, the day of christian rejoicing and worship. (see revelation 1:10; the bible begins and ends on the first day of the week.) the church in the east will continue to mark the sabbath in addition to the lord's day; the greek church will remember the connection between creation and the week by assigning psalm 104 to saturday vespers; the western church will keep that connection in her worship by assigning the canticle of the three young men, benedicte, omnia opera, to saturday morning. but with the resurrection comes a new spiritual bracelet, the week as the setting for the lord's day, the eighth day, the day of light, the day of the resurrection, the day of the spirit.