Exodus 35

The Lord said more about the Sabbath than any of the other nine commandments that He gave to Israel through Moses in Exodus 20. He kept on coming back to it. Even when the Messiah came, He was insistent in showing the Pharisees that they were wrong about this commandment. They turned resting into a work. What a great irony. The command to not work became a work of righteousness for them, by which they thought they could work their way to peace with God. Jesus continually healed people on the Sabbath. That could not have been an accident. He insisted that Sabbath was about wholeness. His enemies insisted that His words of wholeness that brought life to the desperate were done on the wrong day of the week.

There was always something mysterious about Sabbath. It seemed so obvious. What could be more obvious or more keepable? All you had to do was not do? Yet that not doing had become a mountain of law in the rabbinic tradition that told you how to safely do all that not doing. When Jesus came, Sabbath came in person. Sabbath spoke wholeness to the sick and demon-possessed and they were made well. When Sabbath died, He rose again on the first day of the week, and a new Day of the Lord was alive.

“Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.” Sabbath was a matter of life and death to God and to Israel. What a mystery! “You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.” Why was rest so serious? There must have been some holy work behind this commandment that only God could do, some wining of rest for the people of God that only the Lord could accomplish. The day for that great work of the Lord came when Sabbath came in person. He accomplished all righteousness and then completed His perfect work with one great act of obedience, His death for a people that did not even know how to rest rightly. That work of the cross was His alone to do. His resurrection was the proof that this great work was effectual. Now we rest in the greater light of God's accomplished work for us in Christ, the work that brought us eternal wholeness.

The Israelites needed to hear about Sabbath again before they returned to the construction of the Tabernacle. Old Testament Sabbath was an encouragement that a great rest was coming in the One who would do the works that we could not do. It was time to get back to the construction of the Lord's moveable house of worship. It was time to resume the story that had been interrupted by the making of a calf idol. God would be merciful and just to His people. How would He do this? The answer was not yet fully revealed. The people needed to rest in Him as they began to build what God had shown to Moses on top of the mountain.

The Lord had Moses collect all the contributions from the people. They had left Egypt with gifts from the Egyptians. Some of those gifts they had squandered on idolatry. They had unnecessarily impoverished themselves by their foolish desires. But there was much left over that the Lord would use for the building of The Tabernacle. This would be brought forward not by compulsion, but by a voluntary offering. Their Lord, who owned everything, was determined to use their generous hearts in the building of His Kingdom. All of the necessary materials were mentioned, along with all of the items to be made that the Lord had displayed before Moses. God stirred the hearts of the people, and they gave what He placed within their hearts to give. Only God could bring about such a wonderful result from a people that had so recently displayed such an inclination toward idolatry.

The plan of the Lord was perfect. The people were moved to offer up the objects they had carried out of the land. Ornaments and garments that had been placed on the necks of their children would soon be a part of the Lord's house of worship.

Imagine what this offering was like: brooches, earrings, signet rings, armlets, a variety of gold objects, yarns, fine linen, goats' hair, rams' skins, goatskins, silver, bronze, even acacia wood was given for the work of the Lord. Not only that, some of these objects required some labor in order to make them more useful for the skilled craftsmen who would do the building. Cloth was spun by many hands, and all kinds of gifts were brought to the Lord. Onyx stones, other gems, spices, oil,... everyone did their part, and the Lord was the One who brought it all about. Yet each person gave and worked freely. What a mystery to see God use His people to accomplish His great plans.

But the Lord would use a spirit-filled man to take all of these voluntary offerings and to construct this space according to His holy will. In our day, Christ is the builder of His church and of the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness shall dwell forever. He alone has the skill, intelligence, knowledge, and the eye for beauty to build up the Lord's dwelling place. He will not settle for less than His Father desires. He will make us into a perfect temple for His Spirit.

We are called to work on this eternal house for the Lord as we proclaim His Word and do what He reveals. But only He can lead us in this great task. It is right for us to rest in Him on the first day of the week, and then to work for Him as those who know that His perfect work has won for us our eternal Sabbath.