Friends

As I write my final reflection of the church year, and the various newsletter editors take a well-earned break for the month of August, I am reminded of the extraordinary gift we were given when God created rest. Genesis 2:2-3 tells us: “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

In the ancient Hebrew understanding, this was the only time that God rested – just the once and not every week – as he is constantly at work upholding, sustaining and supporting his Creation. Indeed, it would make a mockery of all we try to do on a Sunday if God was resting! God surely does not need to rest, but we do. In his infinite wisdom, God created rest and the idea of a day off a week which was un-known among the tribes of the Ancient Near East and unique to the Hebrew experience.

After the creation of the Church at Pentecost, there were many martyrs and initially, each of them were given a day to be remembered upon. For example, St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, has his saint’s day on Boxing Day. Christians would have these days as holidays (holy days) to reflect and pray, but eventually there became too many of them and they were all encapsulated in All Saints’ Day on the 1st of November. But the idea of Holy Days as days off for rest, recuperation and reflection held – to say nothing of the Mediaeval fairs - and so we have our annual “holidays” now. It is a sad thing that increasingly this is referred to not as “holiday” but as “leave” – short for “leave of absence”. What were days to reflect on the power and impact of the Gospel story and those who were prepared to die for it, have become days on which we have permission not to be at work. The result is still the same – days off for the work force – but it helps us to forget that all of this has come from an understanding that God, who created the earth and the heavens and all that was in them and saw that they were good recognised that we too needed time to reflect on the goodness of creation. As the poet WH Davies said, “What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

Have a great summer holiday.

God bless

Vicci