09/06/2026
Did you ever notice the patterns in Genesis, chapter 1? There’s lots, and lots, and lots of them. Their parallel patterns, repeating patterns, numeric patterns, and one pattern in particular that I’ve noticed that seems to raise a question. Why does it say “it was evening, It was morning… the first day… second day… third day….” Why evening and morning? Have you ever noticed that the Jewish Day starts in the evening? I know you’re probably asking why so many questions, or why does it even matter.
When we recognize that Genesis chapter 1 is full of rhythms and repeats and patterns, we should recognize that it has the structure of poetry. It has the structure of poetry known as chiasm. Whether it’s repeating patterns or rhythmic patterns, or parallel patterns the meaning of a chiasm is always found at the center. When we begin to look and read Genesis chapter 1 with this understanding of its literary structure, we find at the center of this poem the word in the Hebrew Shabbat. In English translations it says seasons, but the Hebrew word is Shabbat, the word for rest. The whole point of the poem is a God telling his people, who for 400 years were only seen as valuable for what they produced, to rest. And God punctuates that point when he comes to the end of creating and he rests. And there’s some other unique things about rest that we see not only in the poem, but also in the way in which he instructs his people to follow him.
The Jewish day begins in the evening because they read this poem and understood it to be about rest and so their day begins preparing to go to work by resting, knowing that the God that created them loves them, values them, desires them because they are his creation and that alone is why he belongs to them. We in our western reading tend to read Genesis and think of the last day, the seventh day of rest coming after the work but to a Jewish reader of this poem, they understood that rest came first. As we continue on, we see these rhythms continue in their practices around the number 7. “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed. (Ex. 23:12) A day where there was to be no work, only resting, worship of God. In their farming practices they were instructed “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, (Ex. 23:10-11). George Washington Carver, scientist, educator and best known for promotion of the peanut, “discovered” the benefit of crop rotation. By letting the ground rest it improved production. There are many other patterns of seven or multiples throughout the Jewish instruction that are also reflected in the creation if we stop and look for them. But what’s the point?
Rhythms of Rest are in the original design of creation. In the instructions God gave to his people to follow. And those are not just arbitrary, they are for a reason. We are designed to rest. Having a regular rhythm of rest increases our productivity as people and as the stewards of the creation who follows the rhythm of rest. This is counter cultural. We live in a world and time that is driven by maximized production. Rest is considered unproductive or bad, even sinfully selfish. But we were created to have rhythms of rest. Not just downtime doing nothing or a regular vacation, though these may be a part, but rest that focuses us on the truth that we are God's creation and that is the source of our “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Ok, in all seriousness our rhythm of rest is to be an act of worshiping the God who created us and tells us that because he created us we are enough. Do you have a rhythm of resting worship? What if every Sunday you came to worship God, resting in his word that you are his beloved creation, and that is enough.
