Holy Word, Catechism
By Rev. William M. Cwirla
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. (Small Catechism)
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like the way this commandment goes in the German version of the small catechism: “You shall holy the holiday.” What makes a holiday a holy day is the Word of God, which is ultimately what this commandment is all about—the gift of God’s Word and our restful hearing of it. In the Old Testament, the Sabbath Day was the seventh day: what we know as Saturday, the last day
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of the week. In the creative week, God rested on the seventh day (Genesis 1). The word Sabbath (Hebrew: shabbat) means “rest.” Notice that God didn’t say anything on the seventh day. He spoke for six days, creating, ordering, and naming everything by His Word, but on the seventh day He rested and declared the seventh day “holy.” It was set apart from the other days and capped off the week. “For in six days the
