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Father Alexander Schmemann, memory eternal was the dean and professor of liturgical theology at St. Vladimir's Seminary, the most esteemed English language seminary in Orthodox Christianity. His illustrious predecessor was Fr. Georges Florovsky, memory eternal, and his successors include Fr. Thomas Hopko, memory eternal, and currently Fr. John Behr. His work The Life of the World is considered a masterpiece of liturgical theology, and is widely read by Protestand and Catholic theologians as well as by the Orthodox.
Here is what he has to say on the sacred, mystical importance of Sabbath and the Lord's Day:
From the beginning Christians had their own day, and it is in its peculiar nature that we find the key to the Christian experience of time. To recover it, however, we must go beyond Constantine's legislation which, by instituting Sun day as the compulsory, weekly day of rest, made it the Christian substitute for the Jewish Sabbath. After that the unique and paradoxical significance of the Lord's Day was little by little forgotten. And yet its significance came pre cisely from its relation to the Sabbath, that is, to the whole biblical understanding of time. In the Jewish religious experience Sabbath, the seventh day, has a tremendous importance: it is the participation by man in, and his affirma tion of, the goodness of God's creation. "And God saw it was good. . . . And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gn. 1:25, 2:3). The seventh day is thus the joyful acceptance of the world created by God as good. The rest prescribed on that day, and which was somehow obscured later by petty and legalistic prescriptions and taboos, is not at all our modern "relaxation," an absence of work. It is the active participation in the "Sabbath delight," in the sacredness d fullness of divine peace as the fruit of all work, as the crowning of all time. It has thus both cosmic and eschatological connotations.
Yet this "good" world, which the Jew blesses on the seventh day, is at the same time the world of sin and revolt against God, and its time is the time of man's exile and alienation from God. And, therefore, the seventh day points beyond itself toward a new Lord's Day-the day of salva tion and redemption, of God's triumph over His enemies. In the late Jewish apocalyptic wntmgs there emerges the idea of a new day which is both the eighth-because it is beyond the frustrations and limitations of "seven," the time of this world-and the first, because with it begins the new time, that of the Kingdom. It is from this idea that grew the Christian Sunday.
Christ rose from the dead on the first day after Sabbath. The life that shone forth from the grave was beyond the inescapable limitations of "seven," of time at leads to death. It was thus the beginning of a new life and of a new time. It was truly the eighth and the first day and it became the day of the Church. The risen Christ, according to the fourth Gospel, appeared to His disciples on the first day (Jn. 20:19) and then "after eight days" (20:26). This is the day on which the Church celebrates the Eucharist-the sacrament of its ascension to the Kingdom and of its participation at the messianic banquet in the "age to come," the day on which the Church fulfills itself as new life. The earliest documents mention that Christians meet statu die on a fixed day-and nothing in the long history of Chris tianity could alter the importance of this fixed day.
A "fixed day." . . . If Christianity were a purely "spiritual" and eschatological faith there would have been no need for a "fixed day," because mysticism has no interest in time. To save one's soul one needs, indeed, no "calendar." And if Christiani were but a new "religion," it would have established its calendar, with the usual opposition be tween the "holy days" and the "profane days"-those to be "kept" and "observed" and those religiously insignificant. Both understandings did in fact appear later. But this was not at all the original meaning of the "fixed day." It was not meant to be a "holy day" opposed to profane ones, a commemoration in time of a past event. Its true meaning was in the transformation of time, not of calendar. For, on the one hand, Sunday remained one of the days (for more than three centuries it was not even a day of rest) , the first of the week, fully belonging to this world.
Yet on the other hand, on that day, through the eucharistic ascension, the Day of thee Lord was revealed and manifested in all its glory and transforming power as thr end of this world, as the be ginning of the world to come. And thus through that one day all days, all time were transformed into t es of re membrance and expectation, remembrance of this ascen sion, Cwe have seen the t e light") and expectation of its coming. All days, all hours were now referred to this end of all "natural" life, to the beginning of the new life. The week was no longer a sequence of "profane" days, with rest on the "sacred" day at their end. It was now a move ment from Mount Tabor into the world, from the world into the "day without evening" of the world to come. Eve day, every hour acquired now an importance, a gravi it could not have had befote: each day was now to be a step in this movement, a moment of decision and wit ness, a time of ult afe meaning. Sunday therefore was not a "sacred" day to be "observed" apart from all other days and opposed to them. It did not interrupt time with a "timeless" mystical ecstasy. It was not a "break" in an othe ise meaningless sequence of days and nights. By re maining one of the ordinary days, and yet by revealing itself through the Eucharist as e eighth and first day, it gave all days their true meaning. It made the time of this world a time of the end, and it made it also the time of the beginning.
I believe this very elegantly explains the liturgical, cosmological and eschatological importance of both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, as representing the Omega of the first Creation and the Alpha of the new Creation. God rested in a tomb on the Sabbath before rising from the dead in glory to set into motion the World to Come and open to us the gates of Salvation.
Here is what he has to say on the sacred, mystical importance of Sabbath and the Lord's Day:
From the beginning Christians had their own day, and it is in its peculiar nature that we find the key to the Christian experience of time. To recover it, however, we must go beyond Constantine's legislation which, by instituting Sun day as the compulsory, weekly day of rest, made it the Christian substitute for the Jewish Sabbath. After that the unique and paradoxical significance of the Lord's Day was little by little forgotten. And yet its significance came pre cisely from its relation to the Sabbath, that is, to the whole biblical understanding of time. In the Jewish religious experience Sabbath, the seventh day, has a tremendous importance: it is the participation by man in, and his affirma tion of, the goodness of God's creation. "And God saw it was good. . . . And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gn. 1:25, 2:3). The seventh day is thus the joyful acceptance of the world created by God as good. The rest prescribed on that day, and which was somehow obscured later by petty and legalistic prescriptions and taboos, is not at all our modern "relaxation," an absence of work. It is the active participation in the "Sabbath delight," in the sacredness d fullness of divine peace as the fruit of all work, as the crowning of all time. It has thus both cosmic and eschatological connotations.
Yet this "good" world, which the Jew blesses on the seventh day, is at the same time the world of sin and revolt against God, and its time is the time of man's exile and alienation from God. And, therefore, the seventh day points beyond itself toward a new Lord's Day-the day of salva tion and redemption, of God's triumph over His enemies. In the late Jewish apocalyptic wntmgs there emerges the idea of a new day which is both the eighth-because it is beyond the frustrations and limitations of "seven," the time of this world-and the first, because with it begins the new time, that of the Kingdom. It is from this idea that grew the Christian Sunday.
Christ rose from the dead on the first day after Sabbath. The life that shone forth from the grave was beyond the inescapable limitations of "seven," of time at leads to death. It was thus the beginning of a new life and of a new time. It was truly the eighth and the first day and it became the day of the Church. The risen Christ, according to the fourth Gospel, appeared to His disciples on the first day (Jn. 20:19) and then "after eight days" (20:26). This is the day on which the Church celebrates the Eucharist-the sacrament of its ascension to the Kingdom and of its participation at the messianic banquet in the "age to come," the day on which the Church fulfills itself as new life. The earliest documents mention that Christians meet statu die on a fixed day-and nothing in the long history of Chris tianity could alter the importance of this fixed day.
A "fixed day." . . . If Christianity were a purely "spiritual" and eschatological faith there would have been no need for a "fixed day," because mysticism has no interest in time. To save one's soul one needs, indeed, no "calendar." And if Christiani were but a new "religion," it would have established its calendar, with the usual opposition be tween the "holy days" and the "profane days"-those to be "kept" and "observed" and those religiously insignificant. Both understandings did in fact appear later. But this was not at all the original meaning of the "fixed day." It was not meant to be a "holy day" opposed to profane ones, a commemoration in time of a past event. Its true meaning was in the transformation of time, not of calendar. For, on the one hand, Sunday remained one of the days (for more than three centuries it was not even a day of rest) , the first of the week, fully belonging to this world.
Yet on the other hand, on that day, through the eucharistic ascension, the Day of thee Lord was revealed and manifested in all its glory and transforming power as thr end of this world, as the be ginning of the world to come. And thus through that one day all days, all time were transformed into t es of re membrance and expectation, remembrance of this ascen sion, Cwe have seen the t e light") and expectation of its coming. All days, all hours were now referred to this end of all "natural" life, to the beginning of the new life. The week was no longer a sequence of "profane" days, with rest on the "sacred" day at their end. It was now a move ment from Mount Tabor into the world, from the world into the "day without evening" of the world to come. Eve day, every hour acquired now an importance, a gravi it could not have had befote: each day was now to be a step in this movement, a moment of decision and wit ness, a time of ult afe meaning. Sunday therefore was not a "sacred" day to be "observed" apart from all other days and opposed to them. It did not interrupt time with a "timeless" mystical ecstasy. It was not a "break" in an othe ise meaningless sequence of days and nights. By re maining one of the ordinary days, and yet by revealing itself through the Eucharist as e eighth and first day, it gave all days their true meaning. It made the time of this world a time of the end, and it made it also the time of the beginning.
I believe this very elegantly explains the liturgical, cosmological and eschatological importance of both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, as representing the Omega of the first Creation and the Alpha of the new Creation. God rested in a tomb on the Sabbath before rising from the dead in glory to set into motion the World to Come and open to us the gates of Salvation.
