No Longer Slaves
“Juneteenth” is the newest federal holiday. It commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It marks the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, taking place in the then-distant state of Texas.
In short, all of those who had once been shackled to masters and had either escaped or been released were told, “You are no longer slaves!” The holiday is considered the longest-running African American holiday and has been called "America's second Independence Day."
I’d like to suggest that there is a parallel to this that took place thousands of years earlier. And this parallel applies to all of us.
In my last post, I wrote about how one of the great gifts God gave us was Sabbath. To people who could all too easily become overworked and overwhelmed, He offered the gift of rest.
In order that we would see the importance of this, the Lord modeled it personally. We read in Genesis 2 – “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Genesis 2:2-3).
God’s Mandate
The thing is that His people still struggled to cease and desist from labor. To their way of thinking, life demanded non-stop work. So, the Lord moved from His model to a mandate. Among the Ten Commandments, we read…
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Exodus 20:8-11
As you can see, these verses hearken back to creation and the example God set.
However, did you know that there is a second listing of the Ten Commandments? It’s over in the book of Deuteronomy.
“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your god has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
If you read this carefully, you’ll see that the Lord offers a second motivation to observe His “stop work” order. If the Exodus passage is rooted in recognizing “divine example,” the Deuteronomy passage is rooted in celebrating “divine deliverance.”
This was a big deal. At the time these words were penned, memories of the days of slavery were still fresh. The Israelites would have recalled how rest and work were at the whim of the Egyptian taskmasters. That point was reinforced with bullwhips in case you missed it or were inclined to ignore it.
Yet in a truly miraculous way, God dealt decisively with the taskmasters and freed His people from slavery, giving them a way into a life of freedom. This is the logic of the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy.
God challenges His people to remember that they were no longer slaves – that they’d been liberated from the misery of having to work all the time. That, with the taskmasters gone, they really could enjoy a day of rest.
And it’s this Deuteronomy account that I’d like us to lean into. Because here’s the deal: While God may have drowned those Egyptian taskmasters, they have offspring that are alive to this day.
Silencing the Taskmasters
To be sure, for some of us, they are represented in bosses or supervisors who mandate overtime. But there are other taskmasters who can be even more demanding.
They exist in our minds. These mental taskmasters dog our steps and threaten to thrash us at the smallest sign of slowing down in our productivity or taking time to rest. They drive us to push harder, shame us for being weak, saying, “If you don’t do it, it won’t get done.” “You don’t deserve to rest. You can’t stop!”
I have to admit that I really struggled with this for many years. Though I knew theologically that I’m not a slave…practically speaking, when I looked to step back from my work one day a week as a point of celebration of that, the taskmasters in my head rose up.
“What do you think you think you’re doing? You’re going to take time off. How quaint! As though there’s not a huge pile of things you’ve left undone. You’re pathetic! Just look around. There are a thousand and one things to do, and you better get at them, not sit around like some slacker.”
Can you relate to any of this?
Even though they never lay a hand on you, these mental bullies can mount a ruthless psychological assault that can get you cowering every bit as much as if they had literal whips in their hands.
Friends, Sabbath is a weekly opportunity to silence the “taskmasters.” To remind ourselves of our true identity—that in Christ, we are no longer slaves. We are children of God!
And as children of God, our identity is not tied to what we do. Our identity is found in who God says we are in Christ – chosen, forgiven, beloved sons and daughters in whom He delights.
The taskmasters belong to the enemy of our souls who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. They only want to keep us bound, but God, our Father, has set us free!
He is a good Father! He knows what you need, and He has more than enough to meet those needs. He just asks us to trust Him. Setting apart one day to stop, to rest, to remember who He is and who you are, is like an act of holy defiance against the taskmasters and a beautiful act of trust in the Father who loves you so.
You might be wondering, “What does that look like practically?” Well, in my next post, I will give you some suggestions. For now, revel in your liberation and say, “Good riddance” to the taskmasters.