In Leviticus 23, the weekly sabbath is listed along with the rest of Israel’s festivals as a feast, as a festival. The weekly sabbath was a day of rejoicing, not a day of gloom. The Jews had only one penitential day out of the year — their Good Friday, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.
But for some, that is not nearly enough gloom. There is something in the religious heart that wants to locate affliction and trouble where the God of all grace has located none. When we say that we are sabbatarians, the mind and heart leap immediately to what we have to give up. It has been easy for us to see Lenten excesses in what other communions say and do, but the conservative Reformed view of the sabbath is often Lent without any Easter to mitigate the sorrow.
The joy of the Lord is our strength. We have been laboring for many years to turn around this common error concerning the Lord’s Day. More is involved in this than might initially appear, and so we give ourselves to it.
What must you give up in order to come to this Table? What must you leave behind? Only your sorrow. Only your guilt. Only your gloom. Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.