Happy Leap Day! Yes, it is February 29 today, which only happens every four years. Why do we do this? Here is what the History Channel website teaches:
Nearly every four years, we add an extra day to the calendar in the form of February 29, also known as Leap Day. Put simply, these additional 24 hours are built into the calendar to ensure that it stays in line with the Earth’s movement around the Sun. While the modern calendar contains 365 days, the actual time it takes for Earth to orbit its star is slightly longer—roughly 365.2421 days. The difference might seem negligible, but over decades and centuries that missing quarter of a day per year can add up. To ensure consistency with the true astronomical year, it is necessary to periodically add in an extra day to make up the lost time and get the calendar back in sync with the heavens.
I love that last phrase: to get us “back in sync with the heavens.”
You are probably growing weary of hearing me talk about “the seasons,” but this small example of “Leap Day” and its rationale is just another reminder of how our lives are not within our control, much as we wish they were, but are shaped by the rhythms of the created order and God’s seasons. And, whether we like it or not, it is good for us to stay “in sync with the heavens,” rather than letting our own distorted sense of time, urgency, and what is important, derail us from where God wants us to be.
One of the ways God tries to keep us in sync with the heavens is through the commandment to keep the sabbath. “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. . . .For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” Exodus 20:8-11.
On this third Sunday in Lent, we will hear as our first lesson the giving of the Ten Commandments, including this crucial exhortation to set aside a holy day of rest and worship. At our bible study this week, many of us reflected on why sabbath is so important and why reclaiming it in our lives should be a priority.
This is how the great Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel once explained it: “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”
As you hear and reflect on this text this Sunday, I invite you to focus in particular on God’s desire for you to keep the sabbath holy. Think of this commandment not as a prohibition on what you cannot do, so much as an invitation just to be quietly with God, in the company of those you love and in the presence of this beautiful world. You might be surprised by what you discover!