Yesterday I read something surprising: a city, Paramus, New Jersey, which is close to New York City, has the country’s strictest blue laws.
Blue laws seem like a holdover of an earlier era. They restrict sales of non-essential items on Sunday.
An account was given of how it affected a Costco store, which can be open on Sunday but only for essential items. For example, people would not be able to buy a TV that day. Certain areas of the store are be roped off and cashiers were instructed on the things they could and couldn’t sell on that day.
I thought this was great. I found it very encouraging, especially since New Jersey is not a Bible-belt state. A legacy of God’s ways has made it through!
The mayor, Chris DiPiazza, referred to the blue laws as “sacred.” He said those laws “Gives us our roads, our residential neighborhoods a day of rest from the traffic and the noise.”
I don’t know this man, but I like him.
Blue laws have their roots in the Lord’s Sabbath, enshrined in the 10 Commandments, which required that one day of the week be treated differently than the others. In Exodus 20:8-10, it is day of rest: “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.”
In the later giving of the commandments (Deuteronomy 5:12-15) the command to rest was reemphasized but an element of “remember” (worship) was added.
In the Old Testament the Sabbath was on Friday night through Saturday night. In the New Testament it moved to Sunday, in honor of Christ’s resurrection being on that day.
The idea filtered down through the centuries into blue laws, which restricted full commerce on Sunday.
Blue laws, I would imagine, are not popular with everybody. People are used to getting what they want when they want. Some might object to this limitation on their freedom.
They might say, “You can’t force religion on me!” or “We have separation of church and state!” Well, it’s not a full enforcement of the Sabbath command, just a kind of legacy or remnant of it that has been handed down.
It’s not going to hurt anybody to have to wait till Monday to buy their TV.
Speaking of TV, right now I’m in a waiting room and The Price is Right is on. The people on the show are getting entirely too excited about material things. They are wearing funny clothes. The money and prizes are making them scream and dance and wave their arms. It doesn’t seem healthy.
While our own devotion to material things might not make us act so crazy, God still calls us away from the obsession. He gave us a day where we really un-hitch; to act different. To remember Him and rest.
God, who knows how we are made, knows that we are not designed to go 24/7. He put a break in there for us to turn off the commerce that dominates so much of modern life.
God has designed that there should be separateness in our lives. Not all places and times are the same. He designed special spaces, like the temple in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there is the idea of a sacred assembly–a special place that is not like others. Later, when church buildings were built, there was a part of the building called the sanctuary where worship services were held. A separate, special place.
And He built separateness in time–one day out of seven to rest and worship.
We are being conditioned in our modern age to be ‘always on’. The internet and social media are always calling us. Advertising is always urging us to spend. Cell phones are keeping us on the hook all the time. And some jobs, it seems, go seven days a week.
We were made to rest once in a while.
What about taking Sunday seriously? What about not working if you don’t have to, to not go to the store unnecessarily or check bank accounts and investments like it was any other day? We can take a break from all that.
And what about taking the day to go to church? True, no money is going to be made. As far as career-building it’s inefficient and impractical. It is, in a sense, a waste of time. But, as one author (Marva Dawn) said, it is a royal waste of time. Going to a set-apart place to focus on God is a waste in the eyes of the world…but it is God’s will.
If the blue laws are a reminder, however distant, of the specialness of God’s day, then they are a good thing.