27.08 | First Day

Acts 20:7-38

‘On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.’

Acts 20:7

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I have a little argument running with my kids. 

Well, not an argument. They accept my views. But I also feel a little like they’re humouring me with their measure of agreement, rather than having joined me in my zeal for the issue.

Sunday, I tell them, is the first day of the week.

The argument began because, in their minds, Sunday looks a lot more like the last day of the week. It looks like the second part of a weekend, before Monday morning rolls around again and school and diaries and sports and play dates all kicks off again. Sunday looks like Saturday’s weekend buddy—a day of lie-ins and pancakes and family time and movies. Sunday is a TV day, loungewear day, a marshmallow day. Sundays, as every other indicator would suggest to them, is the final day of the week.

There’s a rather subtle danger in this. It is one rarely spotted.

Because the Church of Jesus has always gathered on a Sunday.

And, with this in mind, what the Church does when we gather—communities across the globe gather each Sunday for worship, teaching, prayer, and breaking bread—can be reduced to a sentimental conclusion to a week of more important matters. Sunday becomes viewed as nice, as closure, as a reminder of forgiveness for our mistakes of the week—a little detached spirituality to top us up before we move on again.

And yet, the stunning realities of inbreaking New Creation have little time for such sentimentalities.

For Sundays, from Genesis to Revelation, is only and always and every described as the first day of the week.

Sunday is the day of creation begun—“Let there be light!” declared into the empty recesses of formless emptiness, interupting nothingness with creation vitality.¹ Sunday is the day of New Creation established, birdsong in a garden interrupted by the gravely sounds of a tombstone being rolled away, as resurrected feet plant themselves upon dewdrop pathways.² Sunday is the day when new creation is envisioned by the exiled apostle and prophet John, prophetically seeing both the truer realities of his own day, and the wonders of the endless days to come.³

Sundays is the first day. It is the Lord’s day. 

And this is essential for us to know.

Why?

Because, my friends, those things that we do as we gather each week for Sunday gathering, are not last things. They are not optional extras, a religious side-portion, a spirituality afterthought to the more essential things of life.

Not a chance. Those movements of Sunday—of worship and prayer and teaching and breaking bread—are the framing things for every day to come. For the truths we sing and the prayers we pray and the Scriptures we surrender to and the death we proclaim in bread and wine are the commissioning, the sending, the formative realities into which we then live every moment that is coming. The momentum may glance backwards, but then it earnestly leans forwards. The vibrant energy of the worshiping community is unto filling all things in the week to come with the glory of Him we have named and proclaimed on the Sunday gathering. It takes New Creation energy into a week of seeking New Creation invasion.

Never let gathering on a Sunday become an afterthought. Never let it become optional. Never let it become relegated to a mere hobbyist activity. Such pedestrian spirituality leads to a grave.

For we deal in resurrection realities, where we gather on the day of creation and the day of new creation and the day that sees the creation to come, picking up the dozing dead things of our lives, to be embraced into the resurrection realities of the Jesus we serve.

For Sunday, my friends, is the first day of the week.

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Reflect:

What part does gathering with my church community on Sunday play in my week?

How might things shift in my attitude if I embraced Sunday gatherings as the framing, formative, sending moment into every other things that I do?

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Pray:

Father,

On Sundays,

You may have noticed,

I can be a reluctant attendee.

And yet, my God,

I think,

That I need you to reorder me again.

Reorder me to first day Christianity—

Where worship sets the yearning of my heart for the week to come,

So that every task and moment may be turned 

Towards the establishment of your presence and your glory.

Reorder me—

Where hearing Scripture moves from being nominal and interesting,

To resetting my paradigms and my plans,

My practices and my purpose,

Mind-renewal unto the very ways of your Kingdom.

Reorder me—

Where prayer moves from the reactivity of emergency needs,

And the snatched words of the desperate and superstitious,

Into the proactivity of learning to partner you

In the strategies of the Spirit

And the power of you presence.

Reorder me—

Where bread and wine,

Grow me more deeply into the fuller comforts of grace,

Where my reconciliation mobilises the movement

Into new creation living—

A victory won that all darkness be defeated,

And that I may tread your first day footsteps

With the life of the crucified Jesus pumping in my veins.

Father in heaven,

Reorder me;

For the first day

Frames my every day.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Job 15-17 | Proverbs 22:17-21

1. Genesis 1:1-5

2. Luke 24:1, etc.

3. Revelation 1:10