Why Christians Worship On Sunday

Why do we go to Church on Sunday? Jesus and his disciples were all Jewish, and like modern Jews, they all worshipped on Saturday. So why the change? Why did the first Christians abandon Saturday in favor of Sunday? On one level, the answer is simple: as all four Gospels tell us, Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1), so we worship on that day to commemorate his resurrection.

However, that just raises more questions for us: Why do we worship on the day Jesus rose from the dead? Worshipping on Saturday is part of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15), so how does the day of the resurrection justify changing one of the Commandments? Those questions are harder to answer, and to do so, we have to piece together a bunch of clues that we find scattered throughout the Bible.

The Meaning of Saturday

The first thing we need to understand is why the Israelites were taught to worship on Saturday. There are two versions of this Commandment in the Old Testament, so let’s read both of them and see why God wanted his people to do this:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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 it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

When we read these two passages, we see that Saturday commemorated two things: creation and the exodus. It celebrated both the origin of the created world and God’s great act of salvation for his people when they were enslaved in Egypt. Now, at first, this dual meaning may seem arbitrary, and it doesn’t look like it goes very far in helping us understand why Christians worship on Sunday. However, if we look further in the Old Testament, we’ll see that there is in fact a connection between these two events, and that connection is really important for understanding the change from Saturday to Sunday.

Images of Salvation

If we turn to the prophets, we find that creation and the exodus are both used as archetypes for the salvation Jesus would later gain for us. They described his saving work as both a new creation and a new exodus. For instance, the prophet Isaiah foretold that the salvation to come would involve the creation of a new heaven and a new earth:

“For behold, I create new heavens
    and a new earth;
and the former things shall not be remembered
    or come into mind.” (Isaiah 65:17)

Similarly, Micah said that God’s new act of salvation would be like his deliverance of his people from Egypt:

“In that day they will come to you,
from Assyria to Egypt,
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain…
As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt
I will show them marvelous things.” (Micah 7:12, 15)

Once we understand this, we can see that Saturday was actually destined to be transcended and fulfilled by another, more important day. Since it commemorated creation and the exodus, it stands to reason that once God’s salvation finally came, his people would commemorate the new creation and the new exodus instead. The final step, then, is to see if Jesus’ resurrection is related to these images of salvation; we have to find out if it brought about the new creation and the new exodus. If it did, then it makes perfect sense for Christians to worship on Sunday instead of Saturday.

The Meaning of the Resurrection

Let’s begin by exploring the connection between the resurrection and the new creation. The new heaven and earth aren’t here yet, but when they arrive, our bodies will become just like Jesus’ was after he rose from the dead. See, our destiny isn’t to spend eternity with God as disembodied spirits. Rather, as both Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church tell us, when Jesus comes again, the dead will get their bodies back just like he did (1 Thessalonians 4:14-16, 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, Catechism of the Catholic Church 989-991, 1016-1017). As a result, when Jesus rose from the dead, he actually entered into the life we will all live in the new creation. Simply put, he began the new creation in his own body.

That was fairly simple, but the connection between the resurrection and the new exodus is a bit tougher to see. It’s stated subtly, so we have to look carefully to find it. In one of St. Paul’s letters, he calls Jesus “our paschal lamb” who “has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7), and this implies that the resurrection was part of the new exodus. The word “paschal” is an adjective that refers to the feast of Passover, which was instituted the night before the Israelites escaped from Egypt (Exodus 12:1-28). Consequently, by calling Jesus our “paschal lamb,” Paul was saying that he was the new Passover lamb in God’s new exodus.

However, the Passover was only the beginning of the exodus. The actual escape from Egypt came a bit later, so if the cross was like a new Passover, then it must have only been the beginning of the new exodus. It was only the first step in God’s new act of salvation for his people. Now, the New Testament never explicitly says what else this new exodus involved, but in another letter, Paul says that Jesus was “was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25). This tells us that Jesus’ saving act encompassed both his death and his resurrection, so if that saving act was the new exodus, then that exodus was completed by his resurrection.

Putting It All Together

When we put this all together, we can see that it fits perfectly. The Old Testament commanded the Israelites to worship on the seventh day of the week in order to commemorate creation and the exodus, and the prophets said that God’s new act of salvation (which was accomplished by Jesus) would be a new creation and a new exodus. As a result, Saturday seemed destined to be fulfilled by another day once this salvation came.

Then, when we turn to the New Testament, we see that Jesus’ resurrection fulfilled both of these images. It marked both the new creation and the new exodus, thereby fulfilling the meaning of Saturday, so it makes perfect sense for Christians to worship on Sunday instead of Saturday. Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, so when we worship on that day, we celebrate the fulfillment of everything that Saturday meant in the Old Testament. We commemorate the fulfillment of creation and the exodus, just as the prophets foretold, thereby justifying a change in our weekly day of worship.