Commentary on Gospel of Thomas Saying 27: True Sabbath Rest: The Heavenly Repose of Meditation
27. Jesus said, “If you do not fast as regards the world, you will not find the Kingdom. If you do not observe the Sabbath as a Sabbath, you will not see the Father.” (translation from the OtherGospels dot com website)
I believe that particular Thomas saying might have been in the Q source of Jesus sayings, quoted in Thomas but not in Matthew and Luke. As I recall, Dr. Samuel Zinner suspects this also. It's a reference to the Saturday sabbath, a day of rest from all earthly labors. But here it may be more inclusive of spiritual rest. Terms like 'rest' and 'repose' are often used for the heavenly realms. My take is, make the Sabbath into a spiritual rest, a day of prayer, meditation, and communion with God in heavenly realms. Meditation is the true sabbath, heavenly repose, going beyond the world of the five senses. I do view meditation as "fasting from the world", the outer world of the five senses, a sensory deprivation technique for perceiving beyond the material realm to see what else is real, to explore the heavens.
Meister Eckhart: "If the soul is to see God, then it must see no temporal thing, for as long as the soul is conscious of time or space, or of an idea, it cannot know God."
