What is Labor Day?

Today is a federal holiday -- Labor Day!  Why does most of the United States STOP on this first Monday of September?  What was the original thinking behind such a holiday?  What does it really mean to the people?  I was wondering all of this this morning and so I went to my main source of information today: Siri!  Interestingly enough her answer was "I don't know!  I have wondered that myself!"  I thought Siri knew almost everything.

According to the source online,  Labor Day was meant to show tribute to the long battle for workers' rights in our country.  It was created by the Department of Labor in 1882; and past by Congress in 1887 as a national holiday dedicated to the social and economic achievements of the American workers.  

All of that is part of our national history which has today lost its fundamental meaning.  Much like the original day of rest created by the Creator of the universe on the seventh day of creation has fundamentally lost its meaning.  The day when God finished making the physical world.  On the seventh day he rested, looked around at all he had made and called it "very good!"  

So, I am thinking that Labor Day was actually created on the seventh day of creation when God issues a statement of the need for all worker -- all people -- to take time out to appreciate time well used on the other six days.  Then later, much like Congresses vote in 1887, God wrote on stone tablets the importance of rest: 

8Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

9 Work six days and do everything you need to do. 

10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don't do any work - not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town.

11 For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day. (Ex. 20 The Message)

FYI  Sabbath, according to the Greek term, is "absolute rest for all"!  In the Hebrew religion it is a 24 hour period dedicate  to God alone. In the ancient days it was understood as a time period when absolutely no work was allowed.  That included cooking, feeding animals, walking more than ten feet or fixing anything -- they didn't have lawns then.  Later in history, after Jesus' death, it was a time to stop and remember that Jesus beat death and lives.  It was a time to remember the amazing power of God in our world still today.

Now I ask you, how do you spend you time on this day of rest?  What do you think about?  Do you remember anything on this day?  What are you 

grateful for?  What do you do?  Or, is this just one more day to not have to work?