What Does Labor Day & Christianity Have In Common?

It's Saturday September 1st and first thing this morning I found myself working on my Inspirational Gift Gallery web site and I couldn't help but wonder, 'What does Labor Day and Christianity have in common?'

It certainly isn't the backyard barbecues or a day at the beach that will answer my question, or is it?

The American Labor Day was created over 100 years ago. It was Peter McGuire, an Irish-American cabinet maker and pioneer unionist who proposed a day dedicated to all who labor. McGuire introduced his idea formally at a meeting of the Central Labor Union on May 18, 1882. "Let us have, a festive day during which a parade through the streets of the city would permit public tribute to American Industry," he said. The following September New York workers staged a parade up Broadway to Union Square. Year after year other cities followed suit and on June 28, 1894 Labor Day was passed through Congress by President Grover Cleveland. Over a century has passed since the first official Labor Day and Americans continue to lay down the tools of their trades for a holiday.

But thousand of years previous to 1894, in the book Exodus, Chapter 20, Verses 8-11 (King James Version) it is written,

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

And so it seems to me that in reality God passed the first law for the first Labor.

So while I enjoy this Labor Day weekend, especially Sunday and Monday with a day at the beach and backyard barbecues, I will smile and know in my heart that man's desires simply follow God's commandments and that's just what Labor Day and Christianity have in common!