I love both. Sunday is the Lords day, not a business day.
“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. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, 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 on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
I agree with you in respecting those businesses that close on Sundays to give their employees time to worship and spend quiet days with their families.
And the Lord’s example of working hard six days and resting on the seventh is as relevant today as it was at Creation.
That said, Sunday isn’t THE Sabbath, as Saturday was back in OT times under the Law of Moses, when it was forbidden to do work. We’re, thankfully, no longer under those restrictions — although the principles are still worth following. If we truly still kept the Sabbath, we’d cease all work at sundown Friday until sundown Saturday, then go about our regular business on Sunday. But most of us are no longer Jews, and none of us still live under the Law of Moses.
In fact, the earliest Christians (because they were Jewish) observed the Saturday Sabbath, then got up to go to work on Sunday, the first day of their workweek. Because Jesus rose on Sunday, they met to worship very early in the morning, then went about their normal workday, then came together again that evening for a communal meal and to observe the Lord’s Supper.
I’m not making this up. The Romans, suspicious of the new movement who followed the crucified Jesus, spied on them. Those written reports tell the tale.
The Sabbath day is Saturday, not Sunday.
I’m old enough to remember every Sunday being a sort of holiday, a real Sabbath, here in the South. All retail “hard line” businesses were closed, most restaurants and grocery stores had abbreviated hours, and, other than during standard church hours, the streets were very quiet.
One holiday a week was VERY nice. And we thrived because of it.