On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” 6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
You are no doubt aware that the vast majority of professing Christians in our culture consider the Sabbath commandment as something of past generations.
Some will argue that it was part of the Mosaic administration and therefore it has been done away with. But more than that, it is often thought that anyone who might have a conviction about the continued observance of the Sabbath day is being legalistic, and even Pharisaical.
Some of you have told me about relatives who look at your Sabbath celebrations, where you seek to make much of worship and celebration and yet conclude that you are being Pharisaical…and you have been left dumbfounded at the accusation.
It is not my intention to give all the lines of reasoning as to why there are still 10 commandments and not 9 only to say that even the idea that one of God’s commandments no longer exists is problematic to say the least.
So, to those folks who agree that there are 10, and who have enough sense to know that all 10 are for our good, I would then ask what does the 4th mean?
We could spend our morning looking at how the Sabbath Day and its fullness is to be foretaste of heaven…to point us there…to give us hope and desire for our home…I could do a number of devotions on that!
We also should be reminded that the Sabbath ordinance is not only a Mosaic law but is also a creation ordinance, that is, it was given to us BEFORE sin entered the world, along with God’s instruction about marriage, family and work and no evangelical thinks to abolish, marriage, family and work, although our modern culture is trying hard to do so!
It could be argued that most evangelicals do not want to discuss this issue because frankly, they want to do what they want to do. They don’t want anything messing up their weekend other than worship, as long as it is convenient, a day to do whatever they want to do.
But I want us to think about ourselves, our own situations in our own circles. I want us to ask why it is that Christians today think that those who DO want to honor and keep the Sabbath day are legalistic?
As one minister put it, “They think keeping the Sabbath is legalistic precisely because they really think that the Sabbath was a burden, a wearisome religious obligation and they cannot imagine that Christ would not have freed us from it. And the reason they think in such a way about the Sabbath is because they imagine that the Pharisees were largely correct in their understanding of what Sabbath observance amounted to. They think that is what the Law of Moses required as well, being miserable one day every week just to prove that you were loyal to God.” (RSR)
It seems that there are Christians who imagine that if we are to honor the Sabbath day then we will sit around staring at walls and doing nothing but pray all day long. Any laughter or light-hearted conversation would be forbidden.
And here is the irony. The Pharisees are still determining what the church is to think about the Sabbath day; Lists of rules about what can and can’t be done so that no one would ever do what could be considered “work”. The point is that the Sabbath day was given to us as a gift, as a blessing, it was and continues to be God’s kindness to his people.
We are told to cease from our work, to make much of 6 days to work as we must in this world, but then to take God’s gift of one day a week, set aside all the work and celebrate. You read the bible from cover to cover and you will never find any hint of the Lord building a casuistry of what you can and can’t do on the Lord’s Day. Nothing about how many steps you can take, or whether or not you can go on a bike ride. Not one word about whether you should feed your animals or how to prepare your food so no one would ever accuse you of working.
This is the spirit that the Lord is attacking in his interaction with the Pharisees. This is the spirit that makes the commands of God, the blessings of God, a burden and in this case a perversion of what the Sabbath was for and why it was given.
One author asked his readers to think about what would happen to your Christmas celebrations if they were encumbered by thousands of rules. I started playing this out in my mind. Some of you will remember this scenario from the past.
The tree had to meet certain dimensions and they all had to be decorated the same way, you could use colored lights but not more than 21 of them, and never on a string that was longer than 6 feet. However, if the string was 10 feet then 33 colored lights were allowed as long as every 4th light had a clear or florescent bulb.
Presents had to be of a certain type and wrapped in a certain way. Bows could be placed on the presents in the right corner of the gift as long as the gift was not more than 22 inches long and was rectangular or square. If not of that shape, then you could not use a bow, only ribbon. But if the ribbon were blue, then the wrapping had to be purchased at Wal-Mart.
The food that is prepared could not be your favorite family recipes, but rather, had to be of a certain quantity, a certain quality, with certain food served 20 days before Xmas but never 16 days before Christmas. Then OTHER food had to be served, but never with white sugar, only with brown sugar, unless of course you were within 7 days of the holiday and you were at your in-laws house.
This is what happened to the Sabbath. They ruined it. They perverted it. They took that which was meant for life, and made it a regulation of death. We must recover the true God-given heart of the Sabbath!
Prayer: Father, although I forget often, your gifts, kindness and mercies please do not forget me. My confidence is not in my hold on you, but on yours on me. Help me to live in conscious awareness of Your word and presence. When I forget, show me the way again, when I remember, may I be full in truth and obedience to all that You have said, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: The God of Abraham Praise