Proper 4B (Pentecost 2 2024)

Text: Mark 2:28 “So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

How Do You Keep the Sabbath?

How do you keep the Sabbath?

It is good and right that you consider how you keep the Sabbath. The Pharisees offer an excellent opportunity to do just that.

There are obvious ways that you and I fail to keep the Sabbath. The most obvious is by failing to gather with God’s people for worship. It’s worth remembering why that is so serious.

It’s serious because everyone worships on the Sabbath day. I’m not saying that they should, I’m telling you that they do.

We might carelessly say that a person “skipped church” that day. We talk about how long it’s been since they have been in worship. But that’s actually a misleading statement. We’re focusing on the one thing that he or she did not do, which seems pretty harmless.

Except it’s not just that one small thing that he or she failed to do. It’s what they did instead that makes it so serious. Everyone worships their god on the Sabbath day. They may not be in church, but they are worshipping something or someone. Regardless of promises they have made, regardless of the professions of faith that they have made, they show who or what their god truly is by how they use their Sabbath rest. They show who or what their god truly is by where they are and what they are doing.

If they are not in worship, it’s not a simple matter of one little thing that they failed to do. The issue is also whichever false god they are worshipping instead: their own comfort; money and wealth; the false god that ‘family’ can become. Whatever it is that keeps them from church that day is their true god. That’s what makes failing to gather for worship so serious.

But, again, that’s a more obvious way that you or I might fail to keep the Sabbath, but the actions of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading give us an opportunity to look more closely at how you and I use our Sabbath rest.

The Pharisees made quite a show about keeping the Sabbath. They knew the command that is recorded in Deuteronomy 5:12–14 ““ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 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 or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.”

But they had turned the Sabbath into a burden that they imposed upon people: a set of rules you not only had to keep, but you had to keep track of. ‘This’ is work that is forbidden, but ‘that’ is not. And if you did not keep their rules, then you were not truly holy, not truly worthy before God or before them.

There can be no doubt that they kept the letter of the law. But they had completely lost the spirit of it. Jesus demonstrated that very simply and beautifully when He said to them in Mark 3:4 “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” This was not a hypothetical question He was asking. For all of the noise they made about keeping the Sabbath, about what was lawful and unlawful to do on the Sabbath, what did the Pharisees, themselves, use their Sabbath rest for? While they were criticizing the disciples for their work, the Pharisees, themselves, did not hold back from the work of searching for reasons to accuse Jesus. In fact, because Jesus had the audacity to heal— to give life— on the Sabbath day, they used their Sabbath rest to plot to kill Him. They showed very clearly who or what they were truly worshipping on the Sabbath.

I doubt that you are plotting your next act of evil, like the Pharisees did. But how often do you use your Sabbath rest here in worship to plan “more important things” you have to do later today or through the rest of your week rather than using it to hear and learn God’s Word? You treat this Sabbath rest as a burden, as an interruption, of the more important things that you have to do.

And it gets worst, doesn’t it? You use your Sabbath rest as nothing more than a social time, getting together with your old friends. You use your Sabbath rest to grumble and complain. You use your Sabbath rest to judge that guy in the back who hasn’t been here for months but is here because he is crushed by life and really, really just needs to hear that God still cares.

How do you use your Sabbath rest? And, again, this is not some hypothetical question that may or may not ever be relevant to you. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. And the Lord of the Sabbath still looks over the crowd of humanity with anger, marveling at the hardness of your hearts.

The Lord of the Sabbath

Have you not read that, “On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:2–3)? This is a holy day. A day that He has set apart for you.

And the Son of Man is still Lord of the Sabbath. In fact, He has sanctified the seventh day of the week even more. It was made holy (the first time) when He rested from all his work that He had done in creation. Then it was made infinitely holier when He rested, on that same day, from all His work of redemption that He had done. On another “seventh day”— another Saturday (this one only about 2,000 years ago)— His body lay quietly in the tomb and He rested from all of the work He had done….”)

That Friday— the sixth day of the week (the day of the week, by the way, on which God had created man)— mankind carried out its plan to destroy Him. The Son of God, who had become human, was hung on the cross. But, rather than being destroyed, He was hard at work. Thousands of years earlier, He finished His work of creation by declaring, “It is very good” (Genesis 1:31). But, on this particular Friday— this sixth day of the week— He finished the work of redeeming His fallen creation as He declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

His work of redemption was complete. He had taken all of the guilt and shame for your lawless deeds on the Sabbath— all of the times that you have used it to worship other gods; all of the times you have used the Sabbath rest to plan ‘more important’ things; all of the times you have used the Sabbath rest to plot outright evil against one another. And that work was now complete.

He had sanctified it when He rested from His work of creation. He doubly sanctified it as His body was laid in the tomb for His Sabbath rest.

Remember the Sabbath Day

Even while you use the Sabbath rest to worship some other god, to plan more ‘important’ parts of your life, or even to plan for your next act of evil, He is using it to work your good. While your mind is on things that will only bring you death and destruction. He is at work saving you and giving you life.

By the authority given to Him as your creator— and even more so by His authority as your Redeemer— the Lord of the Sabbath commands you to remember the Sabbath Day.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, remember the Sabbath Day; keep it holy. Worship the only true God— your Creator and Redeemer. Worship Him by gathering to receive the gifts that He has won for you on the cross.

He commands and invites you here and He promises that He comes and stands in your midst. He commands and invites you to gather here in God’s house so that He can heal you.

He bids you to reach out the hand of faith— however weak that hand of faith may be, however withered it may be by your doubt. He bids you to reach out the hand of faith in true sorrow for your sin and, as you do, He restores and strengthens you. He makes you whole again through the sure and certain promise of His Word.He places into the hand of faith His gift of eternal life. He gathers you into His new, restored creation.

Hear His voice today, speaking in and through His Word, and do not harden your hearts (Hebrews 4:7). There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9)— namely Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, in whom you have entered God’s rest (Hebrews 4:10).

The Sabbath should not be a burden. It is your physical rest and it is your spiritual rest. Think about how much time and energy you spend every other day of the week trying to prove yourself to others. Trying to avoid looking foolish; trying to look smart and successful; trying to look like you have your life together; trying to look like you’re ok; trying to earn respect; trying to earn a reputation; trying to earn love.

You’re probably not worried about trying to look like you’re holy, but you’re worried about at least looking like you’re better than the next guy.

This might be the one hour of your week that you should be free of all of that. Here you have the privilege of hearing about the God who knows your sins, who knows your faults, who knows your failures even better than you do and loved you enough to give the life of His Son for you. No, this should not be a burden. He created this day— He created this Sabbath rest— for you; He created it to tell you that, again and again. “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by … disobedience [and hardness of heart]. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:11–13).

He sends you out from here, freed of the burden that the Pharisees tried to place upon Him and His disciples. You’re not here because He is giving you the opportunity to earn His approval. You’re here to receive that love and approval for the sake of Jesus Christ. He sends you out from here with a simple invitation to serve Him by serving the people you meet.

That’s part of what St. Paul meant when he wrote, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1–2).

Even death is now transformed for you. The Lord of the Sabbath is the Lord of Life, as well. He is your Sabbath Rest. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”” (Revelation 14:13). Your sinful deeds have been and are forgiven and your faltering attempts at genuine love and service have been and are washed clean by the blood of Christ, so that the deeds which will follow you on that day will simply and purely be love— the love of Christ in you and through you.

“So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28). Enjoy the Sabbath Rest that He has prepared for you.