The Sabbath

Our Bodies Need Rest

Our bodies need rest. Every once in awhile I see a quote on Facebook that says “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will make time for your illness.” Every time I’ve gone through a stretch where there seemed to be very little time for proper resting normally some sickness forces me to rest. Today’s scriptures all deal with sabbath which means to stop and rest.

Genesis 2:1–3 NLT

1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.

God started this age old tradition after the work of creation was finished. God in the ten commandments commands us to rest on the sabbath day. Jesus models sabbath keeping throughout his ministry as he seeks quiet places to pray.

In Mark Jesus buts heads with the pharisees on the issue of working on the sabbath twice. Once the disciples were hungry so they picked some grain to eat which was considered work. The second was around responding to someone in need. Is it lawful to do good or evil on the sabbath?

How do you sabbath? Do you have a day to rest and recharge? As we wrestle with what it means to keep sabbath, let’s remember sabbath keeping is for our benefit, and shouldn’t be used as an excuse to ignore someone in need.

Keeping Sabbath

Jesus two encounters with the Pharisees on the sabbath, comes at the end of a list of objections. These objections would lead them to work with Herod to devise a plan to kill Jesus.

The first objection was forgiving sins. Mark 2:7

Mark 2:7 NRSV

7 “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

The second objection was to the company Jesus keeps. Mark 2:16

Mark 2:16 NLT

16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

They question the fasting practices of his disciples. Mark 2:18

Mark 2:18 NLT

18 Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?”

Which brings us to the objections around the sabbath. The first one is harvesting grain, and the second is healing on the sabbath. Through out the gospels Jesus and the Pharisees would butt heads on proper sabbath keeping. In Luke 13:10-17 Jesus heals a crippled woman and he calls them out for their hypocrisy.

Harvesting Grain

What can we learn from this encounter? 1 walking through a grain field isn’t considered work, but picking some to eat is. 2 our basic human needs don’t stop just because it’s the sabbath.

Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grain field when someone got hungry and picked some to eat. The pharisees filed their complaint with Jesus, that that is unlawful. Jesus responded with how David served the bread from the temple to feed his hungry soldiers. Then he says to them the sabbath was made for humanity and not humanity for the sabbath.

What does this mean? God commands us to sabbath to stop and rest because our bodies need it. The sabbath was made to meet this need. It wasn’t made for us to be nervous about whether or not making lunch that day was a violation of the sabbath.

Healing

The second objection has to do with Jesus healing on the sabbath. Something he makes a habit of in the gospels. On one occasion in Luke 13 Jesus calls out their hypocrisy, because if they had an animal in need they would certainly do what they needed to do to help it on the sabbath.

Here Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the sabbath. Before doing so he knows his critics are in the crowd and asks a gotcha question. “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath?” His critics were speechless. Jesus was angry with their hardness of heart. He heals the man with the withered hand and the Pharisees begin to make plans with Herod how to kill him.

What does this tell us about sabbath keeping? We can’t use it as an excuse to turn a blind eye to our neighbor in need. Jesus asks the question he does because for him to ignore the man with the withered hand would have been an act of evil toward’s one of his neighbors. God calls us to love our neighbors, how would leaving the man with a withered hand be an act of love?

What we learn from these two encounters about sabbath is, first the sabbath is made for our benefit. Our bodies need to stop and rest. That doesn’t mean we can’t still tend to our basic needs of life. Second, we cannot use it as an excuse to not help someone in need, as the opportunity comes up.

Jesus sums up all the law and prophets with completely loving God, while at the same time love our neighbor as ourselves. If the way we keep sabbath fails in this area, we are not keeping sabbath correctly.

Sabbath Keeping

We live in a workaholic world. We live in a society that constant business is an expectation. I’m sure we all know someone who seems to brag about how little time off from work they took in their careers. They seem to wear this as a badge of honor, but always their families don’t seem quite so honored. With the pressures to make sure we fill every second of every day with something to do, remember from the beginning our bodies need rest.

Rest is taking care of ourselves. We cannot care for the needs of others if we do not practice good sabbath keeping.

Do you practice sabbath? Do you take time to rest, recharge, to reconnect with family, to connect with God? God set up the sabbath from the dawn of time because we need rest.

August Sabbath