Sabbath - rest

Sabbath  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  38:43
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Jesus frames the sabbath as a time in which our God-centered focus brings renewal and restoration. Sabbath rest is part of what forms us to be more complete disciples of Jesus.

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If you are at all familiar with long travel by car, then I have no doubt you are familiar with a rest area. Every so often along the interstate there are places to pull off the highway that have bathroom facilities, vending machines with snacks, often picnic areas, walking paths, sometimes a small playground for children, or a fenced-in dog park to let your pet run around for a bit. All of that placed as a brief pause along the highway that we call a rest area.
When I go on long trips and stop at a rest area for a break, it feels good to get out of the car and stretch your legs. I will take three-to-five minutes just to walk around. This is also a good time to grab a sandwich out of the cooler. It’s a quick time of refreshment before getting back on the road. There are countless different ways we might build small times of refreshment into our regular routines. Coffee break at work, half-time at the ball game, intermission at the theatre, a quick shower after a workout, a stroll around the block when getting home in the afternoon, sitting around the campfire ring after dinner, taking 20 minutes to read a chapter in a good book, calling up a friend to say hi and chat for a few minutes, catching a 15 minute nap. You get the idea. It may look different for each one of us, but there are so many ways in which we build these small moments of refreshment into the routines of our day. Rest and refreshment go hand-in-hand.
Perhaps the English word we most often associate with sabbath in the Bible is the word “rest.” In one sense it is not all that different from what we talked about last week. The first message in this series focused on sabbath as a time to stop. And we do sometimes think of rest as simply meaning to stop. When we say something like, “I need to rest for a bit,” it usually means we are looking for a short pause, a break. But there is something else we are after when we seek rest; it is more than just a time to pause. We are looking for some kind of refreshment, re-energizing, rejuvenation. We take a break and have a time of pausing in order to be refreshed in some way.
Let’s consider the way in which the Bible tells us that sabbath serves this purpose, that it is built into the rhythm of our week as a time to be refreshed, to experience refreshment. In Matthew we find a passage in which Jesus talks about that refreshment which is then immediately followed by a story that provides an example of this refreshment to illustrate what Jesus is talking about.
Matthew 11:28–12:8 (NIV)
Matthew 11:28–12:8 NIV
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” 3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
in the time of Jesus, sabbath was not refreshing; it was about a pile of rules
It is important for us to understand that in the time of Jesus, observation of the sabbath was anything but refreshing. For the people of Israel during the time of Jesus, sabbath was about an endless pile of rules to follow. This is why the Pharisees make an accusation against the disciples for snacking on some grain while they were out for a walk on a sabbath day. According to Old Testament law, farmers were supposed to leave the very edges of their grainfields for others to glean. It is not that the disciples are stealing grain. The problem, according to the Pharisees, is that picking grain is an activity that is associated with harvesting, and harvesting is an act of labor, and work is forbidden on the sabbath. Therefore, the Pharisees are accusing the disciples of harvesting on the sabbath by picking off a handful of grain kernels for a snack.
I suppose if we were to try to give the Pharisees the benefit of the doubt, we might possibly understand where they are coming from. In the book of Exodus we read that God provided manna for the people of Israel during their time in the wilderness. Manna would be on the ground every morning, and the people were instructed to gather enough for just that day. The one exception to this instruction was to gather twice as much manna on Friday because on Saturday (the Jewish sabbath day) no manna would be available. I suppose the line of thinking coming from the Pharisees would point to Exodus and make the claim that the disciples should have picked enough grain on Friday for two days of snacking.
Jesus quotes Hosea to show how sabbath rules miss the point of sabbath
Either way, Jesus immediately refutes their line of thinking by giving two examples from the Old Testament showing that the Pharisees’ strict interpretation of sabbath law misses the point. Instead, Jesus draws on the Old Testament prophet Hosea, quoting what the prophets says.
Hosea 6:6 (NIV)
Hosea 6:6 NIV
6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
the inner life of the heart is what matters most as it shows up in the outward actions we perform
if our pattern for observing sabbath is not bringing refreshment for your life and rest for your soul, then we are missing the point
Keeping the rules just to go through the motions gets you nowhere. Jesus uses these words from Hosea to remind us that the inner life of the heart is what matters most as it shows up in the outward actions we perform. Or, to place it firmly inside the issue as hand in this passage, if our pattern for observing sabbath is not bringing refreshment for your life and rest for your soul, then we are missing the point. God intends for the sabbath to be a time of refreshment and rest. We should be careful not to over-associate the end of chapter 11 with the beginning of chapter 12. There is nothing in Matthew’s arrangement of the narrative in his gospel to make us think that the invitation of Jesus to come to him and receive rest applies only to the sabbath—as though somehow Jesus does not provide any refreshment the other six days of the week. The story that follows in chapter 12 concerning the disciples’ activities on the sabbath serves as one illustration of what Jesus is talking about, but certainly not the only application of this invitation from Jesus to come to him and receive rest.
Does this turn sabbath into just a little me-time?
sabbath is not about self-centered refreshment; it is about God-centered refreshment
self-care is not always self-centered
However, as we discovered last week when we examined the order of creation, the regular observance of sabbath gives us a rhythm of engaging this kind of rest and refreshment in our lives. It is worth paying some special attention to the application of this refreshment within a rhythm of sabbath.
“sabbath was made for man”
I imagine we need to give some consideration to the similarities and differences between our culture today and the culture in the time of Jesus. Our passage ends with Jesus acknowledging that he is the Lord of the sabbath. Mark’s version of this same story ends with a quote from Jesus that is a little more complete.
Mark 2:27–28 (NIV)
Mark 2:27–28 NIV
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Israelites arranged their sabbath rules by a structure in which the sabbath only seemed to exist for mankind to serve it.
I would suggest to you that there is a key difference between our culture today and the culture in the time of the Bible that gives us just a little different perspective on this statement from Jesus. I think that the definite thrust of this statement to the original audience in the time of Jesus comes from the line, “not man for the sabbath.” Everything about the way in which the Israelites arranged their sabbath rules led to a structure in which the sabbath only seemed to exist for mankind to serve it, that people in effect become slaves of the sabbath. That is what is taking place during the time of Jesus.
our world has forgotten that this pattern and rhythm of rest was made by God and given to us for our benefit
Let’s make an honest assessment. That is not the case in our world today and culture in which we live. It is a difficult case to make if you are trying to convince anyone today that our culture is enslaved to sabbath observation in any way. Our world today needs much more to hear the first phrase in this line from Jesus, “sabbath was made for man.” We have forgotten that this pattern and rhythm of rest was made by God and given to us for our benefit. Our world and our culture does not suffer from being enslaved to sabbath. It is the opposite. Our world and our culture suffers from ignoring sabbath altogether.
In order to take these words of scripture and apply them to us today, we need to acknowledge a couple things about us and our world and our culture of doing things the way we do.
our culture does not know how to rest
First. We don’t know how to rest very well. A recent study in the Lane Report estimates that 62% of Americans do not take all their paid vacation days given to them by their jobs. Among that, the report found that just over 5% of those people do not even take any of their vacation days. During the few years that I lived on the South side of Chicago I quickly noticed a pattern that ultimately led to Laura and I deciding that we did not want to continue living in the Chicago suburbs. As I made friends at the church I was serving, there seemed to the exact same conversation that took place during coffee time after church on Sunday morning. The guys would stand in their circles with their styrofoam cups of really bad coffee and talk about how their week had gone. And the conversation always included every guy in the circle sharing how many hours they had put in on the job that week. It did not take long for me to figure out that there was a bit of a competitive slant to this weekly conversation. The more hours you worked during the week was a badge of honor. It was as though the guy in the circle who was able to claim the most hours on the job during the past week somehow “won” the prize. Sorry, I just don’t think it’s healthy to spend 70+ hours at work every week without a break.
The other thing I noticed about this church in Chicago is that the early service is full and the second service is much less attended. It was a large enough church that there was an 8:30am service on Sunday morning, then a break for the Sunday school time, then an 11am service. Most people in that church got up on Sunday and came to the 8:30am service. It did not take long for me to discover the reason for this. It was because these families had a jam-packed schedule of events for the day and needed to get church checked off the list by 9:30 in the morning so they could get on to the next things on the calendar for the day. That was the culture I experienced in the Chicago suburbs back in the 1990s. Today our culture is not one of having to squeeze church into the weekend schedule, but leaving it out altogether because stopping to rest at all just doesn’t fit anywhere.
John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way: rest begins by rediscovering how to get the right amount of sleep
John Mark Comer—the guy who put together the prayer practice sessions we used last fall—writes in his book Practicing the Way that one of the aspects of rest we need to recapture the most is simply sleep. For most of human history before the discovery of electricity and the invention of the lightbulb, people went to sleep when the sun went down and it got dark outside. Sure, people had candles and oil lamps, but these were not always abundant resources available to the mass population. For the majority of human history, most people slept eight-to-ten hours a day. Most people in our world today feel lucky if they can get up to seven hours of sleep a day—that’s a good night of rest for us in our world if you can get seven hours of sleep at night. Our bodies were not made by God to function on such little sleep. John Mark Comer suggests that one of our most essential sabbath rhythms ought to be ensuring at least eight hours of sleep every night.
we are not at our best when we are tired
Maybe it feels a little over simplistic for me to suggest a sermon application on sabbath rest by noting the one most important thing we could do in our world today is sleep at night for at least eight hours. But just consider it with me for a moment. How do you function when you are tired? People who are tired are more irritable and grumpy. People who are tired are less attentive and aware. People who are tired are not critically thinking at their sharpest. I have never in my life met one person who says, “I am at my very best when I am tired.” I’ve never met anyone who says, “I treat other people in the best way possible when I am tired.” I have never met anyone who says, “My best focus and concentration happens when I am tired.” No. The truth is that I do not give other people my best attention when I am tired. The truth is I rush decisions and don’t always do the best thing when I am tired. The truth is I am not fully alert and attentive when I am tired.
I need adequate physical rest in order to be at my very best in my relationship with God
Now then, If I need adequate physical rest in order to be at my very best in relationships with other people, it would also be absolutely true that I need adequate physical rest in order to be at my very best in my relationship with God. We say over and over again in this church that the goal of being a Christian is not just to get to heaven. The goal of being a Christian is to be a more complete disciple of Jesus. The life of discipleship with Jesus is better when I am physically rested and refreshed. In other words, getting enough sleep every day is in fact a spiritual habit because it impacts and influences our spiritual lives.
In the story we read in Matthew today we can see that getting enough to eat refreshes us. The disciples of Jesus are being refreshed by snacking on kernels of grain as they walk with Jesus. They are doing EXACTLY what sabbath is meant for—finding refreshment. I mentioned adequate sleep as one greatly needed habit in our culture. What else might fit that category of sabbath refreshment for you? The answers might look different for each person here. Extroverted personalities might look for stimulating social interaction as something which provides refreshment. Introverts need just the opposite—some time in solitude provides refreshment. For people who work indoors sitting at a desk reading all day, maybe getting outside for some physical activity provides refreshment. For people who work physical jobs outside all week long, maybe sitting on the sofa and reading provides refreshment.
what refreshes my life to be more centered on Jesus?
Jesus invites us to experience sabbath as a time of rest which provides refreshment and rejuvenation. Jesus invites us to walk in discipleship with him in ways that learn from his own example.
Matthew 11:29–30 (NIV)
Matthew 11:29–30 NIV
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
yoke is meant for doing work — invitation from Jesus is not an excuse to be lazy or complacent
yoke of Jesus is light — being a disciple is not meant to be an impossible load to carry
A yoke was a common farming tool in the time of Jesus. It was a wood beam that held two animals together for being harnessed to something—most often pulling a plow. As I mentioned earlier, this invitation from Jesus does not apply exclusively and only to sabbath; it is an invitation that applies to all rhythm of life (including sabbath). After all, a yoke is meant for doing work. It is not an invitation from Jesus to be lazy and push aside all responsibility. But neither is the work of life to which we are called meant to be an overbearing heavy burden. God has intentionally built into the rhythms of his creation times set aside for rest and refreshment. Being a disciple of Jesus is not meant to be an impossible load to take up and carry. Jesus himself has already picked up and carried the impossible part by taking up his own cross on which he gave himself for our sins. If following Jesus feels like an impossible load to carry, then perhaps it is load we are only placing on ourselves. The invitation from Jesus is to embrace a life which lightens that load. It begins in a moment of surrender in which we respond to the invitation of Jesus and allow ourselves to find rest in him.
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