"The Scandal Over The Sabbath"

Introduction:

As we have been going through the book of Mark we have seen that Mark is recording the accounts of Jesus. Throughout the Gospel we see that Jesus is on the move and He is stays busy about the Fathers’s Business. In modern terms, Jesus is in The Grind! Just like in out hurried, busy lives, we see that a central theme to Jesus’ Grind - especially as Mark records it - is immediacy. Mark uses the word immediately, or some derivative of it, over 42 times. After we read today’s passage we will have seen the word “immediately” 14x’s.

Mark shows us Jesus’s miracles and His interactions with the religious folks of the day. He shows us Jesus in a manner that each of us should be able to relate to. He shows us Jesus in relationship with the disciples. He shows us what it means to follow and replicate the actions of Jesus. He shows us what it means to be a Christian.

This morning we are finishing up a series inside of a series. A couple weeks ago we started this series titled “The Scandalous Savior.” 2 weeks ago we saw the Scandal Over Sinners. Jesus took time out of His busy ministry schedule to minister to new converts. In v. 14 of Chapter 2 Jesus called out to Levi (Matthew and said, “Follow Me.”) Matthew did, and Jesus had dinner with Him. This angered the Pharisees and caused them to ask, Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’ reply was that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Then last week we saw the controversy and scandal over Jesus and His disciples not fasting. This was all about traditions and not the law. It was about apparent righteousness not true righteousness. The truth is we could belabor this point in a great deal of the Gospels. This was often the controversy that Jesus faced. A major point from that section of Scripture is “Jesus is seeking relationship over regulation.” If we are in relationship with Jesus, the regulations will work themselves out.

As we have looked at the activities that I have labeled as Scandalous let me take a moment to unwrap these a little bit further. In the first episode we saw the religious leaders upset because in their expectations sinners were to be kept at a distance. To steal a line from the famous Christmas song, “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch.” The Pharisees carried the attitude of, “I wouldn’t touch you with a 39 1/1 foot pole.” BUT JESUS, shows that God’s love extends mercy to those that have openly failed. The second episode shows the difference between a religious expectation that weighs a person down with countless regulations, and a relational experience that allows a person to soar with JOY. This morning we will see that the Pharisees placed religious regulations over basic human needs.

Mark 2:23–3:6 ESV

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

PRAY

THE SCANDAL OVER THE SABBATH

The Controversy; The Scandal! Jesus openly and seemingly defiantly confronts tat pharisees and heals on the Sabbath. As I already said, we could belabor the point of Jesus confronting religion and tradition. We could, AND SHOULD, point to His desire to show mercy, love justice, and walk humbly with God.

So if we aren’t going to pick on traditions and religion without scriptural basis, what do we glean from this Scripture. 1st of all we need to be careful about “Gleaning” on the Sabbath. Historically the word “Gleaning” meant to gather (leftover grain or other produce) after a harvest. MOst certainly this would have violated the Pharisees understanding of Scripture…more so it would have violated their oral traditions.

This morning I want to look at 3 specific points related to the Sabbath: The Sabbath initiation, The Sabbath Interpretation, and the Sabbath Intention.

The Sabbath Initiation

The word Sabbath originates all the way back to . God had spent 6 days creating. He spent 6 days working to make everything we know as the world! He made the sun and the moon and jupiter and mars. Me made the cows and the wheat and the trees. On the sixth day, He created His masterpiece. On the sixth day The Lord created someone to have relationship. He created someone after His image and likeness.

But in the 7th Day He Sabbathed!

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And 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.

From the beginning of creation God showed the necessity of rest in everything. IF an omnipotent ALL POWERFUL God created the precedent of taking a day of rest every week, I am going to say that each of us should follow suit.

As most of you probably know when Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the Law from God he came back down with the tablets of stone with the 10 Commandments inscribed by the finger of God. The first 4 of those commandments dealt with how man reacts with God. The last 6 deal with how man interacts with man.

For the Old Testament the day of rest was so important that it came with a command that anyone that profaned the Sabbath, his/her soul would be cut off from the nation of Israel

Exodus 31:14 ESV

You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

Sabbath Years, The Year of Jubilee etc.

The Sabbath was so important that by the time the Romans has taken control of the region, they realized that they couldn’t even get the Jews to work, so they didn’t try.

ONe of the biigest problems with the Sabbath was in its interpretation

The Sabbath Interpretation

Even though this wasn’t technically harvesting (no sickle was used) the Pharisees saw it as a violation of sabbath RULES. 39 categories added to the initial commandment to remember the sabbath and keep it holy.

Building a fence around the LAW

This is where we see the conflict start in

Mark 2:23 ESV

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

They were not stealing grain. The law allowed for the “plucking” of standing grain as long as a sickle wasn’t used.

Deuteronomy 23:25 ESV

If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.

By the written Law given by God there was nothing wrong with what the disciples were doing

Deuteronomy 22:25 ESV

“But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.

39 Categories

Building a fence around the LAW

Even though this wasn’t technically harvesting (no sickle was used) the Pharisees saw it as a violation of sabbath RULES. 39 categories added to the initial commandment to remember the sabbath and keep it holy.

39 Categories

1. Carrying 2. Burning 3. Extinguishing 4. Finishing 5. Writing 6. Erasing 7. Cooking 8. Washing

9. Sewing 10. Tearing 11. Knotting 12. Untying 13. Shaping 14. Plowing 15. Planting 16. Reaping

17. Harvesting 18. Threshing 19. Winnowing 20. Selecting 21. Sifting 22. Grinding 23. Kneading

24. Combing 25. Spinning 26. Dyeing 27. Chain-stitching 28. Warping 29. Weaving 30. Unraveling

31. Building 32. Demolishing 33. Trapping 34. Shearing 35. Slaughtering 36. Skinning 37. Tanning

38. Smoothing 39. Marking

For the Pharisees plucking the grain qualified as reaping and harvesting, rolling it in their fingers to free the grain was threshing, blowing away the outer hull was threshing.

Some other Sabbath “Regulations”

The Sabbath Intention

They taught that you should not look in a mirror on the Sabbath because you might be tempted to pluck out a grey hair and that would be reaping.

They said that you could only eat and egg which had been laid on the Sabbath if you killed the chicken for Sabbath-breaking.

A donkey could be led out of the stable on the Sabbath, but the harness and saddle had to be placed on him the day before.

An egg could not be boiled on the Sabbath, either by normal means or by putting it near a hot kettle or by wrapping it in a hot cloth or by putting it in the hot sand outside.

If the lights were on when the Sabbath came (Sabbath began at sundown), you could not blow them out. If they had not been lit in time, then you could not light them.

It was unlawful to move furniture on the Sabbath. There was an exception to this in that you were allowed to move a ladder on the Sabbath, but you could only move it four steps.

It was unlawful to wear any jewelry or ornaments on the Sabbath, since this might be construed as carrying a burden.

It was not permitted to wear false teeth on the Sabbath (that must have been a hit in the synagogue services).

You were allowed to eat radishes on the Sabbath, but you were warned against dipping them into salt because you might leave them in the salt too long and pickle them and this was considered to be Sabbath-breaking.

The Pharisees actually had discussions as to how long it took to pickle a radish.It was fine to spit on a rock on the Sabbath, but you could not spit on the ground, because that made mud and mud was mortar, and that was work.

If a woman got mud on her dress, she was to wait until it had dried and then she was permitted to crumple the dress in her hands one time and crush it and then shake it out once. If that did not do the trick, then she had to wear it.

You can see how ridiculous some of this seemed. With just a few examples you can begin to see that it was harder to “Keep the Sabbath” than to break it.

Here the Disciples are just taking a stroll. They aren’t tromping through a field, they are most likely on a trail that led between houses, or something similar. They weren’t harvesting a field. They weren’t even gathering enough for a loaf of bread. They were having a snack as they were probably laughing and discussing the different things they were learning.

I imagine it was no different than me sitting at Texas Roadhouse with my wife eating peanuts while waiting for a table. There was no work here. There was not an immoral amount of pleasure. They were simply getting a snack while they were walking and talking.

This is where Jesus finds opportunity to Teach...

The Sabbath Intention

…Have you never read…?

Imagine the Scandal! The leaders of the Law. The “Set Apart ones” The ones that everyone looked to and looked for when laws were questioned or broken.

Have you never read how David was hungry and how him and his men did what was not lawful.

1 Samuel 21:1–6 ESV

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

1 Samuel 21

The bread of the Showbread was for the priests and the priests ONLY, and Then and only then only after it was replaced. It would sit on the table of the show bread in front of the Holy of Holies for a week. ON the sabbath it would be replaced.

Matthew takes this even further and says in that the priests are doing what is not lawful on the sabbath while they are keeping the law. As they are ministering in the Temple, they are doing things that are work, but they are held guiltless.

At the end of Jesus gets to the point where I want to camp. He says “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

3 Things the Sabbath is for

The Sabbath is a time for commemoration.

a fancy word for remembering.

Commemoration of Creation.

The day of the Lord’s Ressurection

The Sabbath is a Time for doing Good

And if you had known what this means, “i desire mercy, and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

The man with the withered Hand

“Which of you who has a sheep if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?’

The Sabbath is a Time for Rest

Blue Laws

Chick Fil A

HOw many of you have ever been tired?

HOw many of you have ever been tired?

How many of you are tired right now?

Jesus IS OUR SABBATH He is our REST

Matthew 11:28 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

c.

Colossians 2:16–17 ESV

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Matthew 11:28 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

c. Blue Laws

d. Chic Fil A

e. Years ago, I read about a railroad that conducted an experiment. It purchased two new locomotives. One was kept in constant service, regardless of Sunday. In the use of the other, late each Saturday they pulled its fire and released the steam. On Sunday it was allowed to cool down, thus re-tempering its metal. Then it was fired up again on Monday. Over the years they found that they had less maintenance and trouble with the latter than with the former. If rest one day each week so benefited a piece of machinery, how much more does the fragile, delicate human body and spirit need it!

[1] Herschel H. Hobbs, My Favorite Illustrations (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1990), 168.

Jesus want to give everyone here rest this morning.