Rest or Restless?

Introduction

In the last year, many things changed as the pandemic descended upon us. 

Most ended up with school at home or work at home. Routines were upended, and we discovered life at a far different pace.

But one issue that arose was the issue of rest. 

It appears on the surface that the last year afforded more rest. Yet, the opposite is true.

Listen to how one investment analyst had to quit because of his condition he describes.

“Even when you have time off, you don’t actually have time off. The pressure is just always feeling like I was never able to really put my phone down and take a nap and not have to worry about something coming up.”

Do you relate?

In a world of productivity, we are pushed. And for churches, the unending schedule of services, meetings, classes, and other activities can book a life solid.

Yet, God is not the culprit in this situation. The demons are of our own making.

It was not unique to 21st-century people. Jesus had to wrestle the issue of rest to the ground. 

How should we view rest in a context of a restless culture? It is what Jesus tackles in Mark 2.

Discussion

Religious Restlessness

We sometimes long for days of peace and calm. We reflect back to the New Testament, without the constant buzz of a cellphone, absence of electric lights, and television, and think, “it must have been so much easier.”

In this lesson, we meet a dilemma. What happens when things that promote God’s will clash with God’s will? 

If a person is hungry, should he eat? If he is sick, should he be cared for? 

It sounds so simple to us, yet it was anything but simple to the world in which Jesus walked.

In Mark 2, we wander through a grainfield on the Sabbath day, that holy day of the week.

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.

It’s midday, and the growls of the disciples’ stomach react instinctively. They reach for the head of grain, rub it between their palms to free grain from the husk, and pop it in their mouths.

But someone was watching. The Pharisees. They turn a disdainful eye toward Jesus.

Mark 2:24 ESV

And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

It wasn’t a question but an accusation. If they could discredit him as a lawbreaker, they could break his hold on the crowds.

And their crowbar was their overladen regulations about what was permitted on the Sabbath day.

Originally in the law of Moses, the Sabbath instructions were sparse.

Exodus 23:12 ESV

“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

God instructed well through practice. He did not send manna on the Sabbath, so they could not gather it. They learned about Sabbath.

But, as lawyers tell you, the big print giveth, but the small print taketh away.

It wasn’t long until someone started trying to strain the tallow out of the meaning of work. What does it mean to “work?”

And so, Sabbath was not defined by commandment but by precedent.

In Numbers 15, a man is gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Is he working? They took the case to Moses, and he judged that he was. It appears it is not idle but a deliberate thumbing his nose at God.

In Hezekiah’s time, he had to shut the city’s gates on the Sabbath to keep commerce from taking place. He was placing his own set of blue laws on his society.

But, what is work? Does it have to break a sweat? 

So, the rabbis did as most men do. They filled in God’s blanks with man’s injunction.

They came up with several chapters of the Talmud telling what you could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath.

One described 39 categories of creative work. It included planting, reaping, and plowing. Wives could not scrub pots and kids could not tie or untie knots. 

They forbade the use of money, lest it becomes trade.

Musical instruments were silenced along with hammers.

But, as with all good lawyering, there were exceptions. You could help a cow deliver a calf. And if you were a parent, you could lead a child by the hand but not pick him up and carrying him to bed.

This resulted in tentativeness. People had to be careful. They had to count their steps lest they took one too many. They had to determine if they could eat or starve since it might be work.

In short, they had to be “careful.”

Careful is an interesting word. It’s chemical components come out “full of care.” For a day which bore the Hebrew word rest, souls found themselves laden with care and concern. Worry entered the day, lest violation occurs.

Divine Redirection

How does Jesus handle this knotty problem? Does he say, “it doesn’t matter?” He knew God’s word and obedience did matter. Did he denounce the Pharisees? That’s what they wanted. He would then become a rebel trying to fray the fabric of Jewish society.

Jesus refuses to get sucked into their legal games. Instead, he redirects the issue to where it belonged.

First, he points out their own inconsistency with the law. They let more serious things slide.

Mark 2:25–26 ESV

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?”

The incident in 1 Sam 21  is a glaring transgression, spelled out clearly in the Levitical archives. 

Yet, David and his men were hungry. When a man is hungry, as his disciples were, does God not provide for his needs?

And, if the David with whom you are so enamored gets a pass, why make this a case?

We all have our blinders. We want to excuse our own blunders while accusing others. We shade the truth while others lie. Jesus in 

Matthew 7 compared it to specks and planks.

But Jesus is not content to confound. Instead, he points back to something else.

When men approach an issue, they go back to tradition. When Jesus approaches the same issue, he goes back to creation.

Sabbath was not a Mosaical invention. In a world that is fresh, God sets a pattern.

Genesis 2:2–3 ESV

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.

And the basis for the Sabbath was in this creation.

Exodus 20:11 ESV

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

In Genesis 2:2, the word “rest” is the Hebrew word Sabbath. 

It was a revolutionary idea. Everyone and everything is rested. Animals find time to lay on their hay free from their labor. Slaves get respite.

God created something that matched the needs of his creation. He knew men were not machines. Instead, they bore his image and should be like him.

This is the heart of the Sabbath, not just the absence of activity but the presence of peace when a body and soul can flutter to earth and be still.

That is why Jesus responds as he does.

Mark 2:27 ESV

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

God made the Sabbath for the needs of man. Sabbath was not something men bowed before and worshipped but thanked God for his blessing.

It was a time for family, faith, and reflection. It was when we reconnected with God. And when we don’t rest, we lose the rhythm of the Almighty.

The Jews made man the slave of the Sabbath by placing burdens on the backs of people. It was the condition that the Sabbath was designed to remove. Duty replaced devotion. Observance replaced reflection. Fear replaced faith.

How ragic when men take something God creates and overlays it with their own views of what they think it ought to be!

And Jesus is not finished.

Mark 2:28 ESV

So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

He is not a religious teacher. He is the Lord, even over the Sabbath. Don’t overlook that little word “even.” Jesus is the divine interpreter of the Sabbath. He determines what it is, not these haughty religious pretenders.

Jesus wants to restore the concept of the Sabbath, the times of rest for our souls.

Man Rediscovered

This seems to foreign to us. I know that people have tried to twist things to make Sundays fit the Sabbath, at least as a ritual.

But Paul recognized the folly of updating robed Pharisees to suited preachers.

Colossians 2:16 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.

Along with the dozens of regulations, the ritual is gone, with Moses' law nailed to a cross.

But that does not negate what happened before tablets came off of Sinai.

The eternal principle remains—God wants us to rest, reflect, and recover.

So how do we rediscover the truth of "Sabbath was made for man?"

In pointing back to the Genesis record, as he did with marriage in Matthew 19, Jesus says we need to follow the original plan of God.

 We are a tired society, longing for rest. Look at your own practice. You are on vacation, and your cell phone rings. It's the office. Do you answer it? 

Be aware that, as the Pharisees did, we rely on our traditional senses to determine our schedules. Instead of going back to tradition, we must return to creation lest we find ourselves dry.

The tragedy of modern human life, and even in the church, is to fill our lives with all kinds of activities and schedules until we push God to the margins. We have a meeting here, a service schedule to meet. We sometimes become the modern manager of our time than the one who ceases labor.

Should we not re-evaluate and re-sort our lives, even in our formal church structures, to reflect the heart of God. Do more hours in a building lead to more holiness in the street? Does falling into bed beat on a Sunday night create peace in the soul?

Remember that Jesus seemed to teach a radical concept when he spoke the words. Sometimes, the most radical is to admit we haven't taken our practices back far enough. We need to recover the eternal rhythms of the Sabbath again.

We will be called to account for that. Our body will tell us. We wear out because we think we are indispensable. We disconnect with God because we connect with each other.

Instead of performing in our lives, let us respond in the peace God provides.

We replace God's way with ours simply because we want it. But God wants what is best for us. 

Ask a few questions:

Do you have a regular time, free of interruption and outside interference, to plugin with God?

God did not design us to multitask. That's what computers and machines demand of us. God wants a focused sense of relationship. The truth of life is you never find time for God. You make time for God. And that usually means dropping something good off your schedule for something essential.

Is your time with God sacred?

One of the concepts of Sabbath is that it was "holy." It was treated as sacred. Do you put off time with God because something more pressing comes up? 

Do you encourage others to observe a time of rest?

Regardless of Cain's protestations, we are our brother's keeper. And many times, we are the culprits.

We create schedules and expectations that say, "Man was made for the Sabbath." We expect others to attend events and even judge whether they are spiritual or not due to their attendance record. 

That's modern-day Pharisaical judgment. Be aware of others. They may need more space. Or time. Don't become the barrier for others to grow closer to God.

Conclusion

For God-fearing and Bible-believing people, the words of Jesus are pungent reminders of our lack.

We have crafted our lives to do many things rather than lining up with God and his ways.

Is there something interfering with the signal from God.

When we moved into our house two decades ago, we bought it from an electrical engineer who put all kinds of electronic equipment in the house. In fact, to this day, I have two antennas in my attic.

When we got there, we talked to some people who said, when he fired up all of the electronics, it caused interference in the neighborhood.

Whether true or not, we have installed so much spiritual equipment that it may interfere with deepening our relationship with God.

How’s your life? Rested or restless?

What’s getting in your way? Is there something we can all do to put a sense of God’s rest in our lives? Can we cease our striving to thrive?

Fatigue can kill.

On July 19, 1989, United flight 232 cruised high above the earth on autopilot. All seemed to work well.

But at 37,000 feet, a fan disk broke apart, shooting metal shrapnel through the plane’s skin rendering the pilots powerless.

It crashed, killing half of all those on board.

After an examination, it was decided that the fan came apart due to a “fatigue crack.” Every time the engine turned to life, the crack became a little longer. On that day, it had grown just enough, to an inch and a half long. And on the day of the crash, the fatigue brought down the plane.

It is just as valid to our souls. Even with good things, always busy can grow tired, fatigued, strained until life comes crashing down.

Remember that God made a plan to prevent it. Are you taking advantage of it?