How Do We Rest? (Practicing Sabbath)

Podcast 2-25-16 Pastor Josh VanLeeuwen

Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Mark 2:23-3:6

If you are a Certain Age or grew up in certain parts of the US, you probably remember Blue Laws. These were state or local laws that prohibited certain activities, usually related to entertainment, on Sundays. Blue Laws date back to the Colonial period, when the Puritans were very strict about observing the Sabbath. The laws continued into modern days until some were challenged and modified by the courts. So now we can work, shop, and do most anything we want on Sundays, although in some places the sale of alcohol is still prohibited.

The Pharisees in ancient times instituted their own version of Blue Laws based on the commandment to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Exodus 20:8-11 is very specific about what God’s people, their families, and their servants were and were not allowed to do on the Sabbath. The commandment even applied to the household animals and the strangers or guests within the household. Today many modern Jews honor Shabbat, their Sabbath (sundown Friday until sundown Saturday), by refraining from anything that could be interpreted as work. (Fun fact: some modern appliances have a Sabbath mode, allowing observant Jews to avoid prohibited work on Shabbat or certain holidays but still have a meal.)

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 echoes the admonitions in Exodus but adds, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Remember all that God has done for you, and honor him by keeping the Sabbath. You have six days every week to do your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord. God created the world and everything in it in six days and rested on the seventh, not because he was tired but because he was finished. His work of creation was complete and perfect, so he stopped, evaluated, and enjoyed what he had made. Why do we have such a hard time doing the same?

Is it because we can never see our work as finished? Every day blends into the next, projects extend over days, weeks, months, and we never lack for something to do. With the advent of cell phones and other devices, we are never truly away from work. Even on vacation, we are likely to be interrupted by some crisis back in our “real” lives. No time for relaxing or getting away because work follows us everywhere. And it is never done. Sure, sometimes we can step back and look at something we’ve accomplished and pronounce it good (or as good as it’s going to be). But then something happens that requires a tweak, or some other project piggybacks the previous one, and we are back at it again. Never finished. Never complete.

Jesus was always under the scrutiny of the Pharisees. Like modern-day internet stalkers, they constantly looked for ways to criticize his behavior. Why not? He was upsetting the way they did organized religion, so he was a threat to their authority. One Sabbath he was going through some grain fields and his disciples, hungry, picked some heads of grain. “Wait a minute,” the Pharisees told him, “you can’t do that on the Sabbath.” Harvesting is work. Nope, can’t do that today. But Jesus, as always, had an answer straight from history and scripture, and then he added, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” And the clincher: “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Wow. Another time Jesus met a man with a shriveled hand, in the synagogue no less, and in the presence of those looking for fault asked, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” Their silence betrayed their bitter and stubborn hearts and deeply distressed Jesus, who healed the man.

What can we learn from God about how to observe the Sabbath? Maybe we should examine our idea of what constitutes [...]