Study inLuke’s Gospel

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The Lord Of The Sabbath

Chap 6v1-16Presentation 20

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IntroductionIs Sunday a special day for us and if so in what way is it special? Just how to keep Sunday special is one of the most difficult of the commandments for Christians to understand and one of the most difficult to implement. We would never dispute that it was wrong to kill, steal or commit adultery but are we shaky in both our conviction and practice of the 4th commandment to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? If Sunday is special what criteria do we use for regulating our approach towards it? Can we dismiss this commandment as some do by saying that today’s society makes it difficult to keep Sunday special? This is not a periphery issue of secondary importance. If it were, it would not be enshrined in the 10 commandments. How does Jesus deals with the issue?

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathOur passage opens with the Pharisees’ complaining that Jesus’ disciples were Sabbath breakers. There is a remarkable irony here for we are immediately obliged to ask, ‘What use were the Pharisees making of the Sabbath?’ They were using it to spy on Jesus, to engage in a spot of detective work . They do not seem to have stopped to ask, ‘Is this the best use we can make of God’s day?’

Jesus disciples are accused of working on the Sabbath. They were plucking ears of corn and eating them. The Pharisees’ considered plucking corn to be the equivalent to reaping, threshing and winnowing!

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathNotice the focus of the Pharisees’ attention. They pointed to what they considered was forbidden rather than what was to be enjoyed. They had reduced their religion was a list of ‘do's and don’ts’. Theirs was not a personal, loving commitment to a living God but a devotion to mere law-keeping and box ticking.

Now whenever a person’s religion is reduced to that it becomes cold, hard, formal and burdensome. Indeed, this whole approach ensures that we see people to be of less value than our rules.

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathHow did Jesus answer their complaint?

He cites an O.T. passage ; 1Sam. 21v1-6 which describes an incident in which David, exhausted from the pursuit of Saul, arrives at the tabernacle and asks for food. All that was available was bread which according to God's law, had been solemnly set aside for the priest’s exclusive use. Yet this bread was given to and eaten by David and his men. David was one of the Pharisees’ heroes. How then did they explain their failure to criticise David?

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathIt would appear to be clear that David's need took precedence over established ceremonial law.

Jesus’ point also is quite clear; his disciple’s hunger must take precedence over the Pharisees’ petty interpretation of the law. They wanted to be more rigorous than God's holy law. The letter of the law had become more important to them than the spirit of the law and rules more important than human need. In this context we must understand Jesus’ significant claim. As ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ Jesus claims the right to rule over and interpret all elements of the law concerning the Sabbath.

Law

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathPharisaic legalism towards the Sabbath is less commonplace today than the opposite tendency which is a complete disregard for God’s day. T. S. Elliot speaks of, “decent godless people, their only monument the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls.”

Many others allow a formal recognition of part of the Sabbath but not the whole, perhaps an hour or so, the rest they claim as their own. Sunday is no longer God's day but God's half day. It is simply another day to be filled as they please and the earlier the Sunday service is over the better. The motto of some is, ‘Go through with the God slot and then forget about God for the rest of the day’.

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathWhen Jesus claimed to be ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ in v5. He was not only claiming the authority to redress the legalistic approach of the Pharisees but also to authoritatively teach how the Sabbath was to be used.

The approach of the Pharisees was too negative. The Sabbath for them was simply a day when you didn't do things. An approach that an elderly generation in Scotland and elsewhere would be very familiar with. It rests on a failure to recognise God’s original intent for the Sabbath. That original intention had positive blessings for his people in view.

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathWe need to remind ourselves of the origin and purpose of the Sabbath. It is the only commandment, which cites divine example as an incentive. "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy".

The seventh day was instituted as a blessing before anything else. Do you believe that? This pattern of work and rest, which God has given us, is a blessing for our good. The man who is able to rest after 6 days hard work is thereby equipped to cope with the week that lies ahead. The student who recognises the value of having a day completely divorced from his studies discovers that he will work far more efficiently the next week.

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathNot only is our efficiency but our enjoyment of our work greatly increased when we are able to rest for one day in seven.

You may know that with the advent of Communism in Russia in 1917 an attempt was made to introduce a ten-day week- working nine days and then having a rest day. The aim was twofold, first improve efficiency and secondly to make it more difficult for Christians to worship on a Sunday. After a very short period the production figures instead of increasing, decreased and the leadership was obliged to reinstate the seven-day week

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathThis pattern of work and rest not only had practical benefit it also had a spiritual purpose. And here we begin to think about how we are to use our rest-day that provides a welcome break from the work that demands our attention for the rest of the week. It is a day to enjoy fellowship with God, to have time to spend meditating on his Word, learning its truths and applying them to our lives. Invariably the man who cannot turn away from the clamouring pressures and demands of this world becomes incapable of seeing material things in the right perspective. He becomes blinkered and earthbound so that he finds it hard to see that this life is transitory and short lived. He has not learned to profit from Sabbath rest. ‘What shall it profit a man...’ Mk.8v36

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A Legalist’s Approach To The SabbathThirdly, when the people of God keep his day special. When it is the attractive highlight of their week and not a wearisome burden to bear, then not only do they demonstrate the fact that they are God's people, and surely such a testimony is needed in our own generation, but they are preparing themselves for heaven. The fellowship experienced as we meet together provides a foretaste of entering into what the writer to the Hebrews describes as the ‘rest of God’. However if joining with God’s people and being in God's presence, worshipping him, meditating upon him, and delighting in him holds no excitement for us down here we are hardly likely to find the drawing back of the curtain of heaven a pleasant experience.

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Doing Good On The Sabbath In the second incident in our passage [v6-11] the subject of Sabbath-keeping is taken one stage further and it demonstrates that the Sabbath can be kept holy not only through formal acts of worship and private meditation but also by engaging in works of mercy. There was in the synagogue a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees’ taught that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath unless risk to life made it clear that delay would be fatal. Sensing that Jesus might take action to heal the sick man the Pharisees’ were perched like vultures ready to pounce- that is the force of the Greek verb used!

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Doing Good On The Sabbath Jesus forestalled them with, what for them was, an unanswerable question in v9, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"

Jesus words were designed to demonstrate the priority of mercy in religion. In examining our use of God's day, there is a world of difference between being motivated by greed or selfishness thus allowing our pleasures , desires and lusts to displace God and being motivated by care and compassion so that we stretch out our hands to help those who are in need.

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Doing Good On The Sabbath We find a full description of the religion that pleases God given in Isa. 58.6-14

“If you spend yourself on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness ... If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord's day honourable and if you honour it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find joy in the Lord.”

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Doing Good On The Sabbath The source of Jesus’ joy lay in the fact that he sought to please his FATHER not just on the Sabbath day but through his life. Can you see why worship wasn’t a burdensome thing for him? Can you see how acts of mercy formed part of his worship? God’s law was not intended to make people suffer, and to stop people from doing good. Contrast that with the joyless negative, wont raise a finger to help anyone Pharisees. They seemed to be such diligent law-keepers but Jesus said of them:"Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees’. You give a tenth of your spices- mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law- justice mercy and faithfulness.“ Matt 23.23

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Doing Good On The Sabbath To the Pharisees, the law was an external code, something they could manipulate and administer.

Alarm bells should ring when we are tempted to put religious duty before human need- you will remember that is precisely what the priest and the Levite did in Jesus’ parable of ‘the Good Samaritan’!

Legalism always externalises the religious life. It is obsessed with external conduct and not with that which motivates our behaviour. This kind of legalism has imposed itself on the church down the years and today it can be heard to say, "Christians don’t go to the cinema, do not wear cosmetics, do not smoke, do not dance, do not drink, and don’t drive on Sunday..."

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Doing Good On The Sabbath Some time ago a minister found that the road to his church was blocked by snowdrifts but he could still reach the church by skating over a frozen canal. Upon arrival he discovered that his elders were not pleased. His behaviour was considered to be tantamount to joyriding on the Lord's day. After lengthy discussion they asked the minister, ‘Did you enjoy your skating trip?’ If he answered "yes" he was to be censured; if "No" the case was to be dropped ! What petty legalism implying if what we do on a Sunday is enjoyable it must be wrong! God wants our Sundays to be enjoyable. But the joy he wants us to experience is not that which comes from pleasing ourselves but pleasing him. If a mother does not care for her feverish crying child because she wants to read her Bible is that worshipping God?

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ConclusionThe Christian life is often lived on the pendulum of reaction. When we are persuaded of the error of one approach we tend to swing in the opposite direction. We have reacted to legalism by adopting an antinomian view of the 4th Commandment. Sunday then becomes like any other day.

It is hard to watch the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ without being filled with tremendous admiration for Eric Liddle who refused to run in the Olympic Games on a Sunday. He was prepared to deny himself the opportunity of winning a gold medal. He was prepared to be the object of criticism and abuse. But do we say in our heart, ‘that kind of response was ok 70 years ago but not today’!

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ConclusionIt is becoming increasingly difficult to keeps God’s day special as it is eroded by a secular society. Schools and children's clubs schedule their competitions for a Sunday, often during times of Sunday worship. Sunday trading is commonplace. Employers driven by greed and profit often tell people whose work does not involve them in works of mercy that they either work or lose their job.

The answer is not a return to the legalism of a former generation. The answer is not for the church to publish a handbook of do’s and don’ts. The answer is to apply the principles outlined in this passage. Of asking our selves if we are seeking as much as we are able on God’s day to please him. That could mean putting real human need before our own devotional preference. It could mean being misunderstood by a secular society.