Represents special activities throughout the year. And it begins the. The church year begins an advent with the coming of our Lord. Then it enters into a time of epiphany, which is the manifestation of Christ. And then it enters into a time of lent, and then it goes into Easter, and then it goes into Pentecost, and pentecost goes into proper time.
So that helps us navigate our whole entire year around what we should be reflecting on and thinking about. So now, as we enter into this proper time, this ordinary time, they call it, we will be engaging in the entire gospel of Mark. So every Sunday I will be preaching from the Gospel of Mark. So that's where we will begin this Sunday. And we are going to be in mark, chapter two.
And we will be reading or looking at verses 23 all the way through verse six of chapter three. Once you found that spot in your bibles, please stand out of reverence for the reading of God's word.
And it happened that he was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath. And his disciples began to make their way along. While picking the heads of grain, 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 he and his companions became hungry?
How they entered the house of the Lord in the time of bathyard, the high priest and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests. And he also gave it to those who were with him. Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was for man was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is lord even of the Sabbath. He entered again into the synagogue, and a man was there whose hand was withered.
They were watching him to see if he had healed him, if he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward. And he said to them, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill it? But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand.
And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him. Let's pray, Father, may your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed. And spirit, may your work be accomplished in us.
We pray amen. You can be seated. Well, peace be with you.
Before we dive into what is taking place here with Jesus and his disciples and his nemesis, the Pharisees, again, I want to kind of wrap our minds and remember what Sabbath is all about. Because right out of the gate, the Pharisees accused Jesus and his disciples of breaking the law of the Sabbath. And if we don't really have a good grasp of what Sabbath is, then we don't really know if they are breaking the law or not. One of the things that we need to understand about Sabbath comes all the way from Exodus, chapter 20, verses eight through eleven. Now remember, in Exodus, God is leading his people out of the land of slavery, Egypt.
And when he delivers them from slavery into the wilderness, he begins to give them a law to help govern and rule their lives in their freedom. And so as free people, God is saying, okay, this is how you live out your freedom. And so he begins to institute laws or rules to help govern their lives in this new freedom that the Lord has accomplished in their lives. And in Exodus, chapter 20, verses eight through eleven, we come to this idea or this rule of Sabbath. And it says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But on the 7th day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days, days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the 7th day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So you can begin to immediately see that, okay, God wants and is instigating a rule, initiating a rule for his people to enter into a day of rest. Because God himself, when he created the whole entire universe, did all his work and accomplished all his work in six. But he didn't stop there. There needs to be an additional day. It's not good enough to grow wheat and never to make bread.
The 7th day, the Sabbath day, is to enjoy. And that's what God does in his creation. And so what you have here is in the ten Commandments is a bunch of list of do's and don'ts. All the other, there's eight commandments that say, do not do this, don't do this, you shall not do this. But there's only two that tell you you should do this.
You get to do this. One of them is the Sabbath and the other one is honoring father and mother. Don't worry, there's no kids in here. But I was, like, gonna tell the kids, don't worry, we won't talk about it. We'll talk about that some other time.
Today we're gonna focus on the Sabbath. But I think that's very interesting that in the list of do's and don'ts, the do's involve Sabbath, which is resting and honoring your father and mother. But then we also have to talk about, what is this idea of rest? Is it just that we should set aside a day where we can take naps and eat chicken wings all day and just watch shows? Is that what Sabbath rest looks like?
Is that what we do? Well, we have to tie our understanding to resting, because Sabbath is something that God first did before we even did. So God created everything in six days and then rested on the Sabbath. My question for you is, does God need rest? Is he like us that needs sleep?
No, God doesn't need rest. He doesn't sleep. So what does rest mean for us? It has to mean the exact same thing it does for God. If God doesn't rest like we do, then what does resting imply for us to participate in the way God does?
Well, we are told that when he creates everything in the universe in six days, on the 7th day, he enjoys it. I liken this to what I do every week for 5 hours on my property. We have nine acres, and I have to mow for 5 hours to make it look nice and good. And I might start out being like, oh, this is annoying. I don't have time for this.
And I get on the lawnmower, I put in some music, or I listen to a sermon or something like that. And then what I enjoy the most is, after putting that work in for 5 hours, is standing back and looking out and just how smooth the land looks, how nice. That's my favorite moment as I'm itching and got to go take a shower because I don't want chiggers to be all over me. Right? And so that's the concept that what God himself does, he creates all of creation, the whole entire universe in six states, right?
And we talked about a little bit about this last week. The father, son, and holy Spirit are actively involved in creating, and we have to understand what is the whole purpose of creation. Because we just read that Sabbath and creation are linked together. They ride tandem bikes down the street together. You can't have creation without Sabbath, because that's what the law says.
You honor the Sabbath, you participate in the Sabbath. You remember the Sabbath because it's directly linked to God creating everything, God creating you. So your purpose and why you exist is tied directly to also sabbathing. The whole reason that God created the universe is for this. God is love, God is good, God is kind and among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And this divine love and unity that they share, that's what initiates them to say, let us create so that creatures can experience us and that they can also celebrate with us as we celebrate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's the whole purpose of why creation came into existence, is because God, being a loving, good and gracious God, wants to demonstrate that and give others that experience of himself. And that's what creation is all about. That we glory in God who loves us, that we are most joyed by him, that he satisfies our longings and desires, because there is nothing greater than him. And that's what our life is about, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
And that's why we are to remember the Sabbath. That's connected to that understanding, is that you need a constant practice, God says, of remembering why we all are together, to enjoy fellowship with one another, to rest in each other. So that's the purpose of creation, which is tied to the purpose of Sabbath. And so now we can understand with this illumination of what true Sabbath is, of why the Pharisees got it wrong and Jesus is correcting them right. And, well, you have to understand, I have to give you some backstory in the Pharisees because I'm kind of sympathetic to them.
You see, the nation of Israel, they didn't always do a good job. You can read the Old Testament, and they're just like a wayward spirit that just won't listen to reason or wisdom. They constantly go away from God. Oh, they want God and all the wonderful blessings that they receive, but then they go and they chase false gods. They want to be like somebody else.
They want to be like all the cool people over in Egypt. They want to be like other nations that don't serve God. And they go away, and that ends them up in exile, back into slavery again. Twice this happens, and then finally they repent and they come out of exile. And the leaders of the nation of Israel say, okay, God says that if we don't abide by his word, we're going to be thrown back in exile.
And we've done this too many times, Israel. So we are going to establish rules that force us, that make us do what God's word says. And so the Pharisees begin to add all these rules, okay, if we're not supposed to work on Sabbath, well, then here's how we're defining work. And they're adding to God's word. And now Jesus walks onto the scene, God in the flesh, and they accuse him of violating Sabbath.
And if you're watching any good show, you're just like, oh, what is Jesus going to do right now? He's about to rip him, right? And so what happens is, as him and his disciples are walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath, right, the Pharisees are seeing like, oh, they're reaping. That's what they're doing. They're working, they're picking this grain.
Well, no, they're hungry and they're eating. Jesus points this out to them, and that Jesus corrects how they understand Sabbath. Man is not made for Sabbath. Sabbath is made for man. And so you can't experience rest and peace if you're hungry.
So the whole concept of Sabbath is we get to do something to experience rest. And isn't that funny how the Pharisees immediately approach Jesus on a command that's in a positive, in the ten Commandments, but they start with a negative. You can't do that. Well, the commandment is a, you shall do this. So they're even.
Their premise on the Sabbath is wrong. They start with, don't do this. When the whole commandment of Sabbath is, do this. But Jesus points out and says, hey, look, man was not made for Sabbath. Sabbath was made for man.
As the one who is the lord of all mankind, I'm the lord of the Sabbath. And what we see as the disciples are going through the field, taking grains to satisfy their hungers so that they can experience rest, that is a metaphor for what we ought to be doing in taking Sabbath, so that we can find our satisfaction in Jesus Christ, that's what he's teaching the Pharisees, and that's what he's protecting his disciples and continuing to do. It is right and good to feast on the Sabbath. Matter of fact, the whole Old Testament, real quick is centered on this idea. Not only does God say, okay, on the 7th day, you need to remember the Sabbath, but in a year, there's going to be seven festivals, Sabbath festivals in a year, that are going to make you stop and celebrate all the work that I've accomplished for you and through you.
And then every 7th year, you're going to restore and free all the slaves. If anybody owes you debt, you're going to just forego all the debt. We're going to restore back everything every seven years. So you have every seven day, seven times in a year? Every seven years.
And guess what? What do you think will happen if you were to multiply seven years times seven years? Let's just go with that. God says, okay, I got one for you. Seven times seven is 49 years.
And then you're going to enter into a whole entire year of Jubilee, where not only will you free your slaves, but everything comes back to me. As a side note, if you're interested in that year of Jubilee, I'm going to talk more about that on Wednesday in Joshua. Because it's the whole reason that Israel goes into Canaan and claims all of Canaan for God, because it's in a year of Jubilee. And so God seems to be creating a method for his people to always remember what he's done for them, and to always reset and restore things that might have gotten off its path. And Jesus says to the Pharisees, I am the lord of the Sabbath.
All who are weary can come to me, and they'll experience true and everlasting rest. I'm lord of the Sabbath. But not only that, not only does Jesus teach us and everybody, and the Pharisees and everybody. That we should be taking Sabbath, he also demonstrates to us that we should be giving Sabbath as well. Look at chapter three, verses one through six.
Let me just read this again. He entered again into a synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. They were watching him to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward. And he said to them, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?
To save a life or to kill? But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. He said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might be destroyed. Jesus also teaches us that not only should we be taking Sabbath, but we should also be giving Sabbath. That the withered hand is also a metaphor, that it's not less than that. That Jesus is offering somebody who has an ailment, who has a withered hand, the ability to finally rest by having a better hand. That's what giving Sabbath is.
So he's blowing our minds, in a sense, on what Sabbath is, it's just not for us. It is for us, but it's also more than that. So others can come into rest and Sabbath. So whatever you might encounter on the Sabbath, it's not work if it produces another person the opportunity to rest as well. If somebody is crippled, if your ox is in a ditch, if your sheep is in the ditch and you are to give it rest, you are to act and move and give it rest.
So not only are you supposed to take rest, but you also give rest. And at this point, this is when Sabbath becomes not only connected with creation, our whole purpose and being and why we exist, it also gets directly linked to salvation, that the greatest rest that we can, as the church offer the world, is to offer them the good news of Jesus Christ. There are people out there that are riddled with their addictions, that are riddled with guilt and shame, who didn't sleep last night because they got caught up in sins that easily entangle them. There are people that are being ruled by their flesh. There are people that are struggling in their minds with depression and all sorts of things.
There are people that have been set free from prison, that don't know how to function in society, that's looking down on them, and they're never going to rest. And as the church, we are the only ones that can offer that rest. There's no other program out there. There's nothing else that can afford anybody to be freed from those things, from their withered hands. Only Christ can set us to rest.
So not only do we take Sabbath, but we have to be a people that also, at the same time, give it. If there is anyone in need, we need to give them rest. That's what we're called to do. That's why all the way back in Exodus, chapter 20, God is saying, remember the Sabbath to make it holy. Holy meaning set apart special, unlike any other day.
Like work. Work as much as you can. But when it comes to Sabbath, you reorient your whole life towards relying on me. You reorient your whole life and restoring your joints from aching, from all the work that you've been doing to restore your soul. And not just in relaxing on the couch or in the chair or feasting in any good meals.
That's part of it. But recognizing that you can't rest unless it's in Jesus. And that's why historically, the church says that this is our Sabbath day because of the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week. He institutes that day as being truly Sabbath, that all things are restored, because now he lives and he reigns and he rules over the whole entire universe. And so my people who gather together to worship me will find rest.
All who are weary and heavy lading, come to me and I will give you rest. So we have to understand that not only should we be practicing and thinking through how to engage in Sabbath for ourselves and our families that God has told us to steward. How is it that we are going to be taken Sabbath? Right? That's not where I'm going to dictate to you what the Bible says.
The Bible gives you the concept and manure to lead your homes in Sabbath. What does that look like? For me, some of the things that I've tried to initiate for Sabbath is to make it such a glorious day for beau that as he grows up, he just thinks Sunday is the greatest day because he gets to have maybe two or three desserts, or maybe he does these things. Like, I make special things. You could question on whether or not chocolate milk is a special thing.
He doesn't really drink chocolate milk, but if I was a little kid, that's what I'd want. Make the day special by giving me pizza and chocolate milk. That's okay. Cause what you're trying to do is train the child into understanding what true Sabbath is. It's a day where we glory in God and he has given us these great blessings and benefits.
So Sabbath is something that we should take. But also, like I said, at the same time, give. What ways are we as a church? What ways are you as an individual giving rest to somebody else who's in need? I can tell you right now, I spend Friday afternoons leading a Bible study at that ministry down the road called chain breakers.
It's a prison transitional ministry. These guys are coming out of prison and it's a twelve month program to rehabilitate them and reposition them to live life back in society appropriately, all founded on God's word. And can I just tell you, on Friday, when I was just. They were coming back from work, they were a little bit late, they hadn't had dinner. And so I was just going to teach for 15 minutes, which was, I understand was a joke, but like, I just was like, man, these guys are tired.
I get it. But then something happened, and as we opened God's word, they came to the edge of their seats. They were hungry, they kept on asking questions. I was trying to leave, like, guys, you gotta go eat. They're like, no, you don't understand.
I have never heard this, Bruce, I've never heard about what you're telling me and what I've just read. I've been struggling and battling with these pains and this guilt and shame. And you're telling me that I can offload that on Jesus?
That's giving people rest in a world that will not give them any rest. That's what we have to be a people about. Twice a month, we open up a food pantry, and this is what we say. All who are in need are welcome, and we will give you food. And these are just two simple ways to give people rest.
There's more ways. Open your imagination. You will find there are multiple ways to be giving people rest. And if we don't do it, the rest of the world will not. We are the agents of Sabbath, and we need to give.
One last point that I'll say is, notice there in that second part, how Jesus was angry because of the hardness of their hearts. As if to say, he asked them, is it better to give life or to kill on Sabbath? They didn't answer. And there's a man in the synagogue with a withered hand, and they just are so wanting to live by their own law that God didn't initiate, that they failed to see that the whole purpose of the law was to set people free to a great and good life.
Guys, with the withered hand, is it good that he receive rest on the Sabbath, which is the day of rest? Christ offered him rest when nobody else will. So we don't have the luxury of sitting around, not doing anything about Sabbath and not giving rest, or else Jesus might become angry with us.
There is no better way, in my opinion, to experience rest than to come to a table of the body and blood of Jesus Christ to remember this is the sacrament of the church. Baptism and communion are the two things that are christian that we celebrate. That should means something to us now, as we get ready to come to this table. It's a time of thanksgiving. That's why we've already confessed our sin at the beginning of the service.
Now we're entering into a time of nothing but thanksgiving, where we can come and remember Sabbath by eating and feasting on Christ himself, who offers us rest. So I want to pray for us and close our time of the word. And then I hope all of us can begin entering in time of thanksgiving, which is part of Sabbath, to be thankful for all that God has done over these last six days. And we are satisfied, and we are thankful of what he has done for us. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you so much that you are a good teacher, that you correct what we often don't understand or that we get wrong, and that everything that you teach us about is for our good.
Jesus, we thank you so much for creating and initiating these moments and instilling these moments into our lives that help us to stay, stop, pause and reflect on what you've done and what you've accomplished for us and through us. I pray that you would give everybody here, the mind and the heart to take Sabbath as you have prescribed it to them, and to also to give Sabbath in ways that they have never given it before, that you would embolden them to do so. And as we enter into this time of thanksgiving, we pray that you would be glorified and that your people would honor you with praise with their lives. In Jesus name, pray. Amen.
At this time we are going to enter that time of thanksgiving. And if I can have been.