Sabbath 101

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith.

Alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Sabbath Controversy in Mark 2

Our scripture reading comes from the book of Mark, chapter 2, verses 23 through 28. One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, 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 priest 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. This is the word of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus, Amen. Here again the words of our Old Testament text found in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 12 through 15, which reads, Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. As the Lord your God commanded you, six days shall you labor and do all of your work.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

And so we begin now, this week, our journey in the season of Pentecost back through the Gospel of Mark. And if you're thinking, well, that remember the Sabbath day talk. That sounds a lot like what I learned when I was in catechism class.

And that's kind of the idea. You'll notice the green color for Pentecost. It's a season of growth. It's a season for us to go back and recognize that we never graduate from our catechism. We never graduate from the word of God.

And if you think you have mastered it, think again. Because the one who thinks he has mastered God's word has not mastered it at all. Because the one who recognizes that in attempting to master God's word, what really ends up happening is that God's word masters that fellow.

And so we come to a conundrum, one that we have to deal with as Christians. And that conundrum is, what are we to do with the commandment to observe the Sabbath day? Important to note this, that all of the Ten Commandments, with the exception of that one, get repeated in the New Testament.

It's strange that when you read the moral commands that get rolled back into the new covenant, the covenant that we find ourselves in, we're not connected at all to the Mosaic covenant. Nine of the Ten Commandments make their way back into the new covenant and inform us what sin is.

Sins regarding God and our relationship with him. Sins regarding each other. And to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy is a sin against the first table of the law. The sin against God himself. But the question now again, what are we to make of this commandment?

We will note that in the Old Testament, the commandment to keep the Sabbath day was not a commandment to worship on Saturdays. Although the nation of Israel would, on their day of rest, hold a holy convocation and meet together in the synagogue to hear the word of the Lord, to study the Torah, and to study and apply themselves to the scripture, that ultimately though, when you read the very specifics of the Sabbath commands, it's about not doing any work, any work at all.

And so this then is the commandment that we are looking at. As Jesus is beginning his earthly ministry in the gospel of Mark, Jesus finds himself getting in hot water pretty early on. And so with that, let's return now to our gospel text.

And important to note that as we come into this text and we begin to apply ourselves to the gospel of Mark, that we must always remember that the Pharisees and those who followed their teachings believed that they were saved by their commandment keeping.

They were self-righteous and they had taken all of the commandments of God and added their own. So much so that when it came to the Sabbath, they had concocted all of these bizarre other rules, thinking that if you obeyed their rules, then you'd never break God's rules.

And if you never broke God's rules, well, then you were righteous and you were saved. And so if you read the Mishnahs, if you read the Talmuds and other things, oh my goodness, it is a menagerie of all of these different laws.

You can't push away from the table if you have a dirt floor because your chair would then be making furrows and that's farming. You can't do that. And yeah, that's the kind of minutiae that occupied the teaching at the time of Christ via the Pharisees.

And again, they're not representing biblical understandings at all. And that's kind of the point that Jesus is going to make here. So we return to the gospel of Mark chapter 2, verse 23. One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields.

And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. Oh, there's harvesting going on. You can't harvest on the Sabbath. So the Pharisees, they were saying to him, look, why are they doing these things?

What is not lawful on the Sabbath? And so Jesus said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and he was hungry? And those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and in the time of Abiathar, the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat and also gave it to those who were with him.

And Jesus is right. If you remember the account of David fleeing from King Saul, first place he stops is the tabernacle. And he's given bread, this consecrated bread, which he's not supposed to eat. But see, if your life is in danger, it's more important that you live than die because of these types of laws.

And he was also given a sword. And well, that ended up leading to the demise of the high priest, as well as the other priests. But that's for another story, another time. So it says here, Jesus said that he ate what was not lawful for any to eat except for the priests.

And he also gave it to those who were with him. And so Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. For the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. And now we begin to see something here.

And that is, is that, well, the self-righteous, which is what the Pharisees were and still are to this day. The self-righteous Pharisees basically were stringent regarding these laws and merciless in their application, merciless to the point where they would prefer that somebody would die rather than break one of these commandments, not recognizing that the very spirit of the Sabbath has to do with, well, something for man, not something for man to be bound to.

And we'll talk about that in a minute. So the son of man, Jesus says, is even Lord of the Sabbath. The text then continues in the next chapter. Again, Jesus 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 may accuse him. Isn't that interesting? So there it is. It's like the ultimate showdown. It's the synagogue. It's not exactly church, but there they are in the synagogue and they're watching Jesus really carefully.

Is he going to heal on the Sabbath or not? And the whole point is they're going to watch him because they're looking for a way to accuse him. And note, this is at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, not at the end.

This is just as things are starting to get going. And so already they have an eye on Jesus because Jesus isn't going along with their self-righteousness. He's already beginning to undermine the authority of their teaching, which is man-made, not given from God.

And so there's this withered man in the synagogue sitting there to hear the word of the Lord. And little does he understand that not only was he there to hear the word of the Lord, but the very word of God made flesh, which is what Jesus is.

The word of God made flesh had come to teach on that day. And Jesus, who understands that the Sabbath was given for man, is now going to do something that is ultimately merciful. A man who is bound in his body to a withered hand, Jesus is about to unbind.

So he says to the fellow, come here. And he said to him, said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill it? And see, that's the thing about self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness is about self. Self-righteousness isn't about love for neighbor. Self-righteousness is about me. I'm going to do my thing so that I can be saved and I can care less about you. I've got to make sure that I got all my self-righteous ducks in a row.

And once I have them in a row, God's going to pat me on the head and say, good boy, and send me to the front of the class and hold me up as an example for the world to see. Yeah, self-righteousness is always a theology of glory, self-glory at that.

So Jesus is pointing out something here is that because the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around, that ultimately the Sabbath requires us to do good and not harm, to love our neighbors, not just merely use them for our own self-righteous gain.

So is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. They wouldn't answer the question because in answering the question, they would have exposed themselves for the self-righteous people that they were.

So Jesus look around at them and notice what the text says. With anger. Grieved at their hardness of heart. You see, that is, again, the nature of self-righteousness. Always inside of the self-righteous is this great ball of hard stone, anger, and refusal to listen to God.

Always thinking that they know better, that they are righteous and everybody else is the sinner. And they're not going to have any of it, nor are they going to play Jesus's game because they've already figured out this is a fellow that they've got to get rid of.

So Jesus looked around, angry, grieved at their hardness of heart, and he said to the man, stretch out your hand. Now, notice here, this is kind of a fascinating miracle in this sense. Jesus doesn't say, come over to the man and take his arm and rub his hands and touch him or anything like that.

Jesus merely says to him, stretch out your arm. You go ahead, stretch it out. And who of them sitting in the synagogue had not done that already a thousand times that day? When they woke up that morning and got out of bed, they went, and stretched out their arms.

And yet they were not Sabbath breakers. At least they didn't think they were. And how many of them had reached out their hands to grab a pitcher of water, to pour themselves a cup of coffee or the ancient world's equivalent of coffee, or to untie their ox or something like that.

And so Jesus doesn't even touch the fellow. Just stretch out your hand. Go ahead, stretch it out. And the guy whose arm and hand had been shriveled up, stretched it out. And he was restored. A true miracle in their midst.

None could deny, none could deny that God had acted powerfully that day, had miraculously healed and restored this man's hand. And yet, rather than praise God, fall on their knees and worship the Lord and thank the Lord that they had been able to witness such a great visitation, that truly God was in their midst.

Nope, there was no praise band. There was no prayers. There was no weeping and repenting and trusting in Christ. And see, this is kind of the interesting thing. No human being is capable of doing such a thing unless God grants it to them.

But they are certainly capable in their sinful condition to resist, to push back, to refuse to listen, to stop the ears, to basically continue in their hardness of heart. And that's exactly what the Pharisees did.

The very God they claimed to worship was standing there among them and had healed a man. Yes, on the Sabbath, because on the Sabbath you can do good and save life rather than kill it. So the Pharisees, verse 6 then says, they went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Jesus as to how to destroy him.

Now, the Herodians, fascinating group, by the way, strange group for the Pharisees to be in.

League with.

And the reason for this is quite simple. The Herodians were totally on board with the Roman Empire and the way their government worked and their whole tax system. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were generally with the rest of the people of Israel.

They were not in league with the Herodians or the Romans. And yet, fascinating in their self-righteousness, in their refusal to be forgiven, in their refusal to recognize that they cannot save themselves, they go in league with a group of people who politically were their archenemies.

And the one thing they both could agree upon, Rome and the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Pharisees, is that Jesus needed to be destroyed. Destroyed for what? For healing a man on the Sabbath. Well, that doesn't then answer our question that we posed at the beginning of the sermon.

Sabbath Rest as Salvation by Grace Through Faith

How are we to understand, then, the Sabbath as Christians? And when we take a look at our cross-reference, if you'd flip over to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, we'll start at verse 1. You'll see that the Sabbath itself, the day of rest, is type and shadow of salvation, by grace, through faith, alone, apart from works.

This is what Scripture teaches. Hebrews 4, 1 says,. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news has come to us, just as to them.

But the message that they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Little bit of context here. The inspired author of Hebrews is making it clear that the people of Israel, they, the ones who disobeyed God, who refused to believe and to trust in him, that they failed to enter into God's rest, which is the real Sabbath.

But then, note then, as Christians, he is saying to us, for we who have believed, believed what? Believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, believed that although we have deserved God's wrath and that we come to God, empty handed beggars who have no righteousness of our own, that we could present to God in exchange for salvation.

We who recognize that we have daily fallen short, far short of the glory of God. We have not loved God with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. That we have not done good on any day of the week, yet alone the Sabbath.

That we who have done evil and have deserved the wrath of God have had good news preached to us. That the same Jesus who healed a man whose body was partially broken in the withering of his hand, that he has given us complete salvation by going to the cross and having his good hands nailed to the tree so that he would suffer and bleed and die in our place.

And that once he had accomplished his work that grim Friday, that good Friday in bleeding and dying. And when he had finished his work, said it is finished and father into your hands I commit my spirit, he died.

He died, the sinless one died so that we might live. And then he entered his Sabbath rest in the cool of the tomb that Saturday between good Friday and Easter. You see, Jesus perfectly kept the Sabbath for us.

And he has bled and died in our place. And see, we who have believed, trusted in this good news, trusted that Jesus, our God and Savior, who's making all things new, not merely fixing our bodies, but making us alive in him to eternal life.

All who believe we have already entered into the true Sabbath rest. And then scriptures say this about those who persisted in sin and unbelief. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundations of the world, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way.

God rested and on the seventh day from all of his works. And again, in this passage, he says they shall not enter my rest. Therefore, it remains for some to enter it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience.

Again, he appoints a certain day today. Today, by the way, now is the day of God's rest, whether it be Sunday or Monday or Wednesday or Thursday. Today, saying through David so long afterwards in the words already quoted today, if you hear his voice.

Do not harden your hearts. Do not harden your hearts the way the Pharisees did, who saw the wonders and miracle working mercy of God and Jesus Christ. That wonderful Sabbath day from Mark chapter three.

Don't harden your hearts and seek to destroy Jesus or put him out of his own church or refuse to hear his words or say, I'm not that bad. I don't need Jesus's forgiveness. Don't harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day later on.

You see, the Sabbath is type and shadow, according to Hebrews 4. Type and shadow of our very salvation. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

And see, now you see it. The Sabbath all along was pointing to salvation by grace, through faith, apart from works of the law. Your salvation is that Sabbath rest given as a gift by God. You need not strive for it.

You don't need to take all of your righteous works and put your ducks in a row and present them to God in order to be saved as if that could do anything anyway. Instead, the whole point is that salvation is a gift given and you can enter into that rest by faith in Jesus Christ.

So do not harden your hearts against what God is saying to you today. Be forgiven. Trust in Jesus. And he will do more than make your withered hand whole. He will raise your very body from the grave on that great day when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead and then take us to the new earth where we will forever rest with him in eternity.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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