This week’s reading: Matthew 12:1-14
Hi Friends,
Last week we talked about learning to find rest in Jesus. This is vital because this rest is not dependent on circumstance, but only on the unchanging Love of our Lord. So even when things get tough and challenging, we can still remain at peace because Jesus is always with us, helping us and making The Way for us. This week, let’s keep with this theme of rest and talk about something that might not be too familiar to those of us who are not of the Jewish faith. Yes, we may have heard the term, but do we really understand the depth of it’s importance? I am, of course, talking about the Sabbath. We will be reading from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 12 verses 1 through 14, but hear these words from Jesus, Himself:
“I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Mt 12:6-8 NIV
The holy Sabbath. Let’s dip into the Old Testament first so we can get an idea of just how important God says this Sabbath is. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to guide and protect His people, He instituted this day of rest. We find this in Exodus 20:8-11, and please note it is one of the two commandments that is explained in great details…could this be because we humans would not understand it? Just a thought…here is the command: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” It is always God’s desire that we, His children, imitate Him in every way, and since He is Holy, He wants us to be holy as well. And so God commanded that His people, on purpose, take some time to remember Him and do what He did. He worked and created this world and everything on it, including mankind, in six days, then He rested on the seventh. (Gen 2:2-3) God did not rest because He was wiped out from all the work. He’s God. He never gets tired or weary. (see Isa 40:28-31) God took this time to actually enjoy what He created…and He wants us to do the same. We humans tend to be people of extremes. God knows what He created in us, so He knows that we will either, 1- continue to work every single day and wear ourselves out, OR 2- we will be lazy and not work at all! So this Sabbath rest was meant to unburden us workaholics by taking some time to connect with God and just thank Him for all the blessings He has granted us through our work. We are suppose to take a specific period of time to bask in the Glory of God and enjoy this amazing life He has given us…but then we are to get going and start working again, because God wants us to be fruitful and productive. This solved both issues of the fallen nature. We are not to work until we drop, but we are to work! Again the point is to imitate God our Holy Creator. He works, and so must we…but He also rested, and so must we.
The holy rest. This Sabbath is so important to God, and us, that He passed the death penalty on anyone who refused to follow it. While you and I will no longer have to be stoned to death if we refuse to take this time to rest in God, we can still sense death if we disobey. We begin to lose our patience, for instance. Or we begin to let negative thoughts invade our minds more easily. Or perhaps we feel depressed and stressed, confused and short fused, or worried and wearied. Death comes upon us as those “death symptoms” I have talked about before, because we are not connecting with the Giver of Life. This Sabbath rest is still as vital for us Christians as it is for the Jewish community. And so we must make time to stop our work and focus on God and the many blessings we have through Him. Now our Sabbath can be one day or everyday. The point is to take some time, on purpose, to focus on God and rest in His Presence by doing no work. (see Ro 14:8; Col 2:16) Holy means to be set apart, and so we must set apart time to be with God and not do the work we normally would do. Of course, when God said to “not do any work,” He was talking about anything that played a part in personal profit or gain. We see this because the servants and animals were commanded to rest as well, which means no working the fields and so on. When God said “no work,” He certainly did not mean being hungry and picking a handful of grains to quiet the stomach! Yet the legalistic mindset of these Pharisees judged the disciples for something God never intended to be sin. You see, there had been so many rules and regulations added to what God had commanded, that following them became a burden to God’s people. These religious not only decided what was acceptable and what was not, but they elevated their manmade standards to that of the Law of God! This is not only wrong, it is very dangerous, my Friends! Do we do this too? Do we make Salvation more burdensome than God ever intended it to be by adding all sorts of other things to the simple truth of being saved by Grace through Faith? (see Eph 2:8) Do we insist that people must also get baptized or pay alms or do good works or any measure of other things, rather than to just believe? (don’t forget Jn 3:16) There is so much we can learn from both sets of people in the Bible, those who sincerely followed God, as well as those who continued to follow Self instead. The Sabbath is only holy if we follow what God designed it to be. We must set apart time to be with God, not only to stop our working, but also to focus on our spiritual life. And as we make this time to rest in Him, as we worship Him, we will not easily fall into all these other counterfeit ways to become holy.
The holy motive. A couple of weeks ago we talked about this verse, which Jesus references once again here because these religious tended to forget the whole point to all the sacrifices God had instituted. It is Hosea 6:6 and it talks about living a life that displays our love for God, as well as the Love of God. Love is always the point. In the first events of our reading, Jesus was concerned with His disciples’ wellbeing. They were hungry and so He did not see a problem with them grabbing some grains to eat. In the second part, there is a man who was suffering with a “withered hand” and Jesus wanted him to be whole and healthy. The Pharisees miss the point of Love in both cases. In just attempting to go through the motions of the Law, and worse their own made up rules, they did not display the Love of God for the hungry or the hurting. They were so fixated on their own rules and regulations that they missed the heart of the Law which centers on Love and Mercy. Do we miss it too? Are we more concerned with how someone may look rather than that they are actually at our church? Do we make quick judgments instead of seeking to love everyone? It is easy to identify ourselves with the disciples, but are we more like these Pharisees than we care to admit? Again, we can learn from both sets of people in the Bible, those who sincerely followed God, as well as those who continued to follow Self instead. Let us turn to God so He can reveal, and then heal, any MMI attitudes we still hold. It is this self-righteous mentality that caused these religious to miss God in their midst, I pray it is not what does the same for you and me today. We must continually allow the Bible to be our mirror. Not only do mirrors show our beauty, but they also display our flaws. Only when we are truthful with ourselves can we be set free from the things that still need to change in us so that we can be more like Jesus. We must be merciful to others, and to ourselves. We are still growing into who we will be, but if we do not examine ourselves, to sincerely see our motives behind what we are doing, then we just might become religious instead of renewed in Christ.
The Holy Lord. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. This means that Jesus is in charge of everything, even the Sabbath, especially since He created it! Remember Jesus IS God, even though He did not lean on His Deity, but lived this life as a Human. Whatever He was doing on the Sabbath, was acceptable in the eyes of the Father. Jesus never sinned. He never did anything that was wrong. He never disobeyed the Father…He did however, disobey the manmade rules that these religious had added to God’s Law! When Jesus disregarded their additions, it made them so mad! My Friends, we are always to follow God, rather than man. This is just another reason why growing in Christ is so important. How else will we know if we are following Him or just manmade rules? If we are not reading the Bible, studying the Bible and applying the Bible to our lives, we just might find ourselves disobeying God rather than obeying Him. Here Jesus enters into their synagogue and heals a disabled man and, instead of praising God for the miracle, they begin to plot the death of Jesus! (see v14 of our reading) Even though Jesus only went about doing good, because He did not follow their rules, they chose to get rid of Jesus instead of learning from Him. Talk about Pride… but do we do the same? Do we get all upset with God because He is not following our set of rules or timing? Once again I say, there is so much we can learn from both sets of people in the Bible, those who sincerely followed God, as well as those who continued to follow Self instead. We can see two other versions of this story in Mark 3:1-6 and Luke 6:6-11 to gain a bigger picture of what was going on. In Mark 3:4, Jesus was clear to these self-righteous men as He asked, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” And sadly, they remain quiet, not willing to admit that Jesus was right. Mark 3:5 says that “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts…” He healed the man anyway. I find it fascinating that, most of the healings we read about in the Gospels, are done on the Sabbath! The point is clear, Jesus is the Lord of everything and everyone, and we who claim to be God’s, must learn to follow Him, rather than think He should follow us. These religious missed the mark, I pray we do not.
The holy Rest. One more thought about why the Sabbath is so important before we go. The Sabbath points us to the rest Jesus gives us. Jesus is our Rest from trying to save ourselves by our own works! It is only when we surrender to Him as Savior and Lord that we can relax, because we already have Salvation. Then, and only then, are we free to actually follow Jesus, instead of trying to gain something from Him. We do not need to impress God with our acts in order to go to Heaven. All we need to do is trust Him, and we receive Heaven. Again, freed from the impossible burden of trying to be perfect, God makes us holy instead. He sets us apart for Himself, and then we can receive His Love and live it out in our daily lives. We get this backwards all the time because, like these Pharisees, we focus on what we should or should not do, instead of fixing our eyes on God and what He has already done. The more I forget about MMI and what I can accomplish on my own, the more I can enter the rest of God and follow Him wherever He leads, doing whatever He commands and doing it however He desires…and the more fulfilling my life gets. Want that? Then won’t you join me?
Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think.
<>< Peace, Diane
