4.10
Lord of the Sabbath
At the same time Jesus irresistibly attracted large crowds of Jews, many of the religious leaders were repelled by Him. Jesus was a rabbi who stood apart and against other religious leaders of His day. A few among them followed Him but secretly, fearing the majority who hated Him. Why did they hate Him, when all He did was to help others and speak of God’s good? As did the Jewish prophets before Him, Jesus condemned these leaders whose form of religion took advantage of their own people, neglected the poor and needy, worshiped possessions and false gods, spoke peace with their mouths while devising evil in their hearts, and did not lead God’s people to worship Him in spirit and truth. Not only did Jesus speak these offensive truths against them but He also demonstrated an authority that surpassed the earlier prophets. He spoke as if He knew God’s thoughts and ways intimately and could see what God was doing, as if He could fulfill God’s desire and be a continual pleasure to Him. Many things about Jesus offended them, but the greatest of His offenses was the relationship He said He had with God, as if they were One from eternity (John 8:58, 10:30). They considered such talk the height of blasphemy, and so Jesus had to die
There was also the matter of Jesus’ unique interpretations and observance of God’s laws. In His teaching on the Mount of Olives, Jesus said He came to fulfill the law of Moses and would not break the smallest of these laws. He proceeded to teach what the fulfillment of some of those laws looked like. The sixth commandment requires that we not murder but Jesus taught from this law that we ought not even speak against or be angry at our brother. The seventh commandment forbids adultery but Jesus told His disciples that even lusting for another in their heart constitutes adultery. It is not enough to legally follow divorce proceedings, Jesus amazed His listeners. God doesn’t want any divorce. He gave the gift of marriage to last for life. The law says we are to love our neighbors and hate our enemies but Jesus taught the full measure of this law is to love and pray for both friends and enemies in the same way that God blesses both the good and evil on earth, providing even for those who hate and oppose Him
Keeping and fulfilling the law of Moses, Jesus told His disciples, mean that they are to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Jesus spoke of the law as if He intimately knew the complete and living expression of God’s righteous way, an impossible way for any to walk except God, Himself. Obedience to this fulfilled law requires the full strength of one’s heart and soul and mind submitted to God, confirming by wholly conforming to the will of His law. Don’t make any vows, Jesus exhorted (5:33-7). Don’t commit to anything that depends on anything but God alone. No one has the authority to guarantee anything except as God keeps it for you. Never forget that this moment and all it contains depend on God to sustain and fulfill your intentions. Know that it is only His working that can be trusted to accomplish in your life. Never forget that. Your eternal life depends on that truth
Then there was His observance of the forth commandment, the law of the Sabbath. Jesus greatly offended religious leaders by the way He kept the Sabbath. Observant Jews cease from work on the Sabbath, according to the commandment. But Jesus lived on the Sabbath as He did every other day of the week. He taught, healed, and responded to the needs of those who were with Him. Jesus made no distinction between the Sabbath and the rest of the week, not because He was profaning the Sabbath but because He was sanctifying every day to God. For Jesus, every day is Shabbat, all time is holy to God, a continual response to His Father. The nature of Jesus’ relationship with God is the nature and Spirit of God’s Sabbath, not merely a rest from work but a holy rest in God that fulfills God’s will and work in Him. His works, Jesus explained, are not His own but those of “. . .the Father abiding in Me. . .” (John 14:10). His was a Sabbath observance that He kept as the center of His being, depending on God and trusting God’s life as His own. Some leaders were enraged at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day” (Luke 13:14). They wanted to kill Him. How could Jesus justify breaking the law of Moses?
Even as they judged Him, Jesus continued explaining to them so the veil could lift and they could see the God they were worshipping in blindness. One time when they accused Him of healing on the Sabbath, He answered, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working” (John 5:17). God’s good doesn’t rest and is always at work. But the good that is done in His holy rest is distinct from any work we can know or do on our own. The Sabbath rest Jesus kept is as God keeps it. God’s rest in His Sabbath transforms our relation not only to God but also to His creation. In God’s rest, we no longer need to labor over the impossible goals of creating what God creates, making good His good, or completing what He fulfills. Instead, we live amen to them all
In the law of Moses, there were always intimations of what the Sabbath law would look like when it would be fulfilled. The tribe chosen from Israel to be most intimate with God was the Levites. God did not give the Levites land and possessions as He gave to all the other tribes. Instead, God gave them Himself. He would be their portion throughout the week (Deuteronomy 10:8-9). The Levites worked every day in the Temple, serving God according to the pattern Moses gave them. When the Pharisees accused His disciples of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus reminded them of the Levitical Priests’ continual service to God. He also reminded them of the time David broke the law by eating the consecrated bread in God’s tabernacle. The law only allows Priests to eat this bread. David, Jesus said, was innocent in eating this bread, nor is there any indication that God condemned David for lying to a Priest to get that bread. It is an amazing story that again shows how very differently God judges, never the appearance but always the heart. How we live, both inside our being and in the world, is ultimately shaped by the ways we keep God’s Sabbath, our life’s continual relation to His life. Jesus concluded this encounter with the leaders by saying He is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-8). God sanctified His rest in Jesus so that He can be our way to God’s rest. God’s rest is not a mere absence of work. It is the presence of His Messiah, God’s Spirit on earth
How can we live an eternal and holy time on earth? How can the Sabbath be kept except as a command to not work for one day of the week? The answers to these questions are given in the life of Jesus. Jesus is God speaking Himself to His creation. God gives Himself in Jesus as a hope we can seize, a life we can know. This Son of the great I AM was sent to reveal the nature of our holy God who is with us. He engaged all that God gave Him on earth at the same time that He was not bound or defined by any of it. Jesus’ work is a living out of His Father’s life in Him as the gift that it is. He did not struggle to work out His will apart from God’s presence and provision. Jesus’ rest in God is not a day but is God’s holy way that sustains and leads His Son beside waters of rest (Psalm 23:2), forever. It is the full embrace of trustworthiness and trust in love, Father and Son as One in Their Holy Spirit
On a certain Sabbath, Jesus was telling His followers to come to Him and He will give them rest. They had already come to Him, but He was inviting their heart and soul to also come to Him. “Come to Me. . .Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). After speaking such gracious words, Jesus proceeded to break the Sabbath law by letting His disciples pick grains from the field to eat. Once again the rabbis accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. Again He explained, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (12:8). Jesus did not oppose the rabbis to provoke them, but because they needed to be opposed in truth. The law could never contain the Sabbath. As a law, it can never be observed or fulfilled. The Sabbath was always meant to be kept as God’s promise to us
The holy rest Jesus kept is a wholly different rest. It is to this rest that He invited the people, not merely by following His example but by remembering and keeping His work and way and life. His work made the way to God’s rest and life, a work He completed when He fulfilled His purpose on earth at the hour of His death