The Lord of the Sabbath

by    26th September 2009    0 responses
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Mark 3:1-6   Expand passage

1Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." 4And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. 5And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

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This passage is one which resonates so much with me and my experiences growing up in Northern Ireland. Although the vast majority of people, even here, spend Sunday shopping, visiting National Trust properties or having a big lunch with their family, there are a few who retain the stern attitudes of the past. As a teenager in our school CU, there was a feeling that to work on a Sunday, as my mother did every few weekends, was definitely wrong. Never mind that she worked as a doctor healing the sick, it was the clear breaking of a rule that had been laid down in the Bible of all places. You don’t mess with what the Bible says. Think of all the opportunities missed to go to church or take Crusaders or Sunday school. However, as she had always explained to me that she could do God’s work just as effectively in the hospital as in the church, I knew they must be wrong somehow. And yet they had all these bible passages to quote backing up their position. Only later I learned to call them Pharisees, legalists, those who couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

Back in the day, most people worked every day. No notion of weekends or Bank holidays, just hard labour all the time. Except the Jewish people and those connected to them, who kept a Sabbath to their God every seventh day as he had commanded. Looking at Exodus 20 and 23:12, it seems clear that God intended this Sabbath to be a day of rest and refreshment for all. Not just the Israelites themselves but for their livestock, servants and any strangers hanging around. In the beginning, there was no quibbling about what exactly rest meant. They just went straight ahead and rested. Later on in the old Testament, things start to change, and concept of doing no work arrives on the scene.  People start discussing the exact meaning of work and what not to do and how not to do it. The original plan goes slightly askew. We’ve all heard of lifts stopping on every floor so no one need do any work by pressing buttons, of those who ask passersby to switch on their oven, who dare not use a light bulb.

But does rule keeping for rule keeping’s sake mean anything? Does it lead people to a greater understanding of their faith? Or does it inhibit God’s work by focusing the mind on lesser, more bureaucratic matters?

Jesus sees through the construct of rules and regulations as religion to the real truth, real faith, real love for fellow man. He wants to do as his Father would do, to work as his Father works. Instead of mounting a lengthy philosophical debate, he reduces the issue to basis questions: Is it lawful to do good or harm, to save life or kill. Of course doing good and saving life; In Matthew 12, whether anyone whose sheep falls into a pit will leave it there until the Sabbath has ended. Of course not is the answer. Why should healing any different.

Yet not a sound comes from the Pharisees. Did they plant the man in the crowd to cause this scene to play out or does he just happen to be there, drawn by tales of the great healer of blind and lame? However it happened, they are silent, perhaps outraged, perhaps horrified, perhaps drinking the whole situation in with glee. He has done it again, got himself into trouble by breaking the Sabbath. There is a certain amount of pleasure to be found in following rules. On occasions when I put the rule before the guiding principle behind it, I notice I become very judgmental of others, secure in the smug knowledge that I at least have done the right thing.  It happened all too easily to the Pharisees in their age, and happens all too easily in ours.  Jesus is angry with these small minded people and rightly so. It would be unthinkable to him to leave to one side a man sick and suffering and say come back later, we’re busy praying, or teaching, or shining our haloes. Is it unthinkable to us? Do we cultivate our appearance of piety by observing minutiae rather than doing the essentials of loving God and our neighbours?

Today some people might think we go too far in the other direction to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. Less minutiae, more big picture. We shop, clean, cook & garden on Sundays. Is this the appropriate thing to do? Should we as Christians be keeping this day holy to God? How do we do that? Is studying wrong or tidying or DIY? Sometimes it feels as if there is so much angst about Sundays and the correct usage of! Jesus so clearly tells us both in this passage and the preceding one that the Sabbath is made for man, not the other way around. Perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much, just relax. Rest in the presence of God. Refresh weary minds and bodies. Renew relationships with friends and family.

Maybe it’s just that simple to make a Sabbath to our Lord.

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