June 13, 2025 • 31 mins
What kind of rest does Jesus really offer — and what does it cost to receive it? In two connected Sabbath scenes, Jesus confronts religious expectations and calls people to a rest found only in Him, and shows the mercy of God.
Originally preached to Ekklesia Churches by Dan on June 12, 2025.
In this we explore Jesus’ claim to be “Lord of the Sabbath.” We see him challenge man-made religious rules, restore a man’s withered hand, and expose the hard-heartedness of those who should have known God best.
Jesus reveals that true Sabbath rest is not found in legalism, but in himself. In a culture of constant activity and crushing expectations, Jesus invites us to rest — not just from work, but from the need to prove ourselves.
Teaching Highlights:
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The Sabbath was made for our good, not to burden us with performance.
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Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath — offering us rest in himself, not in rituals.
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The Pharisees prioritized rules over people; Jesus brings mercy.
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Resting in Christ frees us from self-sufficiency and invites us to trust in God’s provision.
Learn more about us at EkklesiaChurches.org.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This sermon is from Mark chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6. It is
entitled "Lord of the Sabbath" and it was delivered to Ecclesia churches on June 12th,
2025. So today we'll be in a passage that bridges two chapters in the gospel of Mark
(00:20):
from Mark chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6. And I've mentioned
this before that chapters and verses are helpful for finding your way around
Scripture, but neither they nor the headings in your Bible are inspired by
God. The only division that the original reader had was the beginning and the end
(00:43):
of the book. So this is something that translators have added in to help us
navigate what's happening in what section of Scripture, generally speaking.
But the original reader would have had to rely on things like location changes,
themes being discussed, similarities and comparisons, words that triggered them to
(01:04):
know that the story was moving on. In short, they would have needed to pay
attention to the text, which is hopefully what we're doing together now. A few
things that we've learned about Mark as a writer so far is that he's a man of
comparatively few words to his contemporaries, and he doesn't waste a
single one. Everything from the words he uses, the Old Testament references that
(01:31):
he makes, the stories that he chooses to put together are curated by Mark,
inspired by the Holy Spirit, to show us something specific. This is one thing
that distinguishes a gospel account from a biography. So Mark has a specific aim
in writing, and he wants his audience to understand specific things about Jesus
(01:53):
and his mission of salvation. And so while we have one passage at the end of
chapter 2 and then one at the beginning of chapter 3, if we take those markings
out for a moment, we see two passages side by side talking about the Sabbath. In
the first scene in Mark 2, 23 through 28, the conflict arises from the actions of
(02:18):
Jesus' disciples on the Sabbath. They're eating grain from the side of the field.
In the second passage, Mark 3, 1 through 6, the conflict targets Jesus directly
for his own actions on the Sabbath. He's being set up basically. So let's begin by
reading the first half together. This is Mark chapter 2, beginning with verse 23.
(02:41):
"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
(03:03):
and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God in the time of
Abbaethar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not
lawful for any but the priests 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
(03:24):
the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.'" These stories are part of one
larger sequence of conflicts that Jesus has had primarily with the Pharisees,
having to do with his authority to do everything from forgiving sin to keeping
company with sinners to healing on the Sabbath. And the key statement that we'll
(03:49):
talk about is this thing Jesus says right in the middle at the end of this
passage here in verse 28, "That the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." What
does it mean that the Sabbath belongs to God? And how is it part of his posture
toward us that is one of grace and mercy? What do these conversations about the
(04:13):
Sabbath show us about the bigger picture in which Jesus fulfills the law and
brings a new covenant to all who will follow him? So I'm excited for us to see
how Jesus does not dismiss the Sabbath but instead fulfills it, offering us a
kind of rest that goes beyond just a day off. Just like the last passage in which
(04:39):
a question about fasting was introduced, there's something bigger than the Sabbath
going on in this one. But to get to that, we need to understand the Sabbath. And
particularly, we need to know what God's original intent was for it, what He
commanded for the observance or practice of it, and what changes the Jews had made
(05:01):
by adding their own expectations by the time we get to Jesus' day. So let's get
to it. First, what is the Sabbath? There were two practices that separated the
Jews from every other nation and were signs of their covenant relationship
with God. The first was circumcision, which we talked extensively about in our
(05:25):
series on Galatians. The second was the observance of the Sabbath holy day.
Every week, from sundown on Friday to sun up on Saturday, they were commanded to
rest as a community from work and worship God. So where did it come from? Where
did this idea come from? Well, the laws given to Israel came into play after
(05:49):
they leave Egypt with Moses. But Sabbath actually comes from something that
God did when the world was only six days old. Let's take a quick look at Genesis
2 verses 2 and 3. It says, "And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He
had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So
(06:12):
God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all
His work that He had done in creation." So a helpful clarification here is around
the idea of God resting. We typically rest when we're tired, but that's
obviously not why the all-powerful God of the universe rests. So don't walk away
(06:38):
from that passage thinking, "Even God needs to rest sometimes," because doing
that is making God in your own image instead of understanding Him as He is.
We've often talked about preaching through Genesis, but just haven't gotten
there yet, and so we'll kind of dive in just a little bit here. What we need to
know about the idea of God resting is that from an ancient context, the people
(07:04):
to whom Genesis was written, the idea being communicated here is not that God
is tired, but that He is transitioning from establishing all of creation to now
ruling and reigning over it. This idea of God as a deity resting is more of an
(07:25):
entrance into ruling and reigning than it is the way that we would understand we
need rest. So we don't have time to get into a word study in Genesis here, but
God resting is better understood as He's seated on the throne and He's reigning
over all that He has established. So fast forward to the law being given through
(07:48):
Moses. Take that idea forward to the commandment that we're given to honor
the Sabbath. This is given to the Jewish people as they come out of Egypt, and
this is what he says. He says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days
you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
(08:09):
Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter,
your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who
is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and
all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed
(08:34):
the Sabbath day and made it holy." So this isn't just a holiday, but it's a
weekly rhythm commanded by God for His set-apart people in which they spend six
days working hard, doing all the work they needed to do, the planting, the raising,
the establishing, the building, but on the seventh day they were to take a step
(08:59):
back and recognize that it was God who ruled and reigned. It was God who provided
for them. It was God who was their sufficiency, because doing that, recognizing
God for who He is, causes us to worship Him. Sounds pretty good, right? Heading into
(09:21):
the first day of the week rested and with a mindset that God provides as you
dig in wholeheartedly to the next six days of work. That sounds good, so what
happened? Well, people take this good thing that God has given them and they
tried to remake it in their own image. The Jewish leaders had since decided that
(09:45):
they could improve upon God's law by adding to it with some helpful little
regulations. Instead of "don't do your work on the Sabbath," which is what God
commanded, they created in place of that one law 39 classes of work that were
(10:07):
prohibited, along with strict rules like "don't take more than 1,999 steps on the
Sabbath day," because more than that could be considered a journey and that's
work. Don't tie knots, so I guess hopefully they didn't have shoes that
needed tied. You could only write one letter more than that was unnecessary.
(10:31):
This concept that it came back to was that you really shouldn't do anything
unnecessary. This comes up in our second story, but it was completely up to the
lawmakers to decide what was and wasn't necessary. So this is the world that
Jesus and his disciples walk on this Sabbath day, and the disciples have the
(10:56):
audacity to pluck a few heads of grain from the edge of the field as they walk
through for a kind of snack on the go. The Pharisees see this and basically blow
their lawbreaker whistles and they go running or more likely walking, counting
(11:17):
their steps as they went probably, to tattle on them to their rabbi Jesus.
Their accusation is that the disciples are breaking the law. They're reaping,
no reaping on the Sabbath. That's number 27 on the list of 39 prohibited
classes of work. It seems ridiculous, but this is the world that they're
living in. Honestly, the first question I had when reading this passage is, why
(11:41):
was this the accusation? Why not the far more obvious walking through the fields
on the Sabbath? They've got to be over 2,000 steps at this point in their journey,
right? It has to classify as a journey, which means they're breaking that rule
far more clearly. But where are the Pharisees? The Pharisees are walking
(12:04):
right along beside them because they have to follow these guys and their
troublesome rabbi to keep an eye on them. They couldn't make an accusation
that implicated themself. This is hypocrisy 101, right? This is how
hypocrisy works. Instead, they accuse them of reaping. Here's the problem.
(12:28):
What they are doing, plucking grain by hand while passing through a field, is
specifically permitted by Deuteronomy 2325. It was a provision made for
travelers. It was the equivalent of picking a single apple off of a
(12:48):
laden apple tree. It wasn't a huge expense to the person who grew the grain, and it
provided for the traveler to move through the country. Technically, walking was
also allowed on the Sabbath. Law wasn't the issue. It was their regulations
that were the issue. Notice that they consider their regulations the law. They
(13:14):
say the disciples are breaking the law. Suddenly, my rules and my preferences
have become equal to the law of God. The answer that Jesus gives them is, I'll
be honest, something that was really confusing to me at first, because it's
not how I expected Jesus to respond. It's not how I would have responded. I
(13:40):
would have responded with Deuteronomy 23 that what they're doing is allowed by
the law, so back off. I would have responded with Exodus 31 that their
interpretation of the law had added burden that the law didn't require. Then
I would have stomped off with my disciples, loudly chewing on those heads of
(14:01):
grain just despite these hypocritical Pharisees. Clearly, the Lord is still
working on me. The point is my response would have been one to justify myself and
my actions, to prove myself and my friends right. But that's not the heart of the
mission of Jesus, is it? See, Jesus isn't insecure in the way that I am. He knows
(14:28):
who He is and would rather serve these people by showing them the mercy of God
instead. By showing them who He is, and just like with His response to the
question about fasting in the last passage, He's gonna answer them with more
than they bargained for. Jesus responds with this story from 1 Samuel 21
(14:51):
verses 1 through 6, in which David has been chosen as the Lord's anointed to be
the next king of Israel, but he is running from king Saul with his men. In
this account, David asks for food from the priest at Knob, but the only bread
that's available is the bread of the presence. This would have been the 12
(15:13):
loaves of bread that represented the 12 tribes of Israel, that were placed in the
tabernacle and later in the temple, each Sabbath, and it was only to be eaten by
the priests when the new bread was brought in. However, David and his men are
starving, and the priest has mercy on them and gives them this bread. So while,
(15:36):
yes, this bread wasn't for them, the priest, the representative of God, has
mercy on them and feeds them anyway. At first glance, this is such a weird story
to use, but Jesus is using it very specifically to show the Pharisees and
us two things. First, He says, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
(16:02):
Sabbath." They had misunderstood the purpose of the Sabbath entirely. It wasn't
to give them a restrictive rule that would make them more holy. It was to give
them a way to celebrate the provision of God. The Sabbath is a gift to mankind, a
(16:23):
day in which they were told to rest in the fact that their God ruled and reigned
and was merciful and gracious in providing for them. That was the first
thing that Jesus establishes. The second thing, though, that he's doing is he's
making a connection between himself and King David. If David was the Messianic
(16:47):
King, the one who was pointing forward to the Messiah, from whose line would come
the Messiah, Jesus, then Jesus is more than hinting at this because he declares
that he is something better than even the revered King David of old. He says, "So the
Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." The Son of Man, a title referring to
(17:14):
himself, is Lord or has claim over the Sabbath. This is perhaps the clearest
claim yet that Jesus makes about himself that he's more than just a teacher and in
this case even more than a king. He is the King of Kings who first instituted
(17:35):
this day of rest after six days of creation, the one to whom the Sabbath
belongs. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. He is the rest that they have
all been looking for. And so let's just take a moment here to recognize the
(17:57):
desire and ability of Jesus to provide that for us. Let me put it this way. If
King David was able to provide food for his men thanks to the merciful exception
made by the priest, how much greater is the provision of the one who is both the
(18:18):
King of Kings and the great High Priest for his people. In all of the ways that
you are insufficient, that you are not enough, all of the ways that you are
weary and heavy laden, the sin that is too much to bear, the unfair expectations
that have been placed on you, the busyness that you can't seem to get away
(18:42):
from. In all of those places and more, Jesus offers us rest when we come to him.
He offers us a rest and a peace that we cannot manufacture or buy and the best
part is he offers it freely as a gift. This is the way that Jesus fulfills and
(19:07):
offers us an even more complete Sabbath rest. We find our rest in Jesus and in
Jesus alone. So as we move on to the next text, I don't know how that message was
received by these folks who were accusing Jesus' disciples in the field, but
(19:31):
based on their response shortly after this in the synagogue, I think we can
assume that they didn't receive it well. In this second story on what was
probably a different Sabbath but not long afterwards, it says again he entered
the synagogue, Jesus goes into the synagogue on a Sabbath where the
(19:51):
Pharisees are basically waiting for him. So let's go ahead and read Mark 3 1
through 6 now. Again he 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 might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered
(20:16):
hand, "Come here." And 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 and he looked around at
them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man,
(20:36):
"Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The
Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him
how to destroy him. So you can see the progression over the last five stories
where the religious leaders go from being where Jesus was to following him
(21:01):
around to accusing him and now they're lying in wait ready to accuse him again.
The tense of the word "watched" here of that verb implies an ongoing waiting. Like
they're sitting on the edge of their seats, they can't wait to see what Jesus
is going to do. Why? Because they know this man with the withered hand is there
(21:25):
and they know enough from following Jesus that Jesus has the ability to heal
him. But they're not hanging in anticipation to glorify God at this
man's healing. They're waiting to accuse Jesus of breaking the regulations again.
So when it comes to healing on the Sabbath, there was not a law that
(21:49):
forbade Jesus from miraculously healing on the Sabbath because nobody could do
that but Jesus. But there were regulations that were against offering
any more than life-saving aid. So for example, if you had a cut, they could
bind up the cut so you didn't bleed out but they couldn't clean it and stitch
(22:10):
it up until after the Sabbath was over. If you broke a bone, you'd have to wait
until Sunday to have your arm set in a cast. But instead, Jesus calls this man
up front and in what was probably unnerving for the Pharisees, out of
everyone in the room, Jesus turns and looks at them and asks about which is
(22:33):
lawful, the thing that they've been slinging around this whole time. He asks
if it's lawful to do good or harm, to save a life or to kill. See, Jesus knows
exactly why they're watching and exactly what they are about to plot against
him to do. And he's using their own logic against them, citing their love of the
(22:58):
law. They are here to do harm and plot to kill him and he is there to do good and
give his life as a ransom for many. The contrast could not be more clear and to
this question, they have nothing to say. This is the only time in Mark where
(23:19):
Jesus is described as being angry. In other places, he will be frustrated, he
will be full of pity, even indignant with his disciples later on. But only here
is he angry. Why? It is the silence of the Pharisees that betrays something far
(23:39):
worse happening internally. Their hearts are hard. These are the people who should
understand the law of God the best. These were the people who were trying to
guide the people back to being a holy and set-apart people and yet they have no
concept of the mercy of the God they claim to serve. So this passage ends with
(24:07):
Jesus doing good and healing the man's hand without another word to them and
they leave to plot his destruction, ironically on the Sabbath, with the
Herodians who are a secular political group, basically a mob in their day, just
in case you needed any more evidence of their hypocrisy. They didn't practice
(24:30):
what they preached and they had no love for the mercy of God. They had an
opportunity to see the mercy of God on display through a miraculous healing of
a man who would never be healed otherwise and they would choose to
withhold that healing in order to maintain their regulations. They had
(24:51):
entirely missed the heart of God for the Sabbath and consequently they'd missed
the heart of God for his people who he loves. They had missed what the prophet
Micah said about how the Lord requires that we do justice, love mercy, and walk
humbly with God. Here God was in the flesh to offer them the kind of rest
(25:16):
that they had been waiting for with mercy to heal the broken and they were so
blinded by their self-righteous hypocrisy that they couldn't even see him. I
really struggled with this passage to be perfectly honest. At first I thought
that it was because of the interweaving of all of these Old Testament laws and
(25:40):
then you add in this seeming random Old Testament story. All of the elements,
even though they had the Sabbath connection, were just kind of hard to
work out. First, why Jesus said and did what he did and second, why is Mark
telling it in this order with this emphasis? I thought that it was a text
(26:04):
problem but after I sorted through my questions I think I actually started to
see that I wasn't just struggling with understanding the passage. I was
struggling with the implication of it for me. Here I am reading and writing and
preaching about how Jesus offers us rest, the fulfillment of the Sabbath and
(26:30):
the person of Christ and I'm just feeling tired. More than just a tired that
stems from physical work and mental focus and emotional availability, I'm
talking about a tired that seems to go right down to my core. It's a tired that
I can only identify as the kind that you find at the end of yourself when you
(26:55):
realize that you are insufficient in your own strength. You get to this point
where you realize that you are not smart enough to solve all of the problems, you
are not powerful enough to erase all of the hurt and you are not kind enough to
bear perfectly with everyone in patience. I can't be the only one who feels
(27:20):
this way because we're all living in a similar place, in a similar moment, in
time. And so as we come away from this text, maybe we can start from a place of
honesty. I know I had to, that we are each in need of the rest that only Jesus
offers in order to show the mercy of God to anyone at all, even ourselves. The
(27:49):
purpose of establishing the Sabbath was to teach His people to rest in His care
and provision. It meant to give us physical rest, but also it gave us a
right perspective of who He is. We are no longer under this old covenant of
Jewish laws, right, requiring us to observe certain rituals on a Saturday.
(28:11):
But the principle and the purpose of the Sabbath remains. Our need for Sabbath, for
rest, remains. Remember, Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it,
which means that now in Jesus we experience even more fully the rest that
comes from the provision of God when we trust in Him. So practically, here are
(28:37):
some rhythms that we keep in order to do that well. This is things that we do as a
church. We meet together on Sundays and often on Thursdays. We do this to turn
our attention to Jesus together, remembering who He is and what He's done.
This causes us to respond with gratitude to Him. We call that worship, a right
(29:02):
posture toward God, responding to Him truly for who He is. We aren't legalistically
bound to do this on a Sunday. Sunday is just the day that the church family has
traditionally met since the first century. And they picked it because it's the
day that Jesus rose from the dead. It seemed like a good day to celebrate the
(29:24):
rest of God. While we aren't also legalistically bound to a certain day,
the principle of having a day of rest from your regular work and activities is
vitally important to us. It is particularly important for families
because it sets the example that the world doesn't rise and fall on my work, on
(29:49):
our activities, on anything else. Running seven days a week might be a norm that
you have grown accustomed to, but it is not healthy by God's standards. And it
can lead to a form of idolatry in which you think the world rests on your
shoulders. And I say this with love because I have some work to do in this
(30:14):
area in particular. Every passage leading up to this one has shown us that Jesus
and the way he invites us to are better than any kind of substitute. And this is
particularly the case with the rest that Jesus offers to us. Not just rest for
(30:37):
our bodies, but rest for our souls. And it is something that is freely offered to
us when we put our trust in his provision and place ourselves in his care.
Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Council Bluffs, Iowa
and in homes throughout the week. We are a Bible-centered church focused on
(31:01):
preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus. You can learn more
about our statement of faith and contact the pastor by visiting
EcclesiaChurches.org
This sermon is from Mark chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6. It is
entitled "Lord of the Sabbath" and it was delivered to Ecclesia churches on June 12th,
2025. So today we'll be in a passage that bridges two chapters in the gospel of Mark
(00:20):
from Mark chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6. And I've mentioned
this before that chapters and verses are helpful for finding your way around
Scripture, but neither they nor the headings in your Bible are inspired by
God. The only division that the original reader had was the beginning and the end
(00:43):
of the book. So this is something that translators have added in to help us
navigate what's happening in what section of Scripture, generally speaking.
But the original reader would have had to rely on things like location changes,
themes being discussed, similarities and comparisons, words that triggered them to
(01:04):
know that the story was moving on. In short, they would have needed to pay
attention to the text, which is hopefully what we're doing together now. A few
things that we've learned about Mark as a writer so far is that he's a man of
comparatively few words to his contemporaries, and he doesn't waste a
single one. Everything from the words he uses, the Old Testament references that
(01:31):
he makes, the stories that he chooses to put together are curated by Mark,
inspired by the Holy Spirit, to show us something specific. This is one thing
that distinguishes a gospel account from a biography. So Mark has a specific aim
in writing, and he wants his audience to understand specific things about Jesus
(01:53):
and his mission of salvation. And so while we have one passage at the end of
chapter 2 and then one at the beginning of chapter 3, if we take those markings
out for a moment, we see two passages side by side talking about the Sabbath. In
the first scene in Mark 2, 23 through 28, the conflict arises from the actions of
(02:18):
Jesus' disciples on the Sabbath. They're eating grain from the side of the field.
In the second passage, Mark 3, 1 through 6, the conflict targets Jesus directly
for his own actions on the Sabbath. He's being set up basically. So let's begin by
reading the first half together. This is Mark chapter 2, beginning with verse 23.
(02:41):
"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
(03:03):
and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God in the time of
Abbaethar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not
lawful for any but the priests 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
(03:24):
the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.'" These stories are part of one
larger sequence of conflicts that Jesus has had primarily with the Pharisees,
having to do with his authority to do everything from forgiving sin to keeping
company with sinners to healing on the Sabbath. And the key statement that we'll
(03:49):
talk about is this thing Jesus says right in the middle at the end of this
passage here in verse 28, "That the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." What
does it mean that the Sabbath belongs to God? And how is it part of his posture
toward us that is one of grace and mercy? What do these conversations about the
(04:13):
Sabbath show us about the bigger picture in which Jesus fulfills the law and
brings a new covenant to all who will follow him? So I'm excited for us to see
how Jesus does not dismiss the Sabbath but instead fulfills it, offering us a
kind of rest that goes beyond just a day off. Just like the last passage in which
(04:39):
a question about fasting was introduced, there's something bigger than the Sabbath
going on in this one. But to get to that, we need to understand the Sabbath. And
particularly, we need to know what God's original intent was for it, what He
commanded for the observance or practice of it, and what changes the Jews had made
(05:01):
by adding their own expectations by the time we get to Jesus' day. So let's get
to it. First, what is the Sabbath? There were two practices that separated the
Jews from every other nation and were signs of their covenant relationship
with God. The first was circumcision, which we talked extensively about in our
(05:25):
series on Galatians. The second was the observance of the Sabbath holy day.
Every week, from sundown on Friday to sun up on Saturday, they were commanded to
rest as a community from work and worship God. So where did it come from? Where
did this idea come from? Well, the laws given to Israel came into play after
(05:49):
they leave Egypt with Moses. But Sabbath actually comes from something that
God did when the world was only six days old. Let's take a quick look at Genesis
2 verses 2 and 3. It says, "And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He
had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So
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God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all
His work that He had done in creation." So a helpful clarification here is around
the idea of God resting. We typically rest when we're tired, but that's
obviously not why the all-powerful God of the universe rests. So don't walk away
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from that passage thinking, "Even God needs to rest sometimes," because doing
that is making God in your own image instead of understanding Him as He is.
We've often talked about preaching through Genesis, but just haven't gotten
there yet, and so we'll kind of dive in just a little bit here. What we need to
know about the idea of God resting is that from an ancient context, the people
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to whom Genesis was written, the idea being communicated here is not that God
is tired, but that He is transitioning from establishing all of creation to now
ruling and reigning over it. This idea of God as a deity resting is more of an
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entrance into ruling and reigning than it is the way that we would understand we
need rest. So we don't have time to get into a word study in Genesis here, but
God resting is better understood as He's seated on the throne and He's reigning
over all that He has established. So fast forward to the law being given through
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Moses. Take that idea forward to the commandment that we're given to honor
the Sabbath. This is given to the Jewish people as they come out of Egypt, and
this is what he says. He says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days
you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
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Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter,
your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who
is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and
all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed
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the Sabbath day and made it holy." So this isn't just a holiday, but it's a
weekly rhythm commanded by God for His set-apart people in which they spend six
days working hard, doing all the work they needed to do, the planting, the raising,
the establishing, the building, but on the seventh day they were to take a step
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back and recognize that it was God who ruled and reigned. It was God who provided
for them. It was God who was their sufficiency, because doing that, recognizing
God for who He is, causes us to worship Him. Sounds pretty good, right? Heading into
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the first day of the week rested and with a mindset that God provides as you
dig in wholeheartedly to the next six days of work. That sounds good, so what
happened? Well, people take this good thing that God has given them and they
tried to remake it in their own image. The Jewish leaders had since decided that
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they could improve upon God's law by adding to it with some helpful little
regulations. Instead of "don't do your work on the Sabbath," which is what God
commanded, they created in place of that one law 39 classes of work that were
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prohibited, along with strict rules like "don't take more than 1,999 steps on the
Sabbath day," because more than that could be considered a journey and that's
work. Don't tie knots, so I guess hopefully they didn't have shoes that
needed tied. You could only write one letter more than that was unnecessary.
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This concept that it came back to was that you really shouldn't do anything
unnecessary. This comes up in our second story, but it was completely up to the
lawmakers to decide what was and wasn't necessary. So this is the world that
Jesus and his disciples walk on this Sabbath day, and the disciples have the
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audacity to pluck a few heads of grain from the edge of the field as they walk
through for a kind of snack on the go. The Pharisees see this and basically blow
their lawbreaker whistles and they go running or more likely walking, counting
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their steps as they went probably, to tattle on them to their rabbi Jesus.
Their accusation is that the disciples are breaking the law. They're reaping,
no reaping on the Sabbath. That's number 27 on the list of 39 prohibited
classes of work. It seems ridiculous, but this is the world that they're
living in. Honestly, the first question I had when reading this passage is, why
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was this the accusation? Why not the far more obvious walking through the fields
on the Sabbath? They've got to be over 2,000 steps at this point in their journey,
right? It has to classify as a journey, which means they're breaking that rule
far more clearly. But where are the Pharisees? The Pharisees are walking
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right along beside them because they have to follow these guys and their
troublesome rabbi to keep an eye on them. They couldn't make an accusation
that implicated themself. This is hypocrisy 101, right? This is how
hypocrisy works. Instead, they accuse them of reaping. Here's the problem.
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What they are doing, plucking grain by hand while passing through a field, is
specifically permitted by Deuteronomy 2325. It was a provision made for
travelers. It was the equivalent of picking a single apple off of a
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laden apple tree. It wasn't a huge expense to the person who grew the grain, and it
provided for the traveler to move through the country. Technically, walking was
also allowed on the Sabbath. Law wasn't the issue. It was their regulations
that were the issue. Notice that they consider their regulations the law. They
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say the disciples are breaking the law. Suddenly, my rules and my preferences
have become equal to the law of God. The answer that Jesus gives them is, I'll
be honest, something that was really confusing to me at first, because it's
not how I expected Jesus to respond. It's not how I would have responded. I
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would have responded with Deuteronomy 23 that what they're doing is allowed by
the law, so back off. I would have responded with Exodus 31 that their
interpretation of the law had added burden that the law didn't require. Then
I would have stomped off with my disciples, loudly chewing on those heads of
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grain just despite these hypocritical Pharisees. Clearly, the Lord is still
working on me. The point is my response would have been one to justify myself and
my actions, to prove myself and my friends right. But that's not the heart of the
mission of Jesus, is it? See, Jesus isn't insecure in the way that I am. He knows
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who He is and would rather serve these people by showing them the mercy of God
instead. By showing them who He is, and just like with His response to the
question about fasting in the last passage, He's gonna answer them with more
than they bargained for. Jesus responds with this story from 1 Samuel 21
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verses 1 through 6, in which David has been chosen as the Lord's anointed to be
the next king of Israel, but he is running from king Saul with his men. In
this account, David asks for food from the priest at Knob, but the only bread
that's available is the bread of the presence. This would have been the 12
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loaves of bread that represented the 12 tribes of Israel, that were placed in the
tabernacle and later in the temple, each Sabbath, and it was only to be eaten by
the priests when the new bread was brought in. However, David and his men are
starving, and the priest has mercy on them and gives them this bread. So while,
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yes, this bread wasn't for them, the priest, the representative of God, has
mercy on them and feeds them anyway. At first glance, this is such a weird story
to use, but Jesus is using it very specifically to show the Pharisees and
us two things. First, He says, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
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Sabbath." They had misunderstood the purpose of the Sabbath entirely. It wasn't
to give them a restrictive rule that would make them more holy. It was to give
them a way to celebrate the provision of God. The Sabbath is a gift to mankind, a
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day in which they were told to rest in the fact that their God ruled and reigned
and was merciful and gracious in providing for them. That was the first
thing that Jesus establishes. The second thing, though, that he's doing is he's
making a connection between himself and King David. If David was the Messianic
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King, the one who was pointing forward to the Messiah, from whose line would come
the Messiah, Jesus, then Jesus is more than hinting at this because he declares
that he is something better than even the revered King David of old. He says, "So the
Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." The Son of Man, a title referring to
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himself, is Lord or has claim over the Sabbath. This is perhaps the clearest
claim yet that Jesus makes about himself that he's more than just a teacher and in
this case even more than a king. He is the King of Kings who first instituted
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this day of rest after six days of creation, the one to whom the Sabbath
belongs. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. He is the rest that they have
all been looking for. And so let's just take a moment here to recognize the
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desire and ability of Jesus to provide that for us. Let me put it this way. If
King David was able to provide food for his men thanks to the merciful exception
made by the priest, how much greater is the provision of the one who is both the
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King of Kings and the great High Priest for his people. In all of the ways that
you are insufficient, that you are not enough, all of the ways that you are
weary and heavy laden, the sin that is too much to bear, the unfair expectations
that have been placed on you, the busyness that you can't seem to get away
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from. In all of those places and more, Jesus offers us rest when we come to him.
He offers us a rest and a peace that we cannot manufacture or buy and the best
part is he offers it freely as a gift. This is the way that Jesus fulfills and
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offers us an even more complete Sabbath rest. We find our rest in Jesus and in
Jesus alone. So as we move on to the next text, I don't know how that message was
received by these folks who were accusing Jesus' disciples in the field, but
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based on their response shortly after this in the synagogue, I think we can
assume that they didn't receive it well. In this second story on what was
probably a different Sabbath but not long afterwards, it says again he entered
the synagogue, Jesus goes into the synagogue on a Sabbath where the
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Pharisees are basically waiting for him. So let's go ahead and read Mark 3 1
through 6 now. Again he 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 might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered
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hand, "Come here." And 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 and he looked around at
them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man,
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"Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The
Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him
how to destroy him. So you can see the progression over the last five stories
where the religious leaders go from being where Jesus was to following him
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around to accusing him and now they're lying in wait ready to accuse him again.
The tense of the word "watched" here of that verb implies an ongoing waiting. Like
they're sitting on the edge of their seats, they can't wait to see what Jesus
is going to do. Why? Because they know this man with the withered hand is there
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and they know enough from following Jesus that Jesus has the ability to heal
him. But they're not hanging in anticipation to glorify God at this
man's healing. They're waiting to accuse Jesus of breaking the regulations again.
So when it comes to healing on the Sabbath, there was not a law that
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forbade Jesus from miraculously healing on the Sabbath because nobody could do
that but Jesus. But there were regulations that were against offering
any more than life-saving aid. So for example, if you had a cut, they could
bind up the cut so you didn't bleed out but they couldn't clean it and stitch
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it up until after the Sabbath was over. If you broke a bone, you'd have to wait
until Sunday to have your arm set in a cast. But instead, Jesus calls this man
up front and in what was probably unnerving for the Pharisees, out of
everyone in the room, Jesus turns and looks at them and asks about which is
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lawful, the thing that they've been slinging around this whole time. He asks
if it's lawful to do good or harm, to save a life or to kill. See, Jesus knows
exactly why they're watching and exactly what they are about to plot against
him to do. And he's using their own logic against them, citing their love of the
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law. They are here to do harm and plot to kill him and he is there to do good and
give his life as a ransom for many. The contrast could not be more clear and to
this question, they have nothing to say. This is the only time in Mark where
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Jesus is described as being angry. In other places, he will be frustrated, he
will be full of pity, even indignant with his disciples later on. But only here
is he angry. Why? It is the silence of the Pharisees that betrays something far
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worse happening internally. Their hearts are hard. These are the people who should
understand the law of God the best. These were the people who were trying to
guide the people back to being a holy and set-apart people and yet they have no
concept of the mercy of the God they claim to serve. So this passage ends with
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Jesus doing good and healing the man's hand without another word to them and
they leave to plot his destruction, ironically on the Sabbath, with the
Herodians who are a secular political group, basically a mob in their day, just
in case you needed any more evidence of their hypocrisy. They didn't practice
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what they preached and they had no love for the mercy of God. They had an
opportunity to see the mercy of God on display through a miraculous healing of
a man who would never be healed otherwise and they would choose to
withhold that healing in order to maintain their regulations. They had
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entirely missed the heart of God for the Sabbath and consequently they'd missed
the heart of God for his people who he loves. They had missed what the prophet
Micah said about how the Lord requires that we do justice, love mercy, and walk
humbly with God. Here God was in the flesh to offer them the kind of rest
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that they had been waiting for with mercy to heal the broken and they were so
blinded by their self-righteous hypocrisy that they couldn't even see him. I
really struggled with this passage to be perfectly honest. At first I thought
that it was because of the interweaving of all of these Old Testament laws and
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then you add in this seeming random Old Testament story. All of the elements,
even though they had the Sabbath connection, were just kind of hard to
work out. First, why Jesus said and did what he did and second, why is Mark
telling it in this order with this emphasis? I thought that it was a text
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problem but after I sorted through my questions I think I actually started to
see that I wasn't just struggling with understanding the passage. I was
struggling with the implication of it for me. Here I am reading and writing and
preaching about how Jesus offers us rest, the fulfillment of the Sabbath and
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the person of Christ and I'm just feeling tired. More than just a tired that
stems from physical work and mental focus and emotional availability, I'm
talking about a tired that seems to go right down to my core. It's a tired that
I can only identify as the kind that you find at the end of yourself when you
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realize that you are insufficient in your own strength. You get to this point
where you realize that you are not smart enough to solve all of the problems, you
are not powerful enough to erase all of the hurt and you are not kind enough to
bear perfectly with everyone in patience. I can't be the only one who feels
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this way because we're all living in a similar place, in a similar moment, in
time. And so as we come away from this text, maybe we can start from a place of
honesty. I know I had to, that we are each in need of the rest that only Jesus
offers in order to show the mercy of God to anyone at all, even ourselves. The
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purpose of establishing the Sabbath was to teach His people to rest in His care
and provision. It meant to give us physical rest, but also it gave us a
right perspective of who He is. We are no longer under this old covenant of
Jewish laws, right, requiring us to observe certain rituals on a Saturday.
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But the principle and the purpose of the Sabbath remains. Our need for Sabbath, for
rest, remains. Remember, Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it,
which means that now in Jesus we experience even more fully the rest that
comes from the provision of God when we trust in Him. So practically, here are
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some rhythms that we keep in order to do that well. This is things that we do as a
church. We meet together on Sundays and often on Thursdays. We do this to turn
our attention to Jesus together, remembering who He is and what He's done.
This causes us to respond with gratitude to Him. We call that worship, a right
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posture toward God, responding to Him truly for who He is. We aren't legalistically
bound to do this on a Sunday. Sunday is just the day that the church family has
traditionally met since the first century. And they picked it because it's the
day that Jesus rose from the dead. It seemed like a good day to celebrate the
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rest of God. While we aren't also legalistically bound to a certain day,
the principle of having a day of rest from your regular work and activities is
vitally important to us. It is particularly important for families
because it sets the example that the world doesn't rise and fall on my work, on
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our activities, on anything else. Running seven days a week might be a norm that
you have grown accustomed to, but it is not healthy by God's standards. And it
can lead to a form of idolatry in which you think the world rests on your
shoulders. And I say this with love because I have some work to do in this
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area in particular. Every passage leading up to this one has shown us that Jesus
and the way he invites us to are better than any kind of substitute. And this is
particularly the case with the rest that Jesus offers to us. Not just rest for
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our bodies, but rest for our souls. And it is something that is freely offered to
us when we put our trust in his provision and place ourselves in his care.
Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Council Bluffs, Iowa
and in homes throughout the week. We are a Bible-centered church focused on
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preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus. You can learn more
about our statement of faith and contact the pastor by visiting
EcclesiaChurches.org
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