Day 12: Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath

Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand. In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him. MARK 3:1–6

THE FIRST IMAGES THAT used to race forward in my mind when I heard the word Sabbath were of prudish bathing suits and push mowers. Because when I was growing up, our mom was emphatic about keeping the Sabbath (which Scripture basically defines as a day of abstaining from secular work that follows each six-day working week10) holy. And for a Southern-Baptist-to-the-bone woman like my mama, the Sabbath definitely meant Sunday, not the twenty-four-hour time period from sundown on Friday night through sundown on Saturday night like those who follow a more Judaic or literal Old Testament tradition. In my mama’s world, holy meant not only did I have to use my inside voice while clad in a prissy dress and uncomfortable shoes for the better part of the day we spent at church, it also meant I couldn’t swim in a two-piece bathing suit when we got home. Thankfully, our pool was in the backyard surrounded by a privacy fence so at least she allowed us to swim on hot Sunday afternoons, but my sister and I had to wear one-piece bathing suits because I guess belly buttons are bad news on The Lord’s Day (a phrase I repeated as a child with hushed reverence and apprehension because I’d rebelled a few times when mom left home to visit relatives on Sunday afternoons and sneakily wore my verboten bikini in her absence, so I half-expected to be zapped by divine lightning at any given moment).

Based on my dear, well-intentioned mom’s understanding of what Christians couldn’t do on Sunday (no belly button bearing, no loud talking, no loud music, no lawn mowing, no freeze tag playing, no bike riding, no TV watching, no Burger King loitering with friends), by the time I could read I’d deduced that God was a grumpy disciplinarian, determined to make His kids well-behaved rule-followers, even if it meant squashing their joy once a week.

Therefore, it’s been such a sweet relief to discover our heavenly Father instituted a day of rest every week as a loving parameter not a legalistic principle. Remember when our heavenly Father initially enforced a guideline regarding Sabbath (Exod. 16:27–30), the Israelites had just followed Moses out of Egypt after four hundred years in captivity.

They were as wobbly as newborn calves when it came to this whole liberation thing because they had no experience or understanding of what freedom felt like. For as long as their grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents could remember, they’d existed as slaves under the mostly cruel ownership of their archenemies, the Egyptians. A Jewish slave’s sole purpose in Egyptian culture during that era was to do the brutal, backbreaking work of mixing mud and straw to make bricks and hauling heavy stones in the oppressive Middle Eastern heat. Based on historical accounts from that ancient era, their hands were likely covered in thick callouses and many of their backs were covered in scars from regular beatings.11 And they existed like that for so long they rarely even daydreamed about liberty anymore.

But God!

He met Moses through a flaming topiary and set in motion an audacious plan to rescue His people. I can only imagine how shell-shocked those Hebrews were by the time they set up camp at the base of Mount Sinai after watching the Egyptian army—who was in hot pursuit of them—get swallowed up by the Red Sea! Their entire lives had been spent as captives and now, suddenly, their chains were gone, manna was raining down like doughnuts from heaven, and Yahweh was hovering over them like a protective parent.

With all that in mind, now consider the kindness in this “command”:

“Work six days. The seventh day is a Sabbath, a day of total and complete rest, a sacred assembly. Don’t do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to God.” (Lev. 23:3 msg)

In other words: You matter so much to Me that I’m not willing to allow you to work your fingers to the bone any longer! Therefore, I’ve established a twenty-four-hour, no-labor time period so that you can relax and be refueled by leaning into My presence. I want you to sleep late and have the luxury of sitting at the dining table with your family and lingering over a great meal and laughing at your children’s jokes. You are My beloved and every single moment of your life exists under the canopy of My grace—but you need to take regular breaks from your busyness to focus on Me and My gifts for you in order to remember that.

Which was pretty much Jesus’s point when He proclaimed: “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27, emphasis mine) after some uppity killjoys masquerading as spiritual leaders made a fuss about His disciples harvesting a little grain on the Lord’s Day because they were hungry. Over and over again (see Luke 13:10–17; 14:1–6; John 5:1–18; 9:1–41), our Redeemer pushed back against those who tried to twist God’s Word into a tool through which they could condemn, shame, or subjugate others.

The Bible was never intended to be used as a club. If we make the mistake of reading it as a rule book, we’ll whack the joy and peace out of ourselves and others real quick.

• DO YOU TEND to think of “Sabbath” as more of a regulation or a reprieve?
• HAS THERE BEEN any inherited theology you’ve had to unlearn (or may still be considering unlearning!) with regard to celebrating a practical Sabbath? If so, what did the Holy Spirit help you understand about resting that was more redemptive?