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What do you and your family do to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”?  Do you avoid work and rest?  Or, is the Sabbath pretty much like any other day?  If you do rest, what does that rest look like?  Which day do you honor as the Sabbath?

This is a question we’ve thought about at different times in our marriage, especially as we’ve lived amongst cultures that recognize holy days different from our own culture.  It’s easy to sort of kick back on a Sunday here and give some sort of nod to the Sabbath because most work are off for the weekend.  But, what about a culture that gathers and worships on Fridays and recognizes this and Saturday as days off, but then kicks off the work week on Sunday rather than Monday?

We have been working through the book of Luke with our friends here in Sherbrooke.  This past Sunday, we looked at how Jesus approached the Sabbath in Luke 6, as opposed to the teachers of the law.  I was challenged by His attitude:

order Deltasone 1 On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Buy Fluoxetine Online  

6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Lk 6:6–11)

As was the case with other commands, the Pharisees sought to use laws from God, such as “keeping the Sabbath”, as a tool to injure others and commend themselves before men.  But Jesus has other things on his mind during the Sabbath.  He cares about his disciples’ hunger and defends them against the accusations of the Pharisees.  Even when his own life is threatened as those same Pharisees seek to find a way to destroy Him, Jesus sees a man with a withered right hand and has compassion on him.  Rather than saving His own skin and avoiding a confrontation, He uses the Sabbath day to heal that man by asking a simple question to the Pharisees, “…is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do harm, to save life or to destroy it.”

In this passage, Jesus, the LORD and creator of the Sabbath is not annulling the Sabbath or succumbing to the Pharisees thoughts of it, but is raising their (and our) understanding of it.  “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).  “…it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:-12).  In other words, YES, the Sabbath is a day of rest given to us by God.  It is not meant to prevent us from doing good to others.  Nor is keeping it designed to be some kind of boast one can make in their own self-righteousness.