Mark 2:23 – 3:6 Sabotage on the Sabbath (Anders) – Bible study

Sermon Mark 2:23 – 3:6 Sabotage on the Sabbath

By Dr. Mickey Anders

One of my favorite stories is about the mother who called to her son on Sunday morning and said, “Son, it’s time to get up. This is Sunday morning, church begins in an hour and a half. I’m fixing your breakfast.” The son just murmured, put the pillow around his head and went back to sleep.

She called him again, “Your breakfast is ready. It’s an hour until church.” He murmured again and rolled over and went back to sleep. She spoke a third time saying, “It’s only 45 minutes to church time. It’s time to get up. Your breakfast is cold.”

Finally she came up to his room and said, “Son! It’s time for you to get up. You have to get up now and get dressed to get to church on time.”

He grumbled, “Why do I have to go to church? The people aren’t friendly. The music is terrible. The sermons are dull. I can’t stand it.”

She said to him, “You know why you have to go. You’re 40 years old, and you’re the preacher.”

Once a week, all of us, including the preacher, has to decide what we are going to do on the first day of the week. “What are you going to do this Sunday?” That’s the question that looms for all of us as the week nears its end. Will you go to church or will you find something else to do?

The one thing Sunday offers in our society is a lot of choices. The weekends have become the ideal time for travel away from home. Sundays make a great day for a mini-vacation or a family reunion. Sunday is the perfect day to take a nice leisurely drive to Huntington, Charleston, or Lexington to visit the malls. Most of the major sporting events occur on Sunday. You can take in a professional football, baseball, hockey or golf game on Sunday. Amateur golf on Sunday afternoon has become a religion in itself. Boating and fishing are excellent choices for Sunday. And then there’s shopping! Many of the major chain stores are open for shoppers’ convenience on Sunday. The restaurants are packed. The movie theatres, the malls and the golf courses are full. Oh, and we might go to church if there is nothing else to do. Every week we are confronted with that question, “What will you do on Sunday?”

Our text from Mark describes two dramatic actions in the ministry of Jesus that both occurred on the Sabbath, and both confront the question “What is it lawful to do on the Sabbath?” The first action happened in a grain field. Jesus and his disciples were walking through the field, and the disciples began to pick the heads of the grain. The Pharisees saw it and were offended. Is it lawful to do that on the Sabbath? No, they said, and charged Jesus’ disciples with breaking the Sabbath.

The second action took place on the same day, but at the synagogue instead of a grain field. There was a sick man present in the congregation, and the Pharisees watched to see if Jesus would heal this man in violation of the Sabbath? Jesus felt the critical eyes of his accusers upon him, and so Jesus gave voice to the question that was silently on the minds of all: “Is it lawful to do this on the Sabbath?”

From the perspective of the Pharisees, there was nothing wrong with the actions in either of these episodes; the problem was that they were done on the Sabbath. The Pharisees had formed an important council called the Great Synagogue about 200 years before Christ. This synagogue took the Ten Commandments and added interpretations, not by teaching the inner spirit of them, but by adding to them other commandments.

Whereas the Ten Commandments say, “You shall do no regular work,” the Great Synagogue translated that into 39 specific prohibitions called the Abhoth. Then they added the Toldoth which were the rules to help carry out the 39 prohibitions.

The Ten Commandments say, “You shall do no regular work.” The Abhoth says, “Reaping and threshing is work.” The Toldoth says, “plucking the ears of corn is equal to reaping, and rubbing in the hands is equal to threshing.”

When the disciples of Jesus plucked the ears of corn and rubbed them in their hands, they were breaking the Toldoth, and by breaking the Toldoth, they were breaking the Abhoth; and by breaking the Abhoth, they were breaking the law. So argued the Pharisees. (G. Campbell Morgan, Commentary on Luke, p. 82-83).

Jesus defended his actions by citing the actions of David in the Old Testament. Then he said to them, The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.”

Of course, Christians no longer observe the Sabbath at all. The Sabbath is the last day of the week which is Saturday. Christians observe the first day of the week which is Sunday. But we attach the same significance to Sunday that the Hebrew people attached to Saturday.

One of the most amazing transformations of Christianity was this change from observing the Sabbath day to observing Sunday. Since Jesus resurrection occurred on the first day of the week, the early Christians thought it only appropriate that they worship the Lord on his Resurrection Day. In that sense, every Sunday is an Easter Sunday.

G. Campbell Morgan says, “Until Christ had come, man worked toward his Sabbath. Since Christ, he works from his Sabbath. In the old economy the Sabbath depended upon the work; in the new, the work grows out of the Sabbath. (The Ten Commandments, p. 48)

How should we observe the Christian Sabbath? Should mount a campaign against the stores for being open on Sunday? Should Christians refuse to go out to eat on Sunday because our convenience causes someone else to work? Should we refuse to participate in recreational activities on Sunday? Should we preach against members who miss church for family activities?

Some Christians would insist the answer to all those questions is an unqualified, “Yes!” But I think the meaning of the Sabbath principle lies deeper that this. In fact, Jesus was fighting against just this kind of legalism in our text for today.

When we move toward a strict observance for our Sunday activities, I fear we are becoming more and more like the Pharisees with their legalistic rituals regarding the Sabbath. I much prefer that we come down on the side of grace rather than legalism. But I must tell you that I sometimes wonder about that. It’s tempting for a preacher to be legalistic about your being in church on Sunday. We measure success by the number of people in church. When you are not here, we are not successful.

I call folks who are extremely legalistic “fundamentalists.” One thing I have noticed is that “fundamentalists” often make better church members than folks who live more by grace. Folks who believe they just might go to hell for missing Sunday School and worship are usually to be found in church on Sunday. It’s those of us who know that our salvation doesn’t depend on legalism who may wind up missing more Sundays that we attend. My hope is that our church and our church members can walk that happy medium between legalism and absenteeism.

An unknown author tells the story of a member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, but stopped going. After a few weeks, the pastor decided to visit him. It was a chilly evening. The pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.

Guessing the reason for his pastor’s visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a big chair near the fireplace and waited. The pastor made himself comfortable but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the play of the flames around the burning logs.

After some minutes, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet fascination. As the one lone ember’s flame diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and “dead as a doornail.”

Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting. Just before the pastor was ready to leave, he picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.

As the pastor reached the door to leave, his host said, “Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.”

So what is the real meaning of the Sabbath principle?

The Sabbath is not one day given to God while we are permitted to keep the six for ourselves. It is rather a peculiar sign and symbol of the deepest things in life. The Sabbath principle reminds us that there must be a time in our week when we stop and take note of God. It is a sin to let our lives become so rushed, so full of busy-ness, that we fail take care of two vital human needs – rest and worship.

As the early Christians knew, the particular day of the week is not the important point. You can rest and worship on Saturday, or you can rest and worship on Sunday. Some people have to work on Sundays, and their days off may be Tuesday or Saturday. They can still accomplish the Sabbath purpose whatever day of the week it is. The Sabbath reminds us to take time to rest and to take time to worship.

In Bill Moyers intriguing book on Genesis, several Biblical scholars discuss the meaning of the Sabbath. Walter Brueggerman comments, “I like very much the statement of (one man), who says that the Sabbath is the day in which he hands his life back to God every week to remember that it is not his own. That acknowledgment that we belong to a generous God changes how we live the other six days of our lives.” Another scholar observed, “The Sabbath is not a place, it’s a structure, a cathedral in time” (Genesis, p. 14).

One of my favorite poems was written by Pilot Officer John G. Magee, a 19-year-old American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England. Officer Magee was killed when his Spitfire collided with another airplane inside a cloud in December of 1941. Several months before his death, he composed his immortal sonnet “High Flight,” a copy of which he fortunately mailed to his parents in the U.S.A. In the poem he describes the thrill of flying, but I would like to think that this was the way all of us would feel about being in church on Sunday.

Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds–and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlight silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the hand of God.

Do you have that kind of thrill from worshiping God on Sunday?

What does Sunday mean to you? And to your family? We have a young family in our church with two little girls. The parents see to it that these girls are in Sunday School and worship almost every Sunday. The girls are too young to keep a calendar or know which day of the week it is. So every morning when they get up, they ask, “Mom, is this school day or church day?” And for them church days are even better than school days.

I wish that all of us felt about “church day” the way these little girls do. I wish that we felt that Sunday would be a special day, a cathedral in time, when we soared to the heavens and touched the hand of God.

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible.

Copyright 2000 Mickey Anders.Used by permission.