1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.
2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?
3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
4 How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered.
7 And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him.
8 But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
9 Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?
10 And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
11 And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.
Introduction
An elderly man and woman were sitting on their porch one hot summer evening. She said to him, “Do you know what I would like?” He said, “No, what would you like?” She said, “I would like to have some vanilla ice cream with some chocolate topping.” He said, “Well, I will just go get you some.” She said, “You had better write it down.” He said, “I won’t write it down and I won’t forget it. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate topping.” Off he went to the store. He came back 30 minutes later with a pound of bacon. She said, “I told you that you had better write it down. You forgot the eggs.” All of us get a little slow sometimes along the way. These folks didn’t forget anything tonight. I am so grateful for them.
In the book of Luke, chapter six, the first 11 verses have to do with Jesus in conflict with the Pharisees over the Sabbath Day. I want to start at verse six and read through verse nine. “And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had a withered hand, Rise up and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it?”
When I was a boy growing up in Port Arthur, the most exciting thing we did was to visit my grandparents, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins in the piney woods of deep East Texas. I say that is the most exciting thing because that was the only thing we ever did. We would go to visit them for two weeks in the summertime. Apart from that, we just stayed home and did whatever you do around the house. Those exciting trips in the country—to be with my grandparents and other family members—were dulled only by our Sunday observances. We did two things on Sunday that made life a little bit dull. First of all, we went to church. I never did go to church back at home. I didn’t get in the habit of it, so I didn’t like it too much—having to clean up, dress up, and sit in church for an hour when I wasn’t used to it.
The second thing that made Sundays dull was the long list of things you could not do on a Sunday. One of those things was play a marbles game we called “Keeps.” We were able to play marbles any other day of the week, but when I asked why we couldn’t play it on Sundays I was told it had something to do with gambling. It seemed to be okay to gamble Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Just not on Sundays.
You know I grew up with the idea that Sunday was a day when you sat around and were miserable doing nothing. I just never could understand all of those things you couldn’t do on Sundays.
If life was dull in East Texas on Sunday back in the 1940s, it must have been even more so in the days of Jesus. In his day there were more than 600 things you could not do on the Sabbath Day. Back in the Old Testament, God had given the ten commandments, and the fourth commandment said very simply, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall you labor and do your work, on the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).
Because God rested, we are to rest. All of creation—men, women, and animals—is to rest from its labor. But in Jesus’ day the religious leaders had taken that simple command, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,” and they had multiplied laws, rules, and regulations as to what you could do and what you could not do on the Sabbath Day until there were more than 600 laws that regulated your activity on the Sabbath Day.
Certainly a man was not to work. One of the things people did when they worked was to reap the harvest field. They would walk out into a field of grain, they would reach down and grab a stalk of grain, and they would pull it out of the ground. That’s the way they worked. Since you went through the same motions when you reached up and pulled a hair from your head, it was unlawful to pull hair out of your head on the Sabbath Day. It was unlawful to eat an egg that was laid on the Sabbath Day because the chicken had to work to lay it. They had a certain distance that they could travel from where they lived, and they could not travel beyond that distance. Otherwise they were violating the Sabbath Day.
So there were all kinds of manmade rules and regulations as to what you could do and what you couldn’t do on the Sabbath Day, like those rules I grew up under in East Texas. You would have to know that Jesus stayed up to the top of his baptistry boots in holy hot water because he would not honor all the rules and regulations concerning the Sabbath Day in his time. We have two examples of that in the sixth chapter of the gospel of Luke. In the first part of that chapter it tells us about Jesus and his disciples traveling through a field of grain on the Sabbath Day. The disciples were hungry, so they reached over and took some of the grain from the stalks. Now you must remember that this was before the days of granola bars. This was before the days of a 7-Eleven convenience store on every corner. If they wanted something to eat they had to fetch it for themselves. As they walked through these grain fields they just reached out, got a handful of grain, rubbed the husk from the kernel and ate that grain for their food.
The scribes and Pharisees who were always watching Jesus said, “You just violated one of our laws! You have violated one of our rules! You have desecrated God’s day!” Jesus’ response was twofold. He justified his actions by saying, “Haven’t you read the scriptures?”
In the Old Testament we read about a time when King David was on the run from Saul, and he came to the temple needing something to eat. The only bread available was the shewbread that was sacred and consecrated to the priests. But in that time of emergency and dire need, the priests gave the shewbread to David, and he ate it and sustained himself.
Jesus was simply saying that there are times when human need takes precedence over other rules and regulations that men have made. Jesus, who ever and always put man first, sought to meet the needs of humanity before he kept the rules and regulations of religion. He said to them, “We have scriptural precedence for doing what we have done here today.” And then he went a step further by asking, “Don’t you know that I am the Lord of the Sabbath Day?” When Jesus said he was the Lord of the Sabbath Day, he was not only claiming divinity. He was not only saying, “I am the Son of God,” but he was also saying, “I am not going to be bound by your manmade rules and your manmade regulations. The Sabbath Day belongs to me, and I can do whatever I will on that day.”
Luke then moves from this experience on the Sabbath Day immediately to another experience on another Sabbath Day. This time Jesus was teaching in a synagogue. In that synagogue there was a man who had a withered right hand. The scribes and Pharisees had come to see if Jesus would heal that man on the Sabbath Day, because healing a man on the Sabbath Day was also considered unlawful according to their manmade traditions.
The scriptures tell us that Jesus knew their thoughts. It is sobering for us to realize that the Lord Jesus not only knows what we say and where we go, but he even knows what we think. Jesus turned to them and said, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath Day or to do evil? Is it right to save a life or to destroy a life?” And then in total disregard for their manmade traditions, Jesus reached out and lifted the man up and made him whole again.
The scribes and Pharisees who had been looking for some accusation against Jesus found what they wanted. They were angered against him and they made one more mark in their case against him that would eventually lead to their total rejection of Jesus and his crucifixion on the cross. The questions of Jesus to those scribes and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath Day?” and “Is it right to save a life or to destroy a life?” pose for us the question, “What are we to do on the Sabbath Day?”
What can we do? What should we not do and how can we best observe God’s day according to God’s will and purposes? That may not seem to be a very pressing question to some of you, but some time ago Christianity Today conducted a survey among its readers, asking them, “What do you think is the important theological or religious question facing you?” You would be surprised by their answer. Higher than the problem of pain, and more important than the charismatic renewal were the questions, “Should a Christian take their Lord’s Day observance more seriously? What’s right and what’s wrong for the Sabbath Day? Why did God give it to us, and how can we observe the Sabbath Day appropriately?”
I think Jesus was posing to those men a question that has plagued the people of God down through the years. We want to observe God’s day correctly. We want to do that which is lawful and that which is right, but what exactly is right and wrong conduct for Sunday?
I think we need to understand something very basic about the Sabbath Day. Jesus did not say it here, but he said it on other occasions, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Jesus would have us to understand that this day has been made for us, and it is for our benefit. It is not a day to sit around and do nothing. It is not a day to sit around and be miserable. God recognized the basic need in our lives and he gave us the Sabbath Day to meet that need. It is given to us so that we can keep life in perspective.
If a man works all the time, then life soon becomes a grind. The joy and the excitement and the thrill go out of it. There must be a time to pause, a time to rest, a time to reflect. More than that, a man needs time to build relationships in life. He needs time to get acquainted with God. He needs time to look inwardly at his own soul and his own life, to enrich himself and to grow personally and spiritually. He needs time to build intimate relationships with other people. The Lord knows the pressure upon our lives and the pressure upon our time. He gave us one day out of seven for our good so that we might have time to get to know him better, so that we may have time to grow and mature in our spirit and in our soul, and so that we might have time to deepen our relationships with other people. In a sense, the Sabbath Day was given to us as a time to do those most important things in life.
I believe that the greatest crisis of our times is a crisis of time. That is to say, we are running frantically here and there trying to do anything and everything to keep busy, and in the midst of all of our busyness, we are sometimes neglecting the most important things. In our technology we have learned to send a man safely to the moon, but down here on earth we are still the most nervous, the most anxious, and the most uptight people who have ever lived. In spite of the fact that man now has more leisure time in America than in any other generation that’s ever lived, we still do not know what to do with that time. Jesus gave us one day out of seven so that we might learn to use time wisely. I can think of three areas in particular where he wants us to use our time wisely.
He wants us to get to know God better, so he gave us time to worship. He wants us to grow in our own personal relationships, so he gave us time for maturity. He wants us to grow in our relationships to other people, so he gave us time for intimacy.
He gave us time to worship, time to mature, and time for intimacy with other people. That’s why the Sabbath Day was given, and if we understand its purpose and we use it well, then our lives will be enriched, and we will find that joy and fulfillment that God intended for us to have.
If we neglect the Sabbath Day and fail to use our time to worship and to get to know God, if we fail to use our time to mature so that we develop our own souls, and if we fail to use our time to develop intimate relationships and thus fail to grow in our family and in our marriage and in our friendships, then we have missed the greatest blessings in life. The Sabbath was given that we might keep those things alive.
1. He wants us to get to know God better, so he gave us time to worship.
God gave us the Sabbath Day that we might get to know him better. He gave us time to worship. Let me ask you: Is God doing anything in the world today? Is God saying anything in the world today? If we are going to see God working in the world today, and if we are going to hear God speaking in the world today, then we are going to have to have some first-class times of looking and some first-class times of listening. If our lives are so filled with activities, and if we are so busy about the many things in life, we may not see what God is doing, and we may not hear what God is saying. He gave us a day when we could stop and be still and know that he is God. He gave us a day when our hearts and minds can be attuned to him so that we can see what he is doing and we can hear what he is saying.
The most important thing in this world is your relationship to God. That relationship cannot be kept alive unless you pause every once in a while to be still and know that he is God. We must pause to see what he is doing, and pause to listen to what he is saying. Far more important than your career, far more important than your house, far more important than your boat, and far more important than your recreation is your eternal relationship to God, and it can be kept alive only as you take time to worship.
Jesus asked one time, “What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) You know the answer to both questions: nothing! If a man gains the world and loses his soul, he has lost everything. And if a man tries to exchange anything for his soul, he discovers that nothing is of equal value. So in seeking other things, he has missed the main thing if he does not find time to worship God. So God gave us the Sabbath Day as a time to worship. He not only gave us the Sabbath Day as a time for worship, he gave it to us as a time for intimacy.
2. He wants us to grow in our relationships to other people, so he gave us time for intimacy.
The shoddiness of personal relationships is a sin against time. With all the free time that we have, do you know that most of our personal relationships are shot? I’m talking about the relationships between friends. It takes time to develop friendships. I’m talking about the relationships between parents and children. It takes time to develop relationships like those. I’m also talking about the relationship between a husband and his wife. It takes time to develop such a relationship. In the midst of the busyness of life, don’t forget that God gave you not only time to worship, but he also gave you time for intimacy. Whatever else you do in life, don’t fail to take time for people—time for your friends, time for your children, and time for your mate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the greatest gift is to give a part of yourself, and the Lord gave us the Sabbath Day as a time to pause and a time to rest. It is not a day to just to sit around and do nothing, or to just be miserable. It is a time when we can deepen those personal relationships that enrich life, and that in reality make life worth living. A time for worship, a time for intimacy, a time for maturity.
3. He wants us to grow in our own personal relationships, so he gave us time for maturity.
Stan Getz was a world-class jazz saxophonist. After a successful and entertaining career he began teaching jazz saxophone at the University of California in Berkeley. Sometime after that they discovered that he had cancer, so he began receiving cancer treatments. He was on a talk show and they asked him this question: “What have you learned from this experience with cancer?” He answered, “I have learned this: life is not a dress rehearsal.”
Somebody gave me a card not long ago, and on the front of it were the words, “Enjoy life!” Inside the cover were those very words, “This is not a dress rehearsal.” The years that we have on this earth are the real thing. We are not getting ready for something; we are living life day by day and it is passing us by, bit by bit. If we don’t make the most out of it, if we don’t deepen our relationships with God and with people and mature in our spiritual lives, we will miss what life is all about.
Dear friend, this is the time to enjoy life. This is the time to decide what is important. This is the time to commit yourself. This is the time to invest your life in eternity. Yet God has given us one day out of the week where we can pause from the busyness of business and from the pressures of life and have time to worship, time for intimacy, and time for maturity. When we lose God, we lose our own dignity and we lose intimacy with other people. When we have lost dignity, and when we have lost intimacy, we have lost those things that enrich life and make it worthwhile.
Our Lord said in the beginning, “I’m going to take care of that. I am going to give you a day—a day when you can get to know me better, a day when you can deepen personal relationships, a day when you can grow in your spirit and in your soul.” That’s why God gave us the Sabbath Day, and we are to rejoice and be glad in it.