Sermon by Rev. Frank Rose

Lessons: Exodus 20:1-12; Mark 2:23-28; True Christian Religion 301-303

Sermon: Which commandment is broken most frequently? Last week when we asked that question, we suggested that it might be the commandment taking the Lord’s name in vain. We might also suggest the breaking of the Sabbath. But we all know that the Sabbath day is not observed the way it was in Old Testament times. And there is always a question of how much does this commandment apply?

If you read back in the stories in Moses, you find that the Sabbath observance was the main form of worship. In many ways it was even more important than the sacrifices offered in the temple. You see each week would end with a day of rest and the day began with sunset. So Friday evening as the sun was going down, there would be a hustle and bustle as people made all the preparations which would enable them to go from Friday night to Saturday night without doing any work. They weren’t allowed to light a fire on the Sabbath day. They weren’t allowed to cook. They weren’t allowed to do any work. They couldn’t go on any journey, and eventually that was defined as a maximum journey of about 1,000 yards. That's not quite a mile. So all activity ceased.

An important part of this commandment was that this law applied to all the people living in the land, whether they were Israelites or not. Any Gentile, any person from any other religion was also compelled to observe the Sabbath. Even their animals were not allowed to work on the Sabbath day. You see, this was to protect them from abusing the Sabbath by getting someone else to do the work for them. Everything had to stop for the Sabbath. It was a day of rest.

You can imagine over the years how the Sabbath became in some ways sweeter and sweeter. Imagine what it would be like if we observed the Sabbath in that way, how it would change the quality of our life. Imagine taking a day off completely from any kind of work, from any journeying, any cooking, any kind of toil and having just a day of quietness, a day of family life. Of course there is always the pressure to violate the Sabbath. And as you read through the Old Testament you find that the prophets became increasingly alarmed at the way in which people abused this holy day by doing things, which were not really allowed. Remember that this law was so strict that at one time a man was put to death just for gathering sticks on the Sabbath day!

I bet it was difficult to keep this tradition going, especially as the years passed and they got in contact with people of other nations. The prophets would even warn them, that if they would only restore the Sabbath, then the Lord would once again bless them.

There is a story in Nehemiah about certain traders that would come to the city and try to sell their goods on the Sabbath day. As long as the traders were there selling, there would always be people who would go out and buy their wares. They tried to tell the traders to go away but to no avail. Finally they had to shut the gates of the city on the Sabbath day. When the traders showed up and they found the gates were closed, and there were no people there and no customers they eventually got the message that even though they didn’t observe the Sabbath themselves, they were not allowed to buy and sell on the Sabbath day.

There is one intriguing story in the period between the last of the prophets in the New Testament, about the time of the Maccabees , when the people had become very fanatic about keeping the Sabbath. An enemy attacked them and rather than fight on the Sabbath day they allowed themselves to be slaughtered and a thousand people died. After that, the rabbis restudied the law and said that it was permissible to defend yourself on the Sabbath day. But you can see how hard it was to maintain this ancient practice and have a day of complete day of rest.

By the time we come to the New Testament, we find that Jesus was doing things on the Sabbath day that made people wonder. There is one story, where he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and someone came into the synagogue with a withered hand. Every eye was on Jesus to see whether he would heal that man on the Sabbath day or not. You see, it didn’t bother them that the man should be healed, but the timing worried them. Was Jesus going to violate the Sabbath? The Lord pointed out that if any of them had an ox or ass fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, they would lift him out. And so the Lord proceeded to heal him. He did many healing miracles on the Sabbath day. Our lesson from Mark describes a time when He was walking through the grain fields with the disciples and they began to pluck the ears of grain, rub them in their hands, blow away the chaff and eat the kernels. The Pharisees objected because they were working on the Sabbath.

The Lord was challenging their traditions and helping them to change their concept of the Sabbath. So instead of being a day of total idleness and rest, the Sabbath became a day of meditation, and a day of instruction. He often taught on the Sabbath. He taught people to love each other and to live a life of charity. And He really confronted them when He spoke of Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath. In many ways, that was the biggest factor leading to their decision to crucify Him. But after all the Sabbath day coming at the end of the week was a kind of prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. It was as if they would keep this day empty so that when the Messiah came He could do His work. In this sense there is no contradiction in the fact that Jesus taught and healed on the Sabbath day. He was simply showing in a powerful external way that He was the Lord of the Sabbath, and that it was His day and that He was transforming that day.

Now in the early life of the Christian church, all the Christians were Jews. As Jews, they would observe the Sabbath on Saturday. But then they would also observe the next day as the first day of the week and as the day when the Lord rose from the dead. So they had two holy days, the Jewish Sabbath and then the Christian Sunday, the day of the Lord’s resurrection.

Over the centuries since then, there have been many questions about this commandment. How does it apply to our life? For most Christians the Sabbath is now forgotten and it is the first day of the week. Sunday is counted as the holy day. But as to what we should do or not do on that day, people are very confused and divided. I remember when I was a child there were no professional sports played on Sunday. Stores weren’t open on Sunday. It wasn’t that watching the sport was wrong, or buying was wrong on the Sabbath, but making people work on the Sabbath day was considered wrong. Some states have what have been called the “blue laws.” They are very strict laws about the observance of the Sabbath.

I’ve talked to people who lived maybe 20 years or 40 years before I was born, about the kind of Sabbath observance they grew up with. One person said they were not only not allowed to work on the Sabbath day on Sunday. They could go to church. They couldn’t play games. They could read, but they could only read one of two books. The Bible obviously was one of them; and the other one was Pilgrims' Progress. Over time this has greatly eroded. These days it’s hard to tell the difference between Sunday and other days of the week.

Does this mean that the third commandment is no longer has any value? Well the essence of the third commandment is to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. We need that time of rest and reflection. And it may well be that a person has to take a different day off than Sunday. The point is, that you can’t go on working day after day without a break without hurting your spiritual state. We all need these times of rest. One of the things that happens when you let go and rest is that you remember the fact that our spiritual battles are really fought by the Lord. So it’s a time to let go of the illusion that we control our life, that we have to make everything happen in our own life and that we are masters of our fate. We need to just pause from time to time and remind ourselves that our salvation is not entirely our own doing, our spiritual growth is not something that we personally create. We have to learn innocence or a willingness to let go and let God.

The prophets talked about a time coming when there would be a perpetual Sabbath. This is referring to a time when people would be conscious of their spiritual needs and willing to have a constant attitude of holiness or respect to the Lord. We are given certain responsibilities in our external life, and certain responsibilities in our spiritual life, but the real work is always the Lord’s. We serve, but not with the thought that everything rests on our shoulders. Then we can go through life with this inner holiness, this state of quietness and rest. In letting go of our anxieties and fears, and of a too great sense of responsibility, we remind ourselves that we are not in charge of the universe and that we have to leave things in the Lord’s hands.

The prophet has given us the hope that if we honor the Sabbath in that spiritual way, we will be blessed and we will have a kind of inner security and peace. This peace is the goal of our spiritual journey. So it is as if the six days of work reflects the struggle in our life in order to arrive at that inner attitude of calm and contentment in Providence. That state of love and understanding and that special quietness, that the Lord gives, when we lay down the effort and we put aside the tools and we simply rest in the Lord. And in resting in the Lord, we receive the special blessings that can only be imparted to us which is the Sabbath state of rest.