When I was a little boy there were strict rules about what we could and could not do on the Sabbath. It seemed that there were far more things that were prohibited than were permitted. Most Sabbath days looked the same: Sunday School and worship in the morning; lunch at home; quiet afternoon in our living room or that of my grandfather; back home for dinner; and the evening at the church for youth group or services. We rarely went to a restaurant on the Sabbath. We never went to a movie. I remember the angst that a group of us from our church youth group felt when we missed a Sunday evening service so that we could go to a movie – a Billy Graham movie! We felt that uneasiness even though we all had permission from both our parents and our pastor.

Jesus knew something about prescribed rules for the Sabbath, too. One Sabbath day he and his disciples were hungry. Since they were passing through a grain field, Jesus told them to take advantage of it and to pick enough grain to satisfy their hunger. Some Pharisees saw what Jesus and his friends were doing and got pretty cranky about it. “What are you doing?!” they challenged Jesus. “Don’t you know that this is the Sabbath and that picking that grain is work and, thus, prohibited on the Sabbath?” Shrewd and unflappable, Jesus turned to his accusers and asked, “Don’t you know that when they were hungry David and his friends went to the temple and ate consecrated bread? Maybe you also remember that nothing happened to them, that God wasn’t angry in the least.” I imagine that there was an awkward pause just then as the Pharisees frantically thought of something that they could say. Jesus forged ahead, though. “If you had remembered that, and if you had understood the scripture that says,’ I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” Jesus said, “then you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

As we end four weeks of reflecting on sabbath rest, let’s remind ourselves that sabbath is always about focusing on God, God’s love, and God’s work. It is not about following a collection of rules like those that I knew as a little boy or like those that the Pharisees sought to impose on Jesus and his friends. And our model in learning what it means to observe sabbath rest? Jesus, the lord of the sabbath. As we live as God’s people in the light of God’s matchless love, as we hear and heed the command to observe sabbath rest, as we lay aside rules that can serve to keep us from God and instead focus on the wonder of God in our lives, as we acknowledge Jesus as lord of the sabbath, let’s meditate on the hymn written by Terry York in 2002:

Sabbath worship, sabbath rest, remember and observe.
God, the Maker, through the Son, our model as we serve.
Sabbath moment, sabbath month, a week, a day, a year;
one with Spirit’s heart and mind, when we in faith draw near.
(©The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, Waco, TX

Time for reflection:
• What rules in your life prevent you from hearing and seeing God in your midst?
• How will you observe your next sabbath rest to more fully know and live God’s love?