Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 22 – February 1976

 

The Teaching Of Jesus On The Sabbath

 

Sermon by Rev. G. I. Williamson on Mark 2:27-28

Scripture Reading: Mark 2:18-3:6.

Psalter Hymnal: 180; 239; 286; 233:6,7; 233:8

 

It would be hard to think of a controversy in religion in which the two sides were more completely at odds with one another than was the case in the gospel account.  The Jews even went so far as to accuse Christ of being in league with the Devil; the Son of God with being a horrible desecrator of the law of God and of his Sabbath.  And Jesus, who was indeed the Son of God, on his part did not hesitate to say that they worshipped God in vain and that they had made the law of God of no effect through their tradition.  For he said, “You set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.”  Well controversy is an unpleasant thing in itself but we can be very thankful that this one took place because it led our Lord to summarise his view of the Sabbath day and we have that in the last two verses of this Chapter of the Gospel of Mark where we read:

“He said: The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath therefore (or consequently) the Son of Man is Lord also (or even) of the Sabbath.”

Now when Jesus said that, he certainly described accurately in a negative way the position of the Scribes and Pharisees.  For you could well say that their view was that man was made for the Sabbath and that was a terrible perversion of God’s ordinance of this his holy day, the 4th Commandment.  If I said to you that the computer was made for man and not man for the computer, you would not have a bit of trouble in understanding what I am talking about because modern life is full of this great problem and concern.

The computer is a wonderful thing.  It is one of the greatest inventions in all of history.  It has the potential of revolutionising the life of man as much as the industrial revolution itself, the application of power to machinery which liberated man from much of the drudgery of life which was his portion until not so long ago in history.  If you have ever had a mathematical problem to work out and sat for an afternoon to work out these difficult equations and then sat down to do the same thing with one of these electronic calculators, you will realise the tremendous potential for the liberation of man from drudgery and labour that we have in the computer so long as it remains in service to man.

But our Science Fiction writers are already prognosticating the future and warning us that the day could come when man becomes the servant of the computer.  We already know that in the Government of New Zealand there is a computer centre, one of the most advanced in the World, and there are people already expressing fear here in our society that the day may come when you can’t make a move without “BIG BROTHER” New Zealand style being there, marking everything you say and do having all of your transgressions recorded there so that you can never get away from the shadow of the past.  Well, if that ever happens and all of that information comes in the possession of Big Brother, this great giant computer (so that it is like a big eye looking down upon you no matter where you are, what you are doing or what you have done) then you can see what a terrible thing it would be.  Because, the computer was made for man, originally, and not man for the computer.

Well it is exactly that kind of perversion that we have in the religious tradition of the Scribes and Pharisees.  Do you think that they had any concern about the fact that Jesus and his Disciples were hungry that day, and, by the way, they were on their way to “Church”.  They were on their way to the Synagogue that they might worship the true and living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But do you think the Scribes and Pharisees had any concern about that?  Not at all.  They did not even think about that.  There was no room in their traditional outlook on the Sabbath day to be concerned about human need.  All they knew was that plucking grain, even a few grains, as you strolled through the field, was supposed to be by the voice of tradition a form of labour and work, and the 4th Commandment says as clearly as one could ask for it to be said, “Thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son or thy daughter thy manservant or thy maidservant, not even your cattle”  And so the Scribes and Pharisees became a kind of religious Gestapo going around to see whom they might be able to find violating their religious tradition and they even planted their decoys as it were to see who they might be able to bring out as a desecrator of the Sabbath.

That man who was there in the Synagogue with the withered hand was planted there by the Scribes and Pharisees for the express purpose of demonstrating that Jesus and his Disciples were violators of the Sabbath.  So that is saying that man was made for the Sabbath rather than the Sabbath being made for man.

I know about some people who migrated from Scotland to Canada some years ago during the Depression.  Out of a rural Highland district of Scotland where the Sabbath day has always been a rather quiet and strictly observed day, suddenly they were right there in the midst of this tremendous metropolis called Toronto.  They did not have any money.  That is why they migrated in the first place.  They could not buy themselves an automobile and they could not find a place to live right next door to the Church so many found themselves many miles away from the place of worship and the House of God.  They were presented with a tremendous dilemma.  The only way they could get to Church was by riding on public vehicles, street-cars and buses, and that posed a tremendous problem of conscience because, of course, the running of public vehicles on the Lord’s Day involves somebody in work.  Well, the Pastor and elders of that congregation courageously said to the people: look the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.  The pre-eminent need on the Lord’s Day is for God’s people to meet and worship him and if necessity has it that way, then we must ride on the street-cars and buses that we might be able to lift up our hearts and souls to God in worship.  But the HOME church was so rigid, so tradition bound that it thought nothing of these needs and finally ex-communicated the whole congregation out of its communion.  Yes it is hard to believe it, but this denomination would rather have seen those people stay at home, not hear the word of God, not receive the sacraments, than ride on a bus or street-car to go to the House of God to worship.

Is it not clear that this is a case of saying man was made for the Sabbath?  What happens to man is relatively unimportant.  The important thing is the Sabbath.  Well Jesus Christ said it exactly the other way round.  What happens to man is what is important because man was made in the image of God and he was made for the destiny of sharing in the joy of his creator and THEN the Sabbath was made for man.  That doesn’t make the Sabbath unimportant, but it clearly shows that the Sabbath Day is subordinate to man.  That is, of course, historically true is it not?  If you go back to the book of Genesis what do you read?  That God first made the Sabbath, and THEN began to create all the other things so that the Sabbath day would stand there and be fulfilled?  Did God create the Sabbath day and then say, “Well now I have got to have somebody to keep the Sabbath day,” so he made man?  No, not at all.  What it shows is that God made man in his own image and then, in order that man might reach the destiny that God had created him for, the Lord blest the Sabbath day and hallowed it and gave the Sabbath to man.  That is the order.  It is historically a fact in the book of Genesis.  That is the way it happened.  God as much as said to man, “Now here, you need this day I am making this day of rest for you.”  It is even stated in the 4th Commandment that that is why we are to rest.  Why are we to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy?  Well because, says the 4th Commandment, in 6 days God created the heaven and the earth and all that is in them and then he rested and hallowed that day and he gave that day to man.  So this tremendous statement, by our Lord Jesus Christ utterly and forever abolishes any view of the Sabbath which turns things upside down and makes the Sabbath in and of itself even more important than man.

But may I then hasten on to say the words of our Lord Jesus Christ are also a two-edged sword and they cut just as sharply against those who say there is no Sabbath at all – who say that the 4th Commandment was part of the Ceremonial Law of the Jews that is now abolished and gone – that it went out like circumcision and the tabernacle and all those temporary things.  You see Jesus Christ did not say the Sabbath was made for the JEWS.  He says that the Sabbath was made for MAN, anthropos, mankind, it is in the Greek.  ‘The Sabbath was made for mankind, not mankind for the Sabbath.’  You will never read that in the Bible, when it comes to circumcision.  It does not say in the Bible that God made circumcision for mankind.  No it says that circumcision was made for the Jews.  It does not say that the tabernacle was made for mankind.  It was not.  There is nothing in the whole ceremonial set up of Israel that you can find anywhere in the Bible that says this was made for man.  No it was made for the Jews but Christ says the Sabbath was made for man.  That is why, in the 4th Commandment, the ground for the observance of the commandment is traced back to creation.  It has always struck me as ironic that the only commandment that refers back to creation is the 4th Commandment: the very one that is sometimes questioned by mortal man.  Why does it appeal back to creation?  Because it was at creation that the Sabbath was made for man, mankind.

Now suppose for a moment that we accept the biblical history as true and we say, I accept the book of Genesis as historically true.  Man was made first and then God gave man the Sabbath because man needed it.  Well I think you can see right there that the Sabbath was made for man because the whole human race derives through our first parents and whatever nature God gave Adam, he has given to us because we are descended from Adam and if Adam needed the Sabbath day then we need it because we inherit our nature from this man.  Man has fallen now, I grant that, but that only in- creases the need for that day and that means that if you are really to be free in the sense God intended you to be free, then you must observe this commandment.  You cannot ignore it, you cannot wipe it out, you cannot disregard it, if you are going to attain the end for which God created you.

Now let me try to illustrate.  I was reading some time ago a very penetrating article on modern man and art, by a Christian, and here was his basic question: Why is it that modern art is ugly, even repulsive to look at while modern engineering and architecture is often breathtakingly beautiful?  Do you ever ponder that one, friends?  You could enter an art gallery and find the art gallery itself is a thing of breathtaking beauty and the pictures on the wall are a horrible, ugly and repulsive thing.  Now why is that?  Well, the answer is that the artist is expressing his philosophy on canvas and because he has repudiated all fixed standards, all absolutes, he expresses that within the frame- work of his artistic media by defying those standards.  There are no boundaries, no harmony, no semblance of what God has created.  He refuses to think God’s thoughts for him and so what you get is a horrible monstrosity.  But that is not true of the architect and the engineer.  He does not express his philosophy in his media and discipline because he knows if he did it would be disastrous.  I would never get in an aeroplane if I didn’t believe that the engineers who designed it were obeying the law of God.  They study out the principles of his law and then apply them.  That is why the supersonic Concorde airliner is a thing of beauty too.  It is built according to the laws that God has created, as are the great buildings that man has made.  You cannot build anything that will stand there and remain there if you do not obey the laws of God and you cannot fly at twice the speed of sound if you do not obey the laws of God, but you CAN paint a picture without obeying the laws of God.

So you see the idea that the law of God is in any way contrary to human freedom is one of the greatest deceptions that Satan ever perpetrated on the human race.  How free would you builders in this congregation be if you ignored the laws of God, paid no attention to mathematics, measurements, the law of gravity, stress and all those factors.  Just ignore the law of God and go out and build!  Well you know what that would mean.  You would have no freedom you would never know what might happen next.  No security either.  You children that are budding musicians: How free would you be to play your musical instruments if you paid no attention to the laws that God has created – did not learn the difference between one note and another – paid no attention to harmony and intonation?  Well you would never be free to enjoy the pleasures of music.  But the fact is that all freedom, all real freedom, is based upon law and you do not really begin to be free in any way, in any sphere of God’s creation order, until you begin to obey, and master, and I repeat those words and under- line them both: UNTIL YOU BEGIN TO OBEY AND MASTER THE LAW OF GOD.  The more you obey and the more you begin to master the law of God, the more you are truly free.

Take painting for example.  You can go to your local store and buy one of those kits where you paint by the numbers.  Well you might call that, in a certain sense, obeying the law of God but it is not mastery.  To really be an artist, a painter, you have to master the law of principles, the perspectives and depths and balance and then when you have mastered them you can paint your own picture and it will be beautiful and you can stand back and you can look at it and it will be worthy of someone made in the image of God.  But you have to learn the law and obey it and master it to the glory of God.  Because the Sabbath day was made for man, man needed it.  He can never fulfil his divine destiny without the Sabbath.  And you can never be the Christian that God calls you to be without the Sabbath.  You may think so but there is no way.  If you don’t learn on the Sabbath Day, here, how to get a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath that is to come, you are just defeating your own end; that is all you are doing.  Because you will notice that Jesus Christ says that he is LORD OF THE SABBATH ALSO.  If he is Lord of the man then he must also be Lord of the Sabbath!  Doesn’t that follow?  If the man is primary and the Sabbath secondary as a means of helping man to attain his destiny, then the one who is Lord of the man must also be the Lord of the Sabbath.  Now that is what he is saying in this text, and that means that if you are going to have to do it under the Lordship, not of the Sabbath and not of yourself, but of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Then you are going to understand how the law functions in the heart of the Christian.

I can still remember when I was young and if my father and mother used to be after me all the time to do this and to do that – to wash my face and to comb my hair and to make my clothes look neat and all those things.  But you know it never really worked.  Then when I first found a bit of romance and a girl-friend my parents noticed that I was combing my hair and washing my face and putting on a clean shirt and even a little bit of deodorant at times.  My, were they surprised!  You see it has to come from an inward motivation that the prophet Isaiah speaks about.  Please listen to his words:

“If because of the Sabbath day you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day the Lord honourable and shall honour it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own words, then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the high places of the earth and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.”  (Isaiah 58:13,14)

Do you think that I could ever get anyone in this congregation to turn his own foot away from doing his own thing on the Lord’s Day?  Not if I talked till doomsday.  I could never do it.  Why waste my time then?  That is why you will never hear me in this pulpit trying to draw all the lines that YOU are supposed to paint by the numbers because it never has worked and it never will work.  Oh it might make a good Pharisee out of you but it will never make a Christian out of you.  Dear friends if I hold up before you the loveliness of Jesus, the wonder and glory of our divine Messiah and Saviour until you take delight in him — then I know what you are going to do.  You are going to call the Sabbath a delight too.  Just like I thought it delightful to comb my hair and put on a clean shirt and go visit my girlfriend, so you are going to say I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord.  If you take delight in the Lord you are going to want to be in his house, in the morning and again in the evening and you are going to delight in his worship because you have been changed from the inside out.

You might not believe this but there was a time when I hardly even darkened the door of a church for over three years.  I didn’t WANT to go, but when Christ became a delight in my heart and in my life you couldn’t keep me away, and I think that is exactly what the scripture is teaching here.  If Christ becomes your Lord then there is no way in which he is going to fail to be the Lord of your Sabbath, but conversely if Christ is not the Lord of your Sabbath what can the reason be?  Must it not be that Jesus Christ is not your Lord?  If you don’t take delight in him it is going to show in the way that you treat this day.

Are you having trouble with the Sabbath day?  If you are you will never solve that problem by going back to the strictest traditions that you can find.  Tradition in and of itself will invariably lead you astray because times change and the situation in which the law of God must be applied changes.  You will never solve the problem that way and neither will you solve it by being Lord yourself and there is some of that in the Reformed Churches – People who say “I will be the Lord of the Sabbath.”  No, you’ll first have to learn to delight yourself in Jesus and then start asking him, “What would YOU like me to do on this day?”  Then you will begin to delight yourself in the Lord and His day.  And I promise you, you will begin to ride upon the high places of the earth.  You know I used to think, “Oh my, to turn the television off and to turn away from pop music for one day wouldn’t that be like going down into the depths of a dark valley?  Wouldn’t that be gloomy?”  No, beloved, it is not gloomy at all It is like going up on a mountain top where you can really see.  It is getting out of the valley and walking on the high places of the earth and beginning to have a foretaste of something so much better than this world that there is no comparison between them!  If you haven’t learnt a little bit about that on YOUR Sabbath, you had better go back and ask yourself do I delight in the Lord?  For the Lord Jesus Christ said it himself.  He who is Lord of the Christian must therefore be Lord of His Sabbath.

May God grant us the wisdom to understand these words!

Amen.