Lord Of The Law

When I was a boy, Sundays were different. Even if people didn’t believe that the day was set aside for a particular purpose, there was a general respect for the idea. You wouldn’t hear lawn mowers cutting grass during the time of worship services. And most church-going folks wouldn’t go fishing or skiing on Sunday afternoons. I remember one family who lived across the street from the church building. The mother would worship regularly on Sundays with her son and daughter. But her husband and their father never came as long as I attended there. He was a drunkard. I don’t know for sure how he was treated by any other church member. I don’t know whether they acknowledged him at all in any positive way. I never saw anyone go talk to him on Sunday mornings. The son and daughter were about my age and I spent a lot of time with them, but never went to play in their yard. It was as if the drunkard was to be avoided. As a boy I didn’t think much about this man’s need for Christ. It’s as though he didn’t exist at all.
I wonder today if this man was ever converted to Christianity and his life was radically changed. I wonder if he ever became the husband his wife was praying for or the father that God intended. I wonder if he is still alive and his days of hearing the church bell ring, piercing his Sunday morning hangover, are only faded memories if he can remember at all. Or I wonder if he has died and entered an eternity without Christ without saving faith in Christ. I wonder if the one who stood at the door of the church building ever thought about him very much at all. It seems the message of Christ is more than just about all the bells and whistles. The gospel is much more than that.
Outwardly religious people often care more about their holy days than people and their basic needs. The Gospel of Mark brings us this week into a head-on collision between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day in relation to the observance of the Sabbath Day. The tradition that was built and maintained was a powerful in the days of Jesus and it is still a powerful force today. Can we get so bound up in the observance of God’s law that we lose focus not only on people who are strangers to God but also ignore the needs of the people of God who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of it? Let’s read the passage together and see what we can find.

And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.
The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?”
Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:23-28)
THE LAW OF THE LORD IS NOT LORD OVER THE LORD.


I. SABBATH LAW WAS MADE TO BE OBSERVED, NOT SERVED. (27)

...the Sabbath was made for man...

In the beginning, Sabbath was a day for God’s glory and man’s benefit. In Jesus’ day, Sabbath day observance was a hardship...something hard to do. But it was not always so. The Sabbath was made to serve man. In the creation account, after six days, God had finished His work of creation. The crowning jewel of all creation had been formed. Man was created in the image of God. God set aside a special day. By His decree, it was a holy day, designated to be a day of rest. It was a day of rest, although God was not tired. But He rested. Why? In Genesis 2, He had finished the work of creation. And the purpose of the day was to reflect on the awesome grandeur of a holy God who speaks and it is so. The Creator is worthy of the worship of creation. Man would benefit from a regular time of rest; set aside as time that he could reflect on His Maker and listen for His voice. But then came chapter 3 of Genesis. In the fall, man’s purpose in creation became perverted. This seventh day observance became vastly different from what God had originally intended. By the time of the public ministry days of Jesus, the Sabbath had become a tradition that was void of the glory of God and the benefit of man. It had become twisted in its purpose.
The allusion to the time of Abiathar would have been provocative to the religious establishment. Before David was a king, he was a fugitive. King Saul was jealous of David and the favor that God had bestowed upon him. Young David had slain the Philistine champion Goliath and had become Israel’s champion. David’s status as a national hero provoked Saul and he tried to kill David. During this time, David came to a place called Nob. In 1 Samuel 21 we read that he approached a priest named Ahimelech and asked for some bread for him and his men. The priest only had the consecrated bread, or the showbread, traditionally kept for worship purposes. The priest relented after David had appealed to him and gave him this holy bread. The priest also gave David the sword of Goliath as well. Witnessing this event was a man named Doeg, who was an Edomite shepherd of Saul, the worldly king. See the contrast here. The Edomites were descendents of Esau, the brother of Jacob, whom God had chosen to father His people. Jacob was called Israel. Jacob was chosen and Esau rejected. Doeg was a shepherd who aligned Himself to Saul, an earthly king. David was a shepherd who said that the King of Heaven was his Shepherd. Doeg related this episode to Saul, who assembled Ahimelech and the priests at Nob. Saul commanded Doeg to kill the priests and he slew eighty-five priests that day. One escaped the calamity and his name was Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech. The time of Abiathar that Jesus referred to was the time when God preserved His priest and His king in the midst of murderous hypocrisy. Saul pretended to be in authority and it looked like he had the upper hand. But God had anointed David before he had ever killed Goliath. The time of Abiathar was a time when God had chosen David, who was a hungry king who pursued the heart of God. In the aftermath of the slaughter at Nob, it is believed that David wrote Psalm 52. Listen to the passionate cry of his heart as he mourned over his provocative part in this episode.
Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The lovingkindness of God endures all day long. Your tongue devises destruction, like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, Falsehood more than speaking what is right. Selah. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent, and uproot you from the land of the living. Selah. The righteous will see and fear, and will laugh at him, saying, “Behold, the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and was strong in his evil desire.”
But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the lovingkindness of God forever and ever. I will give You thanks forever, because You have done it, and I will wait on Your name, for it is good, in the presence of Your godly ones.
I believe when these Pharisees heard the reference to the time of Abiathar, they knew Jesus was referring to them as being more like Saul than like David in their religious observance of the Sabbath. They would have been more aligned with ungodliness in their observance. They did not care about people. The Law was their lord.
Christ declared that human need supersedes mere ritual and ceremony. He did not come to abolish the Law. He came to fulfill it. He came to set man free from his burden of keeping the Law. One of the Ten Commandments deals with the observance of the Sabbath. By the time of Jesus, this one command had grown into many prohibitions tacked on like many Congressional earmarks to today’s legislation. The things that were added to Sabbath observance had nothing to do with the intent of God’s original command.
Although Christians are not bound to Sabbath Law, there are benefits to the Sabbath principle. Even before the fall, God had seen that man needs time to wind down and reflect on God and His word. Sundays are not the Sabbath. Sundays are our reminder of Resurrection Day. Often this is used to justify people who live and work in a culture with a self serving motive. Either we work every day because we think we can or we take the day off to pamper ourselves. The holy day has become a holiday so we can do what we want to do. Holy days become hollow days when we think one day in seven is more about us rather than all about God. Sabbath is for God’s glory and man’s benefit.
The Sabbath principle is beneficial to the congregation because we can be too busy to effectively be about God’s business. I used to think that a church that has something going on every day, bustling with the busyness of many activities, is really on mission with God and accomplishing His purpose. If the devil cannot tempt us as a church to successfully to do wrong things, we can quickly fall into the trap of doing right things in the wrong way.

II. WE CAN BECOME ENSLAVED TO THE LAW INSTEAD OF FREE TO OBSERVE IT. (27)

…and not man for the Sabbath.

Man was created to be free to worship God and not free from the worship of God. Here is the original purpose of the Sabbath. Consider that Jesus was crucified on the day before the Sabbath. What was God up to? The most holy act of worship ever experienced was the crucifixion. The most holy sacrifice was presented to the Most Holy God. And when He was taken down dead from the cross, the Sabbath Day was for reflection. God said…and it was so. Think about what that means for you and me. It makes me want to worship God. And this side of the Cross, we are free to do so. But we are never free to not worship God.
Man is not free to worship a system of rules because the Law will quickly become a hard master. Man was created to worship God and serve Him as master. When the day that God set aside for our benefit became our bondage, something was wrong with that picture. Jesus came to do something about that.
Christ came to restore true worship of the Living God. Anytime we keep God’s law out of a sense of duty or even grudgingly we can become captive to it. They were free to worship Him using that which was created. The Sabbath was not intended to be a heartless despot that man must serve regardless of the cost to himself; rather it was given to meet man’s need for rest. It was given to meet man’s need for God.
Walking with the God who gives rest is radically refreshing. These disciples were walking with God. And God was walking with them. When is the last time you have “passed through the grainfields”, walking with the Creator, and trusting Him as your provider?
When the people of God look for God’s provision daily, they will see their Provider. There is a time upon us in the Church today that we can look to worldly situations and see the emptiness of worldly solutions. We can be fearful in living out our lives, running to and fro, increasing our knowledge, and be desperate for wisdom. Here is wisdom. Spend time with God today, thanking Him for His daily provision. You will see your Provider.

III. THE LORD OF ALL IS LORD OF THE SABBATH. (28)

So the Son of Man is Lord ... even of the Sabbath...

God designated the Sabbath in the beginning and has full authority in its purpose. God thinks of everything. When He provided manna for His people in the wilderness, He made provision that they could gather twice as much on the day before the Sabbath so they would not have to gather it on the Sabbath. The Sabbath Day’s provision would not spoil or rot. But if they tried to do this on any other day, and work around God’s direction, the manna would spoil. How can you explain this? God has within His authority to make judgments about law He Himself establishes. It is so in the physical realm as well. We read that an ax head floated and the sun’s shadow went backward on a staircase. We read that the sun stood still, extending the daylight so a battle could be fought and we read that a Crucified Savior was raised to life from the dead. God and His authority are ultimate. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
A person will not have a concept of a holy day without a concept of a holy God. The unbeliever cannot have the concept of worshipping God or reflecting on His blessings without receiving these blessings. But they do have a concept of worship. That is what is wrong with their lives. Something is demanding their time, talent and resources. Their worship is out of whack. Holy days will be hollow days or holidays.
The authority of the Law is found in Christ. Christ was not above its authority, He was the authority. He was not asserting his freedom to violate the Sabbath law, but rather he was declaring his authority to interpret that law. What the disciples were doing did not violate God’s Sabbath. They violated man’s interpretation of it.
When Christians are yoked together with Christ they can find rest for their souls. Consider these words of Jesus:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
A yoke was something that was hung around the necks of two animals working together so they would walk together. One was always a lead animal who paced the pair and guided their direction. Are you yoked to Christ? How do you know? Because no matter what Christ calls you to, He does not call you to slavish Sabbath keeping. You will not find rest serving the Sabbath. You find rest serving Christ…take His yoke upon you…learn from Him. Heaven is a continuous Sabbath rest, forever yoked to Christ.
Holy days are hollow days when we spend time serving and worshipping other things. Our challenge as a church is to reach this city with a celebration of the holiness of Christ. There are plenty celebrations around Raleigh that you can choose to be a part of. As a matter of fact, you can so compartmentalize your Christianity that you can be worldly in your witness. This means that if I see you in public, I would not be able to tell the difference in your behavior than people who do not follow Christ. Are you a Christ follower? They stood out in the grainfields to people who saw their difference as negative. Will you be willing to stand out in your neighborhood as someone different in a positive Christlike way?

Our so what for today:

Is my worship experience holy or hollow?
Do I encounter the Christ of the Bible or practice some ritual on a religious checklist?
Do I practice the Sabbath principle?
You must take the time or the time will take you.
Here is an acrostic for the word BUSY to remember: Being Under Satan’s Yoke.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.