Pentecost 2 (B), June 18, 2006; Text: Mark 2:23-28

A Sabbath Rest for God's People

Does your family have a common rest day? Do you feel that you are
getting a regular time to rest from your worries and your work? As we heard
it in our first reading, God made it very clear to His people Israel
that they were to keep the Sabbath day holy to the LORD by not doing any
work. Can you imagine keeping such a commandment in today's society?
A day with no shopping, no eating out, no television, and no public
transit service. Can you imagine such a day where no one did any work? It
is hard to imagine a day of complete rest.

Why then did God command His people to keep the Sabbath day holy by
doing no work? This idea was completely counter-cultural, even in the
ancient world. Pagan mythology explained that the gods created humans to
serve them so they might be able to rest. We were created to be their
temple slaves. As such worship for pagans is inherently "work." But
the God of Israel is different. He created us in order that He might
serve us and that we might have rest. Biblical worship really is an
anti-ritual ritual. We worship in order to rest and let God do his work! The
purpose for which God created us is for us to rest from our work and let
Him work for us.

What can be so important about resting? About spending a whole day
simply doing nothing? It is not difficult to see this as a terrible waste
of precious time and lost productivity. But it is here that God
confronts us with our fundamental human problem: That we live as if we are the
ones who create our own living and our own rest. Practically, this
means that we make ourselves to be our own gods. The basic philosophy is
that we work in order to create happiness, to create our own blessing; we
work in order that we may retire. As far as I can see, the Bible knows
of no such thing as retirement - of a blessing we create through our
work. Rather, God freely offers His people rest in order to receive
blessing for work. By keeping the Sabbath, the Sabbath served to bless the
six workdays so that the whole week becomes a blessing.

In our text from Deuteronomy, God gives the Israelites another reason
for the Sabbath rest day. In the world there are basically two types of
people: Those who are free, who are economically independent and those
who are "slaves," those who have no assured livelihood. Those who
are free enjoy the luxury of being able to rest whenever they like while
those who are "slaves" must work in order to survive and so the
"free" can rest.

God tells the Israelites that they are to observe the Sabbath because
He brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They had all been slaves before
and now all Israelites, whether slave or free, landowners or labourers,
should have one day on which they would all be "free" citizens. On
the Sabbath all would enjoy the luxury of "rest" that is normally
reserved only for the wealthy in pagan societies.

Because the Lord had freed the Israelites from economic slavery, He did
not want them to become slaves again. There would be one day each week
set aside for them to remember the freedom God gave them. On that day
there would be no difference between the rich and the poor and they
would all share equally in the blessing of rest as God's free people.
In our own society we see the inequality between the rich and the poor
worsening since the laws against doing business on Sundays have been
relaxed. Those who do not enjoy the luxury of a regular Monday to Friday
salaried job find it difficult to have a common day off which they can
enjoy together with their families. As the common day of rest is phased
out, so economic oppression grows.

So what are we to do? Are we to go on a crusade to keep people from
working on Sunday's? The Pharisees of Jesus' day were eager to defend
the sanctity of the Sabbath. In our Gospel lesson we heard how they
confronted Jesus for allowing His disciples to desecrate the Sabbath. They
were picking heads of grain as they walked along the grain fields. They
were doing work on the Sabbath and Jesus wasn't doing anything about
it!

Jesus responded with two very important comments. First He said, "The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28). By
this He showed that the Pharisees were missing the point of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was meant to give men rest, not to bind them down with
legalistic rules and laws. Secondly, Jesus identifies Himself as the
"Lord of the Sabbath." As the Sabbath was the means through which we
receive God's blessing, so Jesus is the Lord, or the source of that
blessing. Jesus is the One from whom we receive God's true blessings and
obtain rest as His free people. For it is in Him that we receive
forgiveness of sins and release from the burden of guilt. Here Jesus brings to
us the true meaning of the Sabbath rest that God has established for
our blessing. The Sabbath is not just about freedom from economic
oppression, but more importantly, about freedom from spiritual oppression.

We see this truth also reflected in the life and work of Jesus. The
culmination of His work was His rest: In our Baptism, we receive release
from the burden of our sins and receive adoption into God's spiritual
household of faith. We see this truth also in how Jesus completed His
work in His final passion. On Palm Sunday, the first day of the week, He
began His passion and it ended with His death on the cross on Good
Friday. On the Holy Sabbath He rested from His work as He lay in the tomb.
As we take up our cross to follow Christ, so we also have the promise
that we shall enter our permanent rest in our own death, when we will
receive a new resurrection body and shall live before God in perfect
holiness forever and ever.

So what does the command to keep the Sabbath holy mean for us today?
Luther, in his explanation to the Third Commandment says: "We should
fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but
hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it." How we listen to the voice
of God and how we respond to His message is key to keeping the Sabbath
holy and for receiving its blessing.

What makes today holy? Is it because Jesus rose on Sunday? While that
is the reason we worship on Sunday, His resurrection is not what makes
Sunday any holier than any other day. What makes today holy is the Word
of God. The Divine Service we celebrate is what makes today holy. Today
we hear God's words of grace, words which give us rest. Rest not just
from work, but rest to be enjoyed with others and in the presence of
God, today and for eternity.

The blessing of God's gracious words to us extend even into the rest
of the week as we are refreshed in our assurance of God's love for us
and encouraged in our love for our neighbour. And it is not only today
that is holy to the Lord. As we begin each day by making the sign of
the cross and saying, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit" those days are also made holy to the Lord through
His holy name He has given us in Baptism.

Observing the Sabbath day by keeping it holy means that we listen to
the voice of God. It means that we physically go to the place where His
voice is most clearly heard. We hear it where the Gospel is preached in
all its purity and where the Divine Service is celebrated; where we
hear Jesus speak His words of forgiveness through the mouth of His called
servant and where Jesus Himself meets us and we hear Him say, "This
is my body given for you" and "This is my blood shed for you for the
forgiveness of all your sins." Keeping the Sabbath also means
fostering a desire and hunger for the Word of God in all of our life; to see
God's Word bring life and meaning to every day of our lives.

Finally, keeping the Sabbath also means that we need to distinguish
between God's voice and all the other voices we hear that would rob us
of our Sabbath rest; voices that would urge us to create our own rest
through our work and not rely on Jesus as the source of our rest. For
example, there are those who may claim that you are not a real Christian
unless you speak in tongues or have had a special spiritual experience.
Or who insist that you must be in church every Sunday or give a tenth
of all you earn in order to receive God's Sabbath blessing. No, God
gives you His Sabbath blessing as a gift without requiring any work from
you. He gives you the Lord Jesus who did His work for you that you may
have rest. And now that we have been blessed with his gift of rest, we
are refreshed to go and do the work he has called us to do throughout
the rest of this week with his blessing.

One of these works God has called some of us to do is what we celebrate
today with Father's Day. As Tingyu and I are expecting our first
child, I am beginning to realize that I've been given a new job now - of
being a father. It is with some fear and trepidation that I enter that
role as I am not sure yet what it all entails or how I will fare as a
father. And yet, I know that God has made me His child and as I learn to
trust Him and find rest in that awesome relationship, by His grace, He
will bless my service as a father.

And even though we fathers are far from perfect, it is our Heavenly
Father who sustains us and blesses our service. That is why, as we
celebrate Father's Day, it is appropriate we begin that celebration here in
the house of our Heavenly Father. Let us praise our Heavenly Father for
giving us His Own beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As God's dearly
beloved children we can count on Him to provide for our every need and
for our everlasting happiness. And today we also say a special thanks
to our earthly fathers for allowing us to taste of God's love through
their faithful service in their vocation as our fathers.

And now, may our Heavenly Father grant you to enjoy the rest He gives
you through Jesus Christ our Lord, and that through the power of the
Holy Spirit living in you, you may rejoice in your daily work, serving as
a channel of God's blessings to others. Amen.