From Burden to Blessing (Mark 2:23-3:6) with Pastor Matt Crethar

What beautiful words to sing together and fitting for our message, our passage this evening.

It's a privilege to be able to open the Word of God with you.

I invite you to take your Bibles and open them to Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

We're looking at the very end of Mark chapter 2, picking up in verse 23.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

And as you're turning there, let me tell you this old story.

Perhaps you've heard this old story before.

The old story goes that a daughter watches her mother preparing the family's pot roast.

This is an age-old recipe, an old family recipe.

And so as she followed the traditional recipe as her mother had before her, she takes out the various ingredients, she takes out the great big pot, she turns on the oven, she seasons the chunk of meat, and she cuts off both ends of the meat.

But her curious daughter asks her, Mom, I see why you season the meat, but why do you cut the ends off the meat?

Is it for flavor?

Is it so that it cooks more evenly?

Or is it to give some to the family dog?

And the mother pauses and she doesn't know.

She doesn't know.

That's just how it's always been done.

And so the mother goes to her mother and asks her, why do you cut the ends off the meat?

And the mother says, so that the roast can fit in the pot.

And the point of the story is this the rules of tradition can sometimes make us forget the intention that the tradition was meant to serve.

As we come to our passage, we find the Lord Jesus among the grain field of Galilee on the Sabbath.

And a tradition long held is challenged by its original intention.

And Mark, he's been building up to this moment in the narrative.

Since chapter 2, verse 1, a run of controversy stories has piled up one after another.

There was a paralyzed man lowered from a roof, and the Lord Jesus forgave his sin and healed him.

Yet the religious leaders looked on who can forgive sins but God alone.

And he does.

Yet the religious leaders they looked on who is this who eats with tax collectors and sinners?

A group of John's disciples and Pharisees asked a question of Jesus regarding fasting, trying to trap him.

Jesus' disciples were not fasting as John's disciples and the Pharisees were doing.

And the people looked on, why do you and your disciples not fast like us?

And now we have the climax of these encounters: the Sabbath day.

And as this day closes, those bitter rivals to one another, the Pharisees and Herodians, they will unite against a common enemy with one ambition.

Jesus must be destroyed.

That unfolding conflict sets the background for our passage tonight.

But the question our passage asks and answers is another.

Who gets to decide what the Sabbath means?

Is it men who fence it with tradition?

Or is it the God who gave it as a gift?

This is the message of our passage.

This is what our passage teaches us.

It teaches us that Jesus, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and he restores the Sabbath from a day of burden to a day of blessing.

And we'll see this as we trace the Sabbath theme through our passage.

We'll see, first of all, chapter 2, verse 23, or chapter 2, verse 23 to 24, the question of the Sabbath.

What is the Sabbath?

What had it become?

The question of the Sabbath.

Secondly, we'll see from verse 25 to 28 of chapter 2, the Lord of the Sabbath.

Who is the Lord who decides the purpose of the Sabbath?

And third, in chapter 3, verse 1 to 6, we'll see the message of the Sabbath.

What is the Sabbath given for?

Is it for burden or is it for blessing?

The question, the Lord, and the message of the Sabbath.

And I trust that in our study together of this precious passage, that the Lord would edify you this Lord's day through the preaching of his word.

Or that you would be refreshed and thoroughly blessed and then resolved for the week ahead.

Let's commit our time to the Lord in prayer and then we'll unpack our passage.

Would you pray with me?

Oh, gracious and kind Heavenly Father, we thank you for this Lord's day that we have already enjoyed, and now we gather again around your word.

Oh, bless us as we gaze at the Lord Jesus Christ through your word.

Help me to preach humbly and faithfully and clearly for the glory of your name, and for each of those that are listening here to listen carefully as it is your word that goes out and is preached.

And that you would comfort any that are afflicted or bless any that are not feeling refreshed, but that we would find joy in the rest that you give us in the Lord's day.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Well, first of all, take a look at chapter 2, verse 23 down to 24, and we'll see, number one, the question of the Sabbath.

Have a read of verse 23.

Now it happened that he, that is Jesus, went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

And as they went, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.

And the Pharisees said to him, Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

We'll pause there just for a moment.

We pick up with the Lord, Jesus and his disciples.

They're walking through the grain fields.

These were pastures and farms that were off the main road.

And as the disciples walk, they find themselves in a state of hunger.

The Sabbath day had begun, and they were not permitted to work.

And so probably whatever food that they may have had from before the Sabbath had now been exhausted.

And so here are the disciples of Jesus hungry on the Sabbath and walking through a grain field, basically a refrigerator, a pantry that they're walking through.

And as they walk through, they pluck the heads of the grain to eat.

They rub the head of grain, which removes the external layer of chaff.

And now they were right and ready to eat.

And now their hunger could be satisfied.

And there are two texts that we ought to keep in the background just that permit these actions that the disciples took.

Turn in your Bibles just for a moment to Deuteronomy 23.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, fifth book, Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse 24 to 25.

Deuteronomy 23:24–25

It stipulates this.

When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container.

When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain.

Now this law explicitly permits a traveler to pluck grapes or grain by hand from a neighbor's field.

And now just turn over for a moment to Leviticus 19, which is just two books earlier.

Leviticus 19, because there is behind the Deuteronomy law that we saw the same principle in Leviticus 19, 9 to 10.

Leviticus 19, 9 to 10, which says, When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest, and you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard.

Why?

You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.

I am the Lord your God.

Now here is that principle.

Here's the principle that teaches that the disciples taking grain by hand was not intrinsically unlawful.

One that is hungry may go and take what food they need, even from their neighbor's field.

Oh, yes, they ought to make the right preparations to see that they have enough food for their travels, but if they don't, is it better for them to starve and die?

Or is it better for them to eat and live?

But the tension point for the Pharisees is this.

What about on the Sabbath?

Surely that's got to be unlawful.

Surely that's an offense.

You see, the importance of the Sabbath for the Jew cannot be overstated.

One commentator, Edwards, he notes that two practices set apart the Jews from among the nations around them.

Two practices, circumcision and the Sabbath.

The Sabbath began at sunset on the Friday until sunset on the Saturday.

It's that fourth commandment that is given in God's law.

And the simple pattern is this: since in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and then he rested on the seventh day, so too must man and for his benefit rest on the seventh day.

This rest was not only for people, but it was for the animals, it was for slaves, and it was for the ground.

And so the Pharisees, they see what Jesus' disciples are doing, and they charge him with this question.

Verse 24, look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

And now this might seem like a noble question, right?

Seems noble on the surface.

Jesus, you love the law.

Well, your disciples aren't obeying the law in this point.

Look, they're doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.

But this isn't as noble as it looks.

They immediately hurl accusations.

They form a sort of plot, and they fail to even ask Jesus a question.

And notice that they don't really appeal to anything in their argument that Moses wrote.

Oh, yes, it is true that Exodus 34, 21 forbids harvesting on the Sabbath.

Six days you shall work, it says, but on the seventh you shall rest.

In ploughing time and in harvest you shall rest.

But the Pharisees, they had a wooden reading of the fourth commandment.

They actually isolated the Sabbath prohibition from the broader purposes of God's law.

Those purposes, like we looked at earlier, Deuteronomy 23 and Leviticus 19.

And this wooden reading of the law led the Pharisees to invent all manner of additional man-made laws.

You see, the law of the Sabbath became the point for them, even to the neglect of what the law was actually pointing to.

And so they reclassified laws in their tradition to uphold, in their view, the Sabbath.

They called simply plucking reaping.

Simply plucking the heads of grain was reclassified as harvesting a crop.

They called the simple act of rubbing threshing.

Simply rubbing the grain in their hands to remove the husk was reclassified as threshing.

They called even the wind winnowing as the chaff was blown away.

Even the breath of wind carrying off that lesson, that chaff as they rubbed it was counted as winnowing.

Now their reasoning has some logic, right?

But it neglected the greater principle of the Sabbath.

And their interpretation became a fence built around the law of Moses that had over time become as binding in their minds as the law of Moses itself.

And the prophet Isaiah had much to say about such things as this.

He writes in Isaiah 29, verse 13, These people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from me.

Isaiah 29:13

And their fear toward me, Isaiah writes, is taught by the commandment of men.

Here are the Pharisees, honoring with their lips, yet distant hearts.

For they had established commandments of men to keep up the law of God and neglected the principle of the law of God in the process.

Their motivation was to keep the law, but they failed to love the law.

You see, we we too can attempt to keep the law of God without actually loving it.

We can put up fences around certain good gifts in order to technically keep the law, and yet our heart begrudges the law, or worse still, begrudges the lawgiver.

It could be a Bible reading plan that we tick off.

We tick that off our list and yet we never let the Bible touch our hearts.

Or a tithe that is given in an offer tree from a heart of obligation rather than joy.

Or perhaps we keep a list in our heads that we've created of things that we don't personally do, and then we use that to measure ourselves against our neighbor.

You see, we may keep the law of God perfectly, and yet our hearts are far from him, having adopted the commandments of men and neglecting joy in the one who gave the law.

But the psalmist says, Oh, how I love your law.

It is my meditation all the day.

Sinclair Ferguson in the in the Whole Christ, as he reflects on the marrow of modern divinity, he he calls this sort of heart legalism.

He calls that heart legalism to divorce the law of God from love for God.

And so I wonder, as you keep the law of God, what is driving you deep in your heart?

Is it a fenced-in conscience?

Are you just anxious to stay out of trouble with God?

And so you're burdened with anxiety?

Or are you driven to obey God from a heart that has tasted the mercy of God in Jesus Christ and so delights to rest in him and the blessing of his law?

Does your heart say with the psalmist, Oh, how I love your law?

It is my meditation all the day.

Well, the question of the Sabbath has been raised.

The Pharisees failed to see the tension point in the law of God, and they chose tradition over God's intended principle.

But now God speaks.

And so keep reading verse 25 to 28, and we hear number two, the Lord of the Sabbath.

Verse 25.

But he said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry?

He and those with him, how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathah the high priest, and ate the show bread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him.

And he said to them, verse 27, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.

The Lord Jesus, he he doesn't let the Pharisees' misinterpretation of the Sabbath go unchecked.

He corrects their faulty thinking and he destroys their trap by directly appealing to Scripture.

And what he gives is a sort of case study from Isaiah's most beloved king.

Jesus, he makes an appeal to David.

Now, of course, David wasn't perfect, but he did receive a covenant from God.

And both he and his son Solomon reigned over the best years of Israel's United Kingdom.

Theirs was a time of great flourishing for God's people.

Theirs was a time of great wisdom from the Lord.

Theirs was a time of great conquering of God's enemies.

And so King David was highly respected in the minds of the Jews, especially in Jesus' day.

And Jesus, he refers back to 1 Samuel 21, verse 1 to 6, a time in David's life when he was fleeing from King Saul.

1 Samuel 21:1–6

He and his men were hungry, they were in need.

And while hiding at Nob, David requested of the priest Ahimelech that he and his men may eat the show bread that was consecrated for the priests.

And Ahimelech the priest permitted this despite only the priests having the privilege of eating the consecrated bread.

And so Jesus is really making this argument.

If David and his hungry men could receive the consecrated bread in a situation of genuine need without Scripture condemning them, then how much more should the Pharisees recognize that feeding hungry disciples in a grain field does not violate the true purpose of the Sabbath?

Surely Jesus and his men who were starving are permitted to eat the simple grain of a grain field on the Sabbath.

Since Scripture does not condemn David for this action, how can the Pharisees condemn Jesus for his just as the Lord God says in Hosea 6, 6, for I desire mercy and not sacrifice?

Indeed, Jesus wasn't trampling over the Sabbath law.

Rather, he was upholding the true principle of the Sabbath law.

And so Jesus makes the point that the Pharisees, though technically upholding the law of the Sabbath, they had overturned the purpose of the Sabbath that was intended by God.

And this is the purpose of the Sabbath.

Jesus says, verse 27, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

You see, the Sabbath, it's not a debt that man owes to God.

Rather, it's it's God's good gift to man.

The Pharisees had begun to think of the Sabbath as though man existed to serve the Sabbath.

What must I do so that I don't break the Sabbath?

But Jesus corrects them.

The Sabbath was made for man.

Remember, it's God Himself who rested on the seventh day, and therefore he gave his people a day in which they could cease from their ordinary labor.

The Sabbath is a gift that is patterned after the kindness of the giver.

And this kindness is elaborated in Deuteronomy 5 as Israel took the Sabbath, they were to remember that they had been enslaved in Egypt, but that the Lord had redeemed them.

The Sabbath then was a reminder that they are no longer slaves to Pharaoh.

But they are free and free to rest from labor.

And yet the Pharisees had turned the blessing of freedom in the Sabbath back into burden.

They were effectively casting the people back into the experience of slavery under Egypt with their man-made laws.

And therefore the principle of the Sabbath was forgotten, buried under all their man-made traditions.

You see, the Sabbath was never meant to crush God's people under an impossible weight of regulations.

It was given by a good God for the good of his people, for blessing and not for burden.

And so Jesus' teaching here ought to produce joy, joy in the Christian's heart.

How God is not a taskmaster who delights in watching us struggle hard under his commandments.

But he's a father who gives good gifts to his children for their blessing and their flourishing.

What does the Sabbath mean for you?

You don't have to work every moment of your life.

You don't have to measure your worth by your productivity.

You don't have to live as though everything depends on you.

Because God has given us the Sabbath as a gracious reminder of His redemption.

To stop, to pause, to rest, to worship, and to remember that He is our God and He is our Redeemer, who will supply every one of His children's needs.

Well, then the Lord Jesus He declares something powerful.

Take a look at verse 28.

Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.

And with the authority of Jesus' teaching is the authority of Jesus himself.

He is the Son of Man, and he is the Lord of the Sabbath.

You see, Jesus, he isn't just another rabbi that's offering another interpretation of Moses.

Rather, he claims authority over the Sabbath itself.

The Sabbath belongs to him.

He has the authority to disclose and correct its true meaning.

He has the authority to expose the traditions that obscured it.

And he has the authority to tell his people how it is rightly to be observed.

And he refers to himself as the Son of Man.

And this title you might remember takes us back to Daniel 7.

And there Daniel sees a vision of God's heavenly court.

The ancient of days sits upon his throne.

And then Daniel records in Daniel chapter 7, verse 13 to 14, I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven.

Daniel 7:13–14

He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

Then to him, to the Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one that shall not be destroyed.

And indeed the Lord Jesus is the Son of Man, whose dominion stretches over all peoples, all nations, all languages, and this dominion was given him by the Father.

And Mark's point here is that the Son of Man who possesses this great kingdom is the very one standing before them, claiming lordship over the Sabbath.

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.

And so Jesus, he's not trampling over God's law, but he is the divine Son, one with the Father who gave the law.

He knows its true intention, and he fulfills it perfectly.

But what exactly is Jesus the Lord of?

You might be wondering what exactly is the Sabbath?

We've talked about when it's to be observed, but what exactly is the Sabbath?

Well, the institution of the Sabbath begins all the way back in creation.

Genesis 2 tells us that after God completed his work, he rested on the seventh day.

Six days of labor and one day of rest set apart for him.

The Sabbath teaches us that God is creator, that we are his creatures, that we're not self-sufficient or designed to live as though everything depends upon our own constant labor.

Rather, we labor for six days and then we rest in him and his provision.

But then came the fall.

As man came under the curse of sin, the curse turned work, which God has given as a good vocation, into painful toil.

Fallen man became restless and self-reliant.

The toil became hard.

And man found value in what they could accomplish apart from God.

Just look at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.

And yet the Sabbath confronts our temptation to find our value in what we can accomplish in our own efforts.

It calls us to stop.

It calls us to rest.

It calls us to remember that God is God and that we are not.

And then in Moses' day, the Sabbath was given in the law in the fourth commandment.

Exodus 20 grounds the command in creation.

God worked six days, he rested on the seventh.

But Deuteronomy 5 gives that other reason.

Israel was to remember that they had been slaves, but the Lord redeemed them.

So the Sabbath then became a weekly decorate declaration of reject of redemption.

You are no longer Pharaoh's slaves.

You belong to the Lord.

And in God's gracious provision, even servants, foreigners, animals were to rest.

But the Pharisees and their traditions buried these purposes beneath dozens of regulations.

As with all law, we must understand it according to the purposes and intentions of the legislator.

And that intention was blessing to the benefit of man and not burden.

But then as Jesus arrives, he appeals in Mark 2 to the scriptures.

He feeds his hungering disciples and restores the intention of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Jesus restores the Sabbath to its purpose, and he claims authority over it, and this purpose reaches its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

The Sabbath pointed beyond physical rest to a spiritual rest in God.

Hebrews 4, 9 to 10 says, There remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he who has enter entered his rest has himself also ceased from his work as God did from his.

And what is that rest?

Oh, it's the fulfillment of God's rest at creation.

It's the fulfillment of Israel's failure to enter God's rest.

It is the fulfillment of Joshua's inability to provide ultimate rest, the continuing promise of entering God's rest, and the believer's present participation in that rest through faith in the finished work of Christ.

And yet we await the fullness of this fulfillment.

When the Lord Jesus returns to consummate his kingdom, Sabbath rest will be complete and unbroken communion with our God.

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.

There shall be no more curse, it says.

Revelation 14, and God's people shall rest from their labors.

Jesus' return will bring perfect worship, holiness, joy, and rest in the new creation.

But as we await that day, as we await the day of consummation of Christ's kingdom, we celebrate our rest in Jesus Christ by observing the Lord's day.

You see, Christ has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

And he reveals and restores the original intention of the Sabbath command.

That's why from the morning of the resurrection, God's people have gathered not on the last day of the week, but the first.

And on this Lord's day, we find the Sabbath's true intention realized.

It is a great, a gracious rhythm of worship, rest, mercy, and delight in God.

We gather with his people, we cease unnecessary ordinary labor, we do good and show mercy to others, like the Lord Jesus on the Sabbath, we serve one another.

And we anticipate something, don't we?

We anticipate the eternal rest that Christ will bring when He returns.

So then what does this mean for us?

Well, let me ask you this.

How do you approach the Lord's day?

Do you approach it as the Pharisees did, as a burden?

Anxiously asking what sort of things you must avoid simply to uphold a command?

Or do you approach it as the Lord of the Sabbath teaches, as a gracious gift from a gracious Lord?

When we make the Lord's Day a matter of just simple external obligation and divorce it from love for God, or turn it into a way of even gaining favor with God, perhaps, then we're no better than those Pharisees.

We've turned it into a burden.

But the Lord of the Sabbath, he says, Come, find and enjoy your rest this Lord's day.

Worship the Lord, rest from labor, show mercy, enjoy God.

Let the Lord's day remind you that you belong to Christ, that your ultimate rest is found in him, and that he is coming again.

Well, we've seen how Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and where the principle of the Sabbath is heading and the consummation of God's kingdom, along with our present relationship to the Sabbath.

And now Mark gives us a practical demonstration of right Sabbath observance.

Keep reading chapter 3, verse 1 to 6 and see.

Finally, number 3, the message of the Sabbath.

Have a read from verse 1.

And he, that is Jesus, entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.

So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

And he said to the man who had the withered hand, Step forward.

Then he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life, or to kill?

But they kept silent.

And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

The Lord Jesus, he enters the synagogue the very same day, and there he finds a man with a withered hand.

And the Pharisees who followed Jesus continued watching him.

They were looking for an opportunity to incriminate Jesus.

They were looking for an excuse to accuse him.

In the place of worship, on the day of worship, these Pharisees convey a false piety.

These men's hearts in the place of worship, on the day of worship, their hearts are full of evil.

What irony.

And Jesus, he masterfully exposes their legalism and their hypocrisy.

This man with the withered hand, he he he wasn't dying from this injury.

This was not a medical emergency.

And yet the Lord Jesus mercifully turns to this man in compassion.

But before he heals the man, Jesus asks the Pharisees a very confronting question.

Verse 4 Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil?

To save life or to kill?

This was a strategic question that got really to the heart of the matter.

Here was a man greatly afflicted.

The Lord Jesus had the ability to meet this need and to do good, to restore and to heal.

But according to the Pharisees, such a work is unlawful on the Sabbath.

And since they reduced the Sabbath to a list of prohibited actions, they were so concerned with obeying their man-made laws that they could not even rejoice when God, in his good and kind mercy, restored this man.

Jesus' question here in verse 4, it actually echoes Deuteronomy 30, verse 15 to 16, where Moses sets before Israel, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, that I may command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commands, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

Deuteronomy 30:15–16

And here, within the context of obeying God's law in an opportunity for life and death, good and evil.

And the answer to the Pharisees, the answer really should have been obvious, to do good, to save life.

And yet they remained silent.

Because their answer exposes their burdensome, death-giving tradition.

And Jesus, seeing their silence, he's grieved at the hardness of heart.

But the Lord Jesus, he does a good work of mercy.

Notice here that with only his words, he calls the afflicted man, stretch out your hand.

Miraculously, without so much as a hand lifted to work from the Lord Jesus, with merely his words, the man stretches out his hand, and he is restored, as the Sabbath principal too is restored by the Lord of the Sabbath.

This echoes an event that we looked at maybe a year ago in 1 Kings 13.

King Jeroboam foolishly condemns a prophet of God, and therefore he's punished by God.

His hand withered, the text says.

But the king repents and he asks the prophet to intercede.

Please entreat me the favor of the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored to me.

And the prophet intercedes to God, an act of mercy, and the king's hand is restored.

But in Mark 3, Jesus doesn't intercede to God.

Because Jesus, with his own authority, restores the withered hand.

And the point is this the Lord Jesus carries the divine authority of God Himself.

He simply speaks, and the hand is restored.

And here is where our passage concludes: the man's hand becomes restored, but the Pharisees' hearts become hardened.

And those who claim to defend the Sabbath conclude their day of worship by plotting death, plotting the death of the Lord of the Sabbath.

And I wonder, have you let rule keeping override mercy towards someone right in front of you?

Because it's easy to uphold the law of the Sabbath, but to neglect the principle that the Lord gave it as a blessing to worship him, to rest in him, and to be life-giving, and to do good to man.

You see, not every tradition is sinful.

Even the Pharisees didn't technically contradict the law of Moses.

But the challenge our passage has for us is this you can keep every rule of God perfectly and still miss everything that God actually intended.

Like a family recipe with the ends cut off the meat.

Tradition can really long survive after its reason has long died.

And that's what had become of the Sabbath to the Pharisees.

They turned it into a hollow obligation, into a rule with no reason, into a burden rather than a blessing.

You see, they carried out the law of God without love for the lawgiver.

But the Lord of the Sabbath, he has come to rescue you from that burden.

He says, Matthew 11 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

He says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

And so, dear Christian, lay down the burden of your souls.

Take up the blessing, dear Christian, worship your God on the Lord's day.

Worship him, enjoy him, and rest in the Lord of the Sabbath.

Let's pray.

O gracious Heavenly Father, who has given us a great gift.

O we enjoy the Lord's day and rest in you the graces that you pour out upon us as we your people gather together, remembering our redemption that we have in Christ, resting from our ordinary labors, worshipping you.

O Lord, forgive us for when our hearts tend towards making such things burden.

Oh, but may we gaze at the Lord of the Sabbath, who restores it to rest, and hasten that day when your kingdom is consummated, when your Son, the Lord Jesus, returns, the one who says, Come to me will return, and will usher in rest for every one of your people for all eternity, as we go on glorifying you, worshiping you, and enjoying you, as we dwell with you forever.

In Christ's name.

Amen.