There was a time when the Sabbath meant something.  Now it means pretty much what every other day means: busy, busy, places to go, things to do—cram everything in and end up feeling no differently than you do any other day.

We here in God’s Country can have the impression that the other sections of the nation are godless.  It might surprise you to learn, then, that Bergen County, New Jersey, has some of the most restrictive blue laws in the nation.  Blue laws restrict certain activities on Sunday.  The town of Paramus, in Bergen County, is even more restrictive than the county.  About the only sort of work that can legally be done in Paramus on Sunday is in grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, hotels, restaurants, and places like movie theaters.[1]  At the state level, it turns out to be North Dakota that continues to mandate (to the extent a law can mandate) Sabbath observance.  In North Dakota, nearly all retailers must be closed between midnight and noon on Sunday.[2]

The Sabbath used to mean something, but that meaning has been steadily erased over the last half-century or so.  There are too many interests against it.  It’s just a day, right?  What’s so special about it?  So we treat it like any other day, and we suffer because of that.  About all the Sabbath we can afford, anymore, is an hour or so on Sunday.  What else do you have on schedule for the remainder of the day?

Jesus tells us, plainly, that we were not made for the sake of the Sabbath (2:27).  We were not made to serve the Sabbath.  The Sabbath is not our god and is no idol.  We aren’t about to “worship” the Sabbath—but we ought not disregard it, either.  Let us not act as if the Sabbath doesn’t mean anything, or that it means something for an hour (or a bit more).

Jesus says that the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath and shows us by his own example how we should observe the Sabbath.  He does not keep the day in any way contrary to God’s will or purposes.  Do we?  He does not make nothing of it.  He does not nullify the Sabbath.  Rather, Jesus, by his example, shows us precisely how to keep and use the Sabbath—the Lord’s Day, not our day, mine or yours, but the Lord’s Day.  Jesus shows us how to keep and live this day the way God means for us to use it, have it, enjoy it, dwell in it.  We have the Sabbath especially so that, within its blessed borders, we may know God and draw near to Him in ways that we do not see, seek, or take, during the rest of the week.  How focused on God are you, the rest of the week?

The pastor and biblical scholar W. Graham Scroggie, commenting on the Sabbath and our relation to it, points out that “[w]hat matters first is man; but that does not mean that the Sabbath does not matter at all.”[3]  Our Christian forebears in this nation cannot really be accused of loving the Law more than Jesus.  In Christ we are free, but we aren’t free to do whatever, whenever, wherever, however, why-ever we want.  We are freed from the ways of this world.  We are freed for love; we are freed for service; we are freed for worship and praise.  As Pentecost and, hopefully, our Trinity Sunday observance helped to remind you, we are freed for life in the Spirit.  Christ sets us free for spiritual living with our Father in heaven.  In Christ, through the Spirit, we live our way to God.

We live our way to God every day.  And God has set apart one day in seven: we call it the Lord’s Day.  Not our day.  We cannot change that.  Only God can change that, and despite the protests of Seventh Day Adventists, God did something on the first day of the week, Sunday, that puts the Sabbath into a new perspective.  We gather for worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, and not on Saturday, the seventh day, because what God did to creation on Easter changes everything.  We are changed because of Easter.  Reality is changed because of Easter.  Time itself is changed because of Easter Sunday.

I mentioned W. Graham Scroggie a moment ago.  He also points out that, what Jesus shows us and teaches us is that “man’s spiritual welfare is of more importance than anything else”; therefore, he concludes, “the Sabbath should be so employed as to promote that [. . . .] feed the hungry spirit and impart divine knowledge and peace.”[4]  We still have the Sabbath.  Despite protests and schedules to the contrary, I believe the Sabbath is still necessary for us, as much as divine knowledge and peace is necessary for our hungry spirits.  That hunger can’t be filled by plopping in front of a screen for a few lazy hours Sunday morning, or afternoon, or by any number of excursions for the sake of Sunday sports.  When did sports, or grocery shopping, become more important than spiritual health?

Jesus asks those gathered in the synagogue that day: is the Sabbath not a day for helping and saving (Mk 3:4)?  They would not answer.  I wonder why?  Had the Sabbath come to mean so little to them?  Or had it become so tied up in laws and rules that the people could no longer perceive or receive the delight and the blessing?  The Sabbath was given to us for our delight and blessing.  We did with it what we have done with every other delightful blessing God has given us, emptying out the peace, delight, and blessing, and leaving the sense of burden, the never-ending to do list.  I would have thought that we would want to treasure free time in our weekly schedules!

Jews have done a lot of thinking and writing about the Sabbath.  One of the modern classics on the subject was written by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in 1951.  Heschel writes, “[t]he Sabbath is a day for the sake of life.”[5]  Now, in Christ, every day is a day for the sake of life, but this day, Sunday, our Sabbath, is especially such a day, as we gather on this day each week in remembrance and celebration of the resurrection—life triumphant, Christ arisen, glory, mercy, grace, love.

          The purpose of the Sabbath is powerfully to recall us to this truth, this reality, powerfully to remind us in God’s way: to bracket out, for a moment, all the distractions, worries, fears, temptations of this life in this world, and to direct our attention, briefly, yes, but blessedly, to the life and the world into which God is reshaping us, renewing us, leading us in His abundant glory, mercy, grace, and love.

Truly, this is a day for healing, restoration, and blessing: a day for the sake of life.  Not everyone can be here today.  Not everyone chooses to be here today.  Among those who choose not to be here today, there are those for whom Christ feels sorry “because they [are] so stubborn and wrong” (3:5).  They deprive themselves of God’s blessings.  How unnecessary.  How sad.

Yet you are here.  Empowered in the Spirit, you have chosen to observe this Sabbath—may it be blessing for you!  You are “in the right place to be blessed.”[6]  This is a day for help and for saving, a day for the sake of life.  Here, on our Sabbath, God’s life-giving Word comes to you.  As you pray for the Spirit, today, God will cause His Word to live in you.  Scroggie, very perceptively, notes that Jesus does not touch the man with the useless hand, nor does he say to him “Be healed!”[7]  Jesus tells the man to do something.  The man does it.  In doing what Jesus tells him to do, the man is healed, experiencing God’s abundant glory, mercy, grace, and love.  As we do what Jesus tells us to do, we will be healed; we, too, will receive and know such glory, mercy, grace, and love.  The Sabbath is a day especially meant for us to do as Jesus tells us to do.  The Sabbath is a day especially for blessing, a day set apart not for my sake, or your sake, but for the sake of God, for knowing, receiving, and enjoying God.

Jesus told that man to do something.  From this table, Jesus tells us to do something: to receive him, to live in his life.   Here, in humble bread and simple juice, is God for us, God with us, God at work in us, in all His abundant glory, mercy, grace, and love.  Rejoice, and bless the Sabbath.  Treasure all God’s treasure for you.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

                [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States

                [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws_in_the_United_States

                [3] W. Graham Scroggie.  Gospel of Mark.  Study Hour Ser.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976.  57.

                [4] Scroggie, 57.

                [5] Abraham Joshua Heschel.  The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man.  1951.  New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.  14.

                [6] Scroggie 58.

                [7] Scroggie, 60.