The Son and The Sabbath

In Jesus' days on earth, the religious leadership had taken the fourth commandment to rest on the Sabbath and created extreme restrictions that would not allow a paralytic, who had just been healed to carry his mat home: "Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.'  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat'" (Jn 5:8-10).

In their extra-biblical code of laws, they put restrictions on even how far you could go for a walk on the Sabbath.  The limit was 1,000 feet.  If your elderly parents lived 1,001 feet away, you'd have to pass on checking on them that day.  If you felt like going to a favorite spot down by the creek, which was a 1/4 mile away in order to pray and commune with God by yourself, forget about it - not allowed!

The religious leadership was very serious about these rules.  Jesus, on the other hand, didn't seem to buy in to them: "One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, 'Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?'" (Mk 2:23-24).

Jesus and his disciples were disregarding one and maybe two of their rules.  I can't say for sure they were walking more than 1,000 ft but the context of "going through the grain fields" seems to indicate they were.  But, when they took the picked the heads of grain, they were harvesting, according to the rules.  And if they rolled the heads to release the chaff before eating, they were winnowing.  They were working on the Sabbath, according to the religious leaders.

After giving them a history lesson on how King David and his men ate the consecrated bread when they were hungry, Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27).  In other words, God made the Sabbath to provide a time of rest and devotion, not a time of restriction and denial.  Man was not made to observe the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made to serve man.  And, their rules enslaved man instead of enriching him as God intended.

As we interpret God's Word and decide how to apply it, one sure step in the process is to consider how God intended it to benefit man.  If our rule only binds and restricts us, we probably should take another look, for the Bible plainly says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1).  Jus' Say'n.