A
few years ago while I was on vacation I decided to go to church and
afterwards to a place called the Shawarma Queen for lunch. That's
Middle Eastern food. When I got there to my surprise it was closed
on Sunday. I had to settle for Subway. How dare they be closed on
Sunday. How dare they ruin my shawarma craving on a Sunday of my
vacation? Hopefully you know I'm joking. Actually, I said to myself
I knew those people were Christian and I asked God to bless them for
having the courage to close their restaurant on Sunday.
Well,
I don't think I would be too far afield to say that we all are a bit
amazed anymore when we discover businesses closed on Sunday. When I
was a child only the odd restaurant and gas station/convenience
stores that were open. Now, it’s the odd business that’s closed
(and yes we view them as odd) and worse Sunday mornings are now fair
game for children’s sporting events which only pits church in a
losing bout...Sunday School vs. hockey. Over the past forty years
this cultural change has come upon us and its not that it wasn't
protested. Sadly, those who did protest were usually vilified as
religious extremists. Yet in the big picture, the loss of a national
Sunday Sabbath is simply part of the fall of cultural Christianity in
the Western world. For some this produces great anxiety but in my
opinion it is best we see it as an opportunity, an opportunity for
Christians to truly be the church of Jesus Christ rather than just
being a religion that's all bound up in a culture.
If
I had to give an explanation for why this change has happened,
broadly speaking, it is due a fundamental misunderstanding of what
Sabbath is that has plagued the people of God from the days of Moses
– a legalistic understanding of it as opposed to a restorative
understanding. In our lifetimes the drop-off in observing Sunday as
the Christian day of rest and worship has come about largely as a
reaction by the Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1945 and
1965) against their parent’s and grandparent’s generations being
so restrictive about Sundays. The Baby Boomers reacted to and
rejected all that legalism but unfortunately threw the baby out with
the bath water. Instead of trying to determine why Sabbath is so
important they just left the church altogether dismissing it as an
authoritarian institution we do well to be sceptical of. Their
scepticism of institutions and particularly those that make truth
claims persists now to their grandchildren whom are today's
20-somethings who view the church quite negatively as a recent Barna
Study has shown.
That
brings us to today, we Christians now ourselves need to hear the
prophet's call to return to observing a Sabbath and the risks that it
entails. I say that as one who is as guilty as anybody when it comes
to not keeping Sabbath. I work on Sunday and my lifestyle is such
that I need people to work on Sunday and that's simply for
convenience' sake. Keeping Sabbath is not easy but we need to keep a
day on which we do not work and on which we see to it that no one
works for us, a full day of rest, of worshipful rest; a day for the
people of God to share in God’s own rest. We need to learn to set
that boundary for ourselves and our families and be particularly
careful not to be legalistic about.
A
quick look at the Old Testament shows us how this misunderstanding
came into play. In the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis
chapter one it says that after he created everything God rested.
Then in Exodus we are given the commandment to observe the Sabbath
for as those who bear the image of the Trinity in creation we must
rest as he rests and we do this that we might be blessed and be a
blessing. Unfortunately, if we follow Sabbath observance among God's
people as the Bible attests we find that the idea of the Sabbath
being a gift of worship-filled rest got lost and Sabbath became a
commandment accompanied by a list of do’s and don’t's that must
be observed lest there be consequences. The result was that Sabbath
became a means of national preservation and identity among the Jewish
people in much the same way as it was in North America prior to the
Baby Boomer generation.
In
our passage from Luke, this misunderstanding of the nature of Sabbath
is at the root of Jesus' conflict with the leader of a synagogue who
has his list of things that can’t be done on the Sabbath. Jesus
shames him saying, "you would untie your ox or donkey on the
Sabbath to take it to water. What about this woman, this child of
Abraham, who has been bound for…duh…eighteen long years,
shouldn’t she be untied from this spirit of weakness that has her
crippled?" Jesus reminds them that God gave us the Sabbath for
our rest, renewal, and re-creation…indeed our healing, our being
unbound from those things, those spirits, those lies that cripple us
whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, or socially. The
Sabbath is not only a day of rest for us. It is also a day for the
Lord to set us free from things that bind us so that when we like
this woman are set loose from our binds we genuinely praise him. We
are loosed to praise.
Going
through Luke’s Gospel and noting what Jesus does on the Sabbath is
a good way of seeing what Sabbath is. First thing to note is that in
all but one instance Jesus went to synagogue on the Sabbath and
shared the customary Sabbath meal. The only Sabbath that we don’t
find Jesus in synagogue was the Sabbath he spent in the grave. Yet,
even on that day his disciples still observed the Sabbath and
refrained from anointing his body with perfume that day. This means
that Sabbath rest is found in gathering together with God’s people
in worship and fellowship and even in mourning. Therefore, I do not
buy the idea that sitting on the dock or walking in the woods instead
of gathering with God's people is observing Sabbath. It may well
indeed be spending time with God but Sabbath rest is found among
God’s people in worship.
The
first time Luke mentions the Sabbath we find Jesus in the synagogue
teaching where he reads a passage from Isaiah revealing who he is and
then he picks a fight with the “religious” people saying their
legalistic faith keeps them from knowing who he is as their Messiah,
the Holy one of God, the Son of God, the bringer of the Kingdom of
God. He reads a passage in Isaiah that says who he is and what he's
come to do: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favour.” Thus, Sabbath is when we gather together in public
worship and fellowship with God’s people and Jesus being in our
midst makes himself known to us as the one who delivers and heals us.
On
another Sabbath we find Jesus walking through the grain fields and
his disciples glean some wheat. Another conflict with legalists
ensues. Jesus ended the argument by saying that he was the Lord of
the Sabbath. Then he goes into the synagogue and continues the
confrontation by asking if it is lawful to do harm or to do good on
the Sabbath and he heals a man’s withered hand infuriating the
legalists. Jesus had quite a reputation for healing people and
casting out demons on the Sabbath and it is by those works that he is
able to silence the legalists...until the join forces with the
political powers and have him crucified.
Well,
with all this talk of Sabbath I hope that you are beginning to see
the time we share together on Sunday morning in a different light.
This is Sabbath, time when we gather together as God's people and in
this time together Jesus is here with us to untie us from all that
binds us and loose us to praise God in wholeness. This is the time
and space that Jesus Christ comes to us to bring us Sabbath rest,
restoration, and recreation. How he comes I cannot say. All I can
say is that he does and he changes us. When we come to church we
should come expecting to meet the Lord of the Sabbath for he is here
and his personal ministry to us is a free gift to us not because we
are worthy of it but simply because he loves us.
You
know, when I was young I was taught that we need to come to church
because God deserved to be thanked and worshipped for all he's done
for us. Worship was something that we came and did for God. But, as
I read the Gospel's and see specifically the way Jesus, God the Son
himself, understood the Sabbath and what he did on the Sabbath, we
don't come to worship for God's sake we come for our own, to lift up
our burdens and be healed of our brokenness. The Sabbath is the
Trinity's wonderful gift of his own rest to which by which we are
healed and loosed to praise. Let us keep it. Amen.
