Shabbat Shalom
Sunday is not simply a Christian version of the Jewish Sabbath or Day of Rest, far from it. The observance of Sunday worship has a unique history and significance within the framework of the church’s liturgical tradition.
In the Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus returns to the synagogue. It was the Sabbath. So let me start with the traditional Sabbath greeting – Shabbat Shalom – may you have a peaceful Sabbath.
We know that
Synagogues played an important role in the ministry of Jesus. Moreover, all
four of the canonical Gospels identify the synagogue as the primary place of
Jesus’ teachings.
And have
you ever wondered how Jesus was even permitted to speak or teach in the
synagogues? How was it that Jesus knew about the Law and could even read
Hebrew?
Undoubtedly,
Jesus was given a good Jewish education as a boy. His family was devoutly
Jewish. We are told in Luke that Joseph and Mary had done everything required
by the Law of the Lord and that every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for
the Festival of the Passover … according to their custom.”
So, Jesus
learned as a youth to read the Hebrew Texts of the Bible and was adept at
reasoning with the Torah sages of his day. At age 12, we find him in the
Temple in Jerusalem discussing the finer points of the Torah with the religious
leaders. Such a discussion undoubtedly occurred in Hebrew, not Aramaic.
In the New
Testament period, synagogue worship was subject to a number of authorities,
including Elders, various other rulers, and the chief ruler of the synagogue.
Each worship service was led by a delegate of the congregation, who was
selected by the chief ruler. Most importantly, if there was a popular preacher
or Rabbi traveling through a town, the chief ruler of the synagogue would
invite him to preach at the Sabbath service (ordination was not required for
this). Thus, Jesus was either a delegate or by invitation spoke at many Sabbath
services.
This
morning’s story follows on the heels of several related incidents.
Jesus has
just recently delivered a scathing denunciation of Pharisees and lawyers, and
also members of the religious elite. Then he warned his disciples of the
hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Jesus spoke of their need for repentance. Coming on
the heels of that, this episode implicitly singles out the ‘leader of the
synagogue’ and all Jesus’ opponents as prime examples of those who stand in need
of such repentance”.
Interestingly,
this story is remarkably similar to that found in the Gospel of Mark, the story
of a man with a withered hand, and the story of a man with dropsy. In each of
these three stories, Jesus heals on the Sabbath and is opposed by religious
leaders. Earlier In Luke, Jesus defended his actions by asking whether it was
lawful to do good on the Sabbath. In the next chapter, Jesus will note that it
is permissible to pull an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath saying, “Which of
you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will
not immediately pull him out?” — This argument is similar to that in our Gospel
lesson.
It is clear
at this point that opposition to Jesus is mounting, and such opposition is
intensified because of his victories over his opponents in the verbal jousting
that accompany his healings.
In the story
of the bent-over woman, Jesus lays hands on a woman with a spirit that had
crippled her for 18 years. In response, she stands up straight and begins
praising God. Imagine for a moment, yourself as a person bent and crippled.
Imagine what it might be like to have suddenly had whatever infirmity bearing
down on you, lifted.
I want to
point out something about this woman. She is one of the most powerful pictures
of faith and faithfulness in the New Testament. She has been in this condition
for 18 years! If she has been to the synagogue every Sabbath for those 18
years, she has attended almost 1,000 services. She has been sick for 18 years.
She has not been healed, yet still she believes in God. She remains faithful.
She comes to the services, in spite of the fact that no one would think a thing
about her if she didn’t.
We allow the
slightest bump in the road of life to derail us and cause us to want to throw
in the towel. Yet she persisted in her faith, even when life didn’t go her way,
because she loved and was committed to the Lord!
I ask are we
that committed. Do we show up every Sunday, regardless?
Indignant
because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the
people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not
on the Sabbath.”
“You
hypocrites”, Jesus responded. “Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox
or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this
woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long
years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When he said this,
all his opponents were stunned and humiliated, but the people were delighted by
what he had done.
So why are
leaders of the synagogue so angry at Jesus? What, in the minds of the leaders,
does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy?
We are told
in Deuteronomy “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord
your God; you shall not do any work.” The fact is that Jewish law prohibits
doing any form of “work” on Shabbat. Though the prohibition is commonly
translated as "work" in English, a better definition is
"deliberate activity".
When I was
young, Orthodox and some Conservative Jews observing Shabbat believed that even
turning electric devices on or off is prohibited as work, as was cooking or
driving an automobile. A common solution to the problem of electricity involves
preset timers or “Shabbat Clocks”. Some Orthodox went so far as to hire a
"Shabbos goy", a Gentile to perform prohibited tasks, like operating
light switches. Meals were cooked before Shabbat and the faithful walked to Temple.
The question
then is how important is it for Christians to observe the Sabbath? We know that
this is one of the Ten Commandments, but is it still valid for believers who
are now living under grace rather than the law?
The first
thing I would say is to understand is that Sunday is not simply a Christian
version of the Jewish Sabbath or Day of Rest, far from it. The observance of
Sunday worship has a unique history and significance within the framework of
the church’s liturgical tradition.
Following Jesus’
crucifixion, death and resurrection, early followers of Jesus were still ethnic
Jews
Though the
term Messianic Jew is relatively new, the movement of Jews following Jesus
began nearly two thousand years ago with the first followers of Jesus. This early
Jesus-movement was at the outset a Jewish movement. Jesus was himself Jewish.
His audiences were almost entirely Jews. His language was Aramaic (the language
of daily life) as well as Hebrew (used in the liturgy). He gave explanations of
the Old Testament and told stories with a point understandable within the
Jewish culture of the time.
Although the
earliest Christians, themselves Jews, probably DID worship on Saturday
according to Jewish custom, they also held Sunday to be a day of special
significance. They called it “The Lord’s Day” and observed it as a memorial of
Christ’s resurrection – a mini-version of Easter, celebrated on a weekly basis.
It was the
Roman emperor Constantine that officially made the change. He enacted the first
civil law regarding Sunday observance in 321 A.D.
In 364 A.D.,
The Catholic Church enacted Canon 29 which stated that: “Christians shall not
adopt the customs, beliefs, or character of a Jew and be idle on Saturday but
shall work on that day; but the Lord’s Day they shall especially honor, and, as
being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day.
We
Christians today tend to treat the matter of holy observance casually. For
most, such observance involves, at best, an hour of public worship each week
not counting coffee hour. Outside that hour, we feel free to engage in work,
recreation, and shopping.
If even
Jesus steadfastly kept the Sabbath, then by what authority can we dismiss the
4th commandment?
Jesus said
that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law.
Under the
old covenant, sin is removed through the rituals of sacrifices; in particular,
the Day of Atonement. God told His people in Jeremiah and Ezekiel that a new
covenant would be made. That New Covenant is made possible by Jesus
Christ. Our Bibles are divided in two, the Old Testament and the New Testament.
A more accurate way of describing the division in the Bible is to have the Old
Covenant and the New Covenant.
Strictly
speaking, the only Commandments Jesus broke on the Sabbath belonged to Jewish
tradition, not divine law. In their zeal to define exactly what a person could and
could not do on the Sabbath, Jewish leaders laid on the people’s backs a
spiritual burden heavier than any physical burden. Jesus attacked such
traditions with the vehemence of one who saw, more clearly than any that “the
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”.
So, we would
do well to recover a sense of holy time—time to honor God. Being set free from
the law does not free us from responsibility.
In
this morning’s Gospel lesson if the ruler of the synagogue erred by being too
legalistic about the Sabbath, we are more likely to err by being too casual
about the ways and times that we honor God.
But the
question still lingers. Why should we as Christians set aside a special time to
publicly worship God, together?
“The world,
and the devil, would have us work even while we rest. But Jesus would have us
rest even while we work”, especially in a day when many can work anytime,
anywhere. We may do well, even for one day in seven, to say, “I worked
yesterday, I will work tomorrow, but today I rest and worship.”
Every Lord’s
Day, we come again to Jesus, weary and heavy laden. And we heed Jesus’
invitation to “Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for your
souls”.
Today we
have traced the shadow of the Sabbath to its substance. We look again into the
empty tomb and hear Christ say, “Peace to you!”. In His words, we find
rest — the kind of rest that remains long after Sunday has passed.
Shalom