Understanding the SabbathIhe Atụ

What Sabbath Isn’t  

Keeping the Sabbath was a big deal in the Jewish faith. Jewish scholars debated about this for years. Instead of resting and spending time with their Creator, they were more concerned about how it looked that they obeyed the law. 

When Jesus came to earth, He actually launched his public ministry on the Sabbath. Not only did His entrance into the world not meet the expectations of some of the Jewish religious leaders, called Pharisees, but He completely disrupted their Sabbath rules. 

There’s quite a lengthy discussion about the Sabbath in Matthew 12. In it, Jesus and His disciples were walking through some grainfields and they were hungry. So, they fed themselves. They picked some grain and ate what they picked on the Sabbath. No problem, right? Wrong. This constituted “harvesting” in the Pharisees’ eyes, and that was strictly forbidden on the Sabbath.

Jesus addresses their accusation by referring to a story in the “scriptures,” or Old Testament, where King David and his friends were hungry and ended up breaking the law and eating the bread that only the priests could eat. He finished by saying, “For the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” (Matthew 12:8 NLT) 

If picking grain on the Sabbath wasn’t enough to upset these religious men, Jesus’s next move would be. He went to the synagogue and saw a man whose hand was shriveled up. Jesus told the man to hold out his shriveled hand, and when he did, it was restored. Just like that. Instead of being in awe of Jesus’s power, the Pharisees decided it was time to plan His death. 

The Pharisees were so concerned about the “rules” Jesus was breaking on the Sabbath that they completely forgot about people. They seemed to miss the whole point of the Sabbath, and saw it as just another rule to follow, and didn’t see it was for their benefit. In reality, it was a gift from God for them to participate in. God gave them an entire day to rest and enjoy the world that God had created, yet they didn’t care. 

In Exodus 20:10, the Hebrew word for work is mela’kah, and it means occupation or business. The Sabbath was about not working. It doesn’t mention anything about not helping people. To the Pharisees, keeping the Sabbath was far more important than seeing anyone healed. Yet, Jesus gave no commands or restrictions against doing good in people’s lives. Their eyes were on the “how to” part of why God provided it and commanded it. But, resting from work doesn’t mean that good things stop. God is good and He does good...even on the Sabbath.

The passage about the Sabbath is less about a “how to” and “when to” obey this rule. There’s purpose in the Sabbath, and that’s what our focus should be on. This ushers in the difference between law and principle. The law is strict and forbids. Principles are flexible and bring freedom.