The Ten Commandments: A 10-Day DevotionalExemplo

Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy

The Sabbath principle from creation to exodus to the New Testament Lord’s Day has always pointed in the direction of trust. That’s what the Sabbath has, at heart, always been about. Can you trust God to give you manna for two days on the sixth day? Can you trust God to make up for “lost” work on one day by blessing you on the other six days? Can you trust that this burden you’re carrying is not yours to carry alone? Can you trust God to carry it (and carry you!) if you have faith enough to stop striving and start worshiping?

It’s important to note that we never see Jesus violate the fourth commandment. To be sure, he has no problem breaking with the traditions built upon the Sabbath, but his conflicts with the scribes and the Pharisees were not over the legitimacy of the Sabbath command itself. 

In Mark 2 Jesus approves of his hungry disciples picking heads of grain, noting that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (v. 27). In Mark 3 Jesus heals a man with a shriveled hand, suggesting that we ought to do good on the Sabbath. In Luke 13 Jesus restores a woman with a disabling spirit, suggesting that the Sabbath is a day of freedom (v. 12). In Luke 14 Jesus heals a man suffering from dropsy, suggesting that the Sabbath is a day for mercy. To be sure, Jesus did not hesitate to peel away some of the accretions that were weighing down the Sabbath. More importantly, he reintroduced the Sabbath as a day for doing good, not just for doing our ritual duty.

Reflect

The Gospels show us that Jesus never violated the fourth commandment. What were Jesus’s activities on the Sabbath designed to accomplish?