To Be or Not to Be

 

“Jesus said to them (Pharisees), ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27, ESV)

When we study Mark 2:27, we must first understand what was happening at the time the Pharisees confronted Jesus. Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field. The disciples were hungry, so they grabbed a handful of grain seeds to eat as they followed Jesus. The Pharisees challenged Jesus and His disciples about breaking the Sabbath law of not working on the Sabbath. Jesus reminded them what their venerated King David did when he and his soldiers were hungry. They went into the house of God during Abiathar’s leadership as high priest. David and his men ate the bread of the Presence, which Sabbath laws allowed only priests to eat.

With Jesus’ reasoning, the Pharisees would feel challenged if they agreed with Him. so, their acceptance of Jesus’ teaching would mean they accused their venerated king of breaking Sabbath law. If so, then why could not other hungry men eat on the Sabbath? They would not be eating sacred food, just grain. With Jesus’ reminder to the Pharisees, they may have believed if they decided the disciples had not worked on the Sabbath, they would lose power and authority among the people. Yet, if they agreed with Jesus, then that would say their beloved King David broke the Sabbath law. Never back a caged lion into a corner. Let us now learn more about Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees.

The first thought that comes to mind in seeking to understand this verse is that God created the Sabbath day before He created the Sabbath law. God’s intent of the Sabbath laws was to help people remember and focus on God and to rest. The priests of God interpreted the thirty-nine Sabbath laws God gave. Upon writing the priestly interpretations of God’s Sabbath laws handed down through the oral tradition (the Mishnah), The Pharisees codified over six hundred Sabbath laws by which the Israelites were to live. The priests’ interpretations aimed to help people follow God’s Sabbath laws closer. Their Sabbath laws ended up becoming a litmus test by which to compare themselves to one another and to the rest of the Israelites.

Like the first thought, God commanded the Israelites to keep a Sabbath day as holy, just as Moses recorded in the Ten Commandments (the Mosaic covenant). Remember, God created humanity before He gave laws about the Sabbath. so, the relationship between God and people is more important than the Sabbath laws. Recall, the Sabbath laws occurred to help the Israelites remember and focus on God and to rest. Because God called the Sabbath a day of rest, He put people’s needs as more important than Sabbath laws, because people are more important than laws. If someone is hungry, drowning, ill, or anything else, caring for God’s people became more important to God than following laws. Caring for a neighbor is obeying God. God created people for relationship with Him and other people. Relationship means we care for each other. By caring, we show love to and for God, which He intended for the Sabbath laws. Again, God’s intention for His Sabbath laws was to cause humanity to remember and focus on Him and to have a close love relationship with Him.

As we continue to study this verse, we must understand what the word “Sabbath” means. It comes from the Hebrew word shabbat, meaning peace: to rest or cease. Our minds cannot rest and focus on God if we are concerned about a person for whom we cannot care because of the fear of breaking Sabbath laws. Again, a person cannot rest or focus on God because of urgent circumstances. This makes the laws counter to God’s purpose for the Sabbath day.

God created the Sabbath as a day of rest that He set apart and commanded for worship, reflection, and rest. The Pharisees cared more about the institution called the Sabbath. Their rituals were more important to them because they wanted people to see their own piety. The Pharisees cared more for themselves than for other people. They did not focus on God in their worship, but on what people saw them do. The Pharisees broke the first covenant (the Adamic covenant) the intent for which God set aside the Sabbath day on the seventh day of creation. Their intention for the Sabbath was not God’s original intention. The Pharisees' intention focused on themselves, their power, and their authority among the people.

The question Jesus answered, though the Pharisees did not recognize it, was: Who made the Sabbath? If the Pharisees instituted the Sabbath, then the Sabbath laws would be valid in overruling caring for other people on that day. Yet, the Pharisees did not create the Sabbath. God created the seventh day and rested from His work.

Genesis 2:3 states, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” God blessed the day. He invoked His divine favor, which creates a covenant relationship with humanity, by instituting a day of rest on the seventh day, which He called the Sabbath day. God blessed the Sabbath day as His creation for humanity. He did more than just establish a seventh day and establish it as a day of peace, shabbat. God blessed the day for humanity to rest. With God’s blessings comes rest because His people know God is faithful. This allows people to have peace in mind, heart, and soul, hence, shabbat.

Genesis 2:3 records God sanctified the day. God blessed the day and the people in the day by sanctifying it. Calling something sanctified (holy) means setting it apart as special for significant persons for a purpose. Here, the significant persons for whom God set apart the Sabbath day is humanity. (See the Adamic covenant.) Genesis 2:3 states God’s significant purposes for the Sabbath. God blessed the day and blessed humanity with it by making it a rest day. God set apart the day—He consecrated it—for a sacred purpose, too. He made it holy and dedicated to Himself.

God, by making the seventh day a consecrated day, made the day of peace (Sabbath-shabbat) into a day of worship and devotion. He separated the seventh day from the first six days of the week, so people would use it for His purpose. God gave to Adam, who represents all humanity, a consecrated Sabbath day of rest (from the blessing) and worship (from the sanctification). The seventh day became a day of peace in body, heart, mind, and spirit. God’s seventh created day is a day to rest the body from work and to rest in heart, mind, and spirit as humanity communes with God in worship and meditation, leading to complete peace.

Understanding this makes it easier to understand God made the Sabbath long before He gave the thirty-nine Sabbath laws. From God’s thirty-nine Sabbath laws, the Pharisees created almost six hundred other Sabbath laws. Neither the Pharisees nor any person in humanity created the Sabbath. God created the seventh day, blessed it, and consecrated it for His purpose to bless humanity. Humanity is to rest on the Sabbath and focus on God in worship, praise, meditation, and prayer.

If, while focusing on God, He causes someone to remember a good that person should do to help someone else, even on the Sabbath, then, in doing that good, shows love for God. A person’s action based on impulses/convictions from God, even on the Sabbath, is obedience to God. Obedience to God is an act of worship. In obeying God by doing good for someone, a person is fulfilling the first and second greatest commandments, as Jesus taught in Matthew 22:36-40. The greatest and second greatest commandments are the summation of the Ten Commandments. We love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength when we obey Him, that which God requires.

God created the thirty-nine Sabbath laws to help people abide by His overarching and original intent for the Sabbath: to be in relationship with Him. That overflows into caring for other people (being in a relationship with them). God’s original and primary intent for creating humanity was so He could be in a relationship with them, like the three persons of the Trinity relate to each other. His intent was to be in a loving and holy relationship with people. That is the overarching theme of the Bible and of all time.

Since the Adamic covenant is the primary covenant of God with humanity, every other covenant builds from it to lead people back to a good and holy relationship with God. The covenants appear circular. They each aid humanity by leading them to God—to becoming closer to God and letting Him make them more in His image.

God making people more into His image is a growth process. It involves becoming more perfected, which can only happen when people believe in Jesus and He saves them from sin and death. Merely existing on earth is stagnating and then dying when the body dies. God’s making people more in His image is His growing and perfecting them until death. At death, Jesus perfects the believer—makes him or her sinless and holy, like Himself.

God, who comes from eternity, made the Sabbath. He created the Sabbath and placed it in time, a finite part of eternity. The Sabbath did not always exist. Time did not exist in eternity until God created sun, moon, light, and darkness and called the light and darkness day and night. Because time is a subset of eternity, so the Sabbath day is a subset of time, which God created. so, God’s intent for the Sabbath day, which He stated in Genesis, is the overriding ruler of the Sabbath. Humanity’s intent and laws are not. Hence, God should be the focus of the Sabbath, not humanity or its created Sabbath laws.

Who was the direct object of God’s gift of the Sabbath, shabbat? Humanity. Humanity did not create the Sabbath and has no power to change the original intent of the day. Additionally, humanity is not more powerful than God; they cannot usurp God’s role and rule.

God did not first create the Sabbath, then create humanity and all living things. No, God created humanity before the seventh day, then He declared the seventh day as the Sabbath, a peaceful day blessed by God with rest and consecration. Man sits in time, but man does not sit in one day of time continually. Days rotate within time to come upon humanity, so they may do what God commanded: care for creation. On the blessed and consecrated Sabbath day, God gives rest and reminders so humanity can focus on and worship Him. Work and renewal, a created rhythm God knew that our bodies and our relationship with Him would need for balance and peace.

Adam did not need for God to tell him to walk with Him in the Garden of Eden. That relationship happened because God established it as part of the essence, the inner yearning, of people for connection, closeness, and union. Because God made humanity for His purpose (to be in a relationship with Him), God created His Sabbath laws to cause His initial and overarching purpose. God’s overarching purpose is to have a close love relationship with humanity and to provide rest for them after six days a week of caring for creation.

God created the days and nights for man to give Him a cycle of people, objects, and places to enjoy. He created them for humanity to sustain them while they walked with God daily. God’s love was so comprehensive, He took care of the needs of humanity to work, create, rest, and relate. Why did God create humanity with these innate needs? First, God created people in His image. Just as God enjoyed a close relationship with the three persons of the Trinity and just as God loved to work and create, He created humanity to desire a love relationship with Himself and with other people.

With these understandings, Jesus took the Pharisees in Mark 2:27-28 back to the overarching theme of the Bible. God created humanity to be in a close relationship with Him. Closely following this, He created one day of the seven, which He created, to be a Sabbath day of rest, worship, and meditation for humanity. God did not create humanity for the Sabbath’s enjoyment. Inanimate cannot feel. Hence, the Sabbath laws dictated by the Pharisees take a backseat to God’s original intention for humanity—to be in a loving relationship with God.

To make that possible, God created the Sabbath day for physical rest and to allow the mind of each person to focus solely on Him and his or her relationship with Him. God’s Sabbath laws were an aid to humans for that purpose. The Pharisees Sabbath laws did not always have the love for God as their intention. Plucking grain from the stalk while walking through a field was not work. It allowed the disciples to have nourishment as they followed Jesus. Jesus allowed it because of His love for them of their body, spirit, heart, and mind. His disciples hungered; Jesus loved and did not hinder their plucking grain.

God’s commands/laws give freedom and show His love. The Pharisees’ laws and other laws, which leaders created throughout history, sometimes hinder the wellbeing of people. They steal freedom and leave fear and failure in their place. Human leaders made these laws sometimes just to make the leader feel superior and to make others experience inferiority. Caring and loving other people were not what the impious Pharisees intended with their Sabbath laws. God’s laws give freedom to find and focus on the Father.

The Pharisees did not change or remove their Sabbath laws. Some came to believe in Jesus and He saved them. What personal laws have you created that keep you or others from feeling loved by God and you?

Choose as Jesus taught.

Choose freedom over fear and failure.

Choose a loving relationship with God.

“And Jesus said to them (Pharisees), ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So, the Son of Man (Jesus) is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:27-28, ESV)