Contemplative Bible Reading

Mark 2:27 (New Living Translation)

Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.

This verse is part of yet another of those instances when the lawyers were after Jesus concerning obedience of the Sabbath day. Let’s be clear about a couple of things:

(1) The Sabbath day was not a day of worship.

(2) The Sabbath concept was for resting.

Per (1), most people I know believe that the Sabbath was a day of worship. They tend to think this because the Sabbath (Saturday) of the Old Testament was replaced by Sunday in the New Testament. Since Sunday has become the “day of worship” (another concept I discard (something for another post)), the Sabbath must have been a day of worship as well. False, false, false.

Per (2), the Sabbath was about rest. People were supposed to rest on the seventh day. People were supposed to let the land rest on the seventh year. People were supposed to do other special things on the 49th year (seven times seven).

Given this, Jesus’ statement is obvious. God gave people the Sabbath so people could rest one day in seven. In our “modern” world, or post-modern world depending on what you believe, a day of rest seems odd. The weekend is for play and is often more stressful than the week of sitting in an air-conditioned office. In the day of Jesus, however, a day of rest was a big deal. People worked hard every day, all day just to survive. Subsistence was the ideal, not just the goal.

God gave people a day of rest. Some people turned it into a way to catch other people doing something “wrong.” It was a day to keep other people under control.

Today, some people turn parts of God’s Word into the same thing – a book to keep other people under control. That is a shame.