“Getting A Good Rest”
Text: Mark 2:23-28
6-2-2024
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Can you remember back to when you were in kindergarten? Well, there was a wonderful part of that experience that they called “nap time.” We had such a rough morning back then; what with learning how to count, tie our shoes, and other hard stuff. First, we’d have our Graham Crackers and milk. Then we’d get out our own little rug and lay down. Teacher would usually read a story and then we were supposed to rest quietly. Sometimes she would even lay her head on the desk and rest. I don’t know why! How could a room full of precious little angels make her tired? Anyway, for us kids it was hard work to rest. That may sound like an oxymoron, but it was hard to turn off a 5-year-old who was used to going 100 mph. What’s really ironic is that by the time we got to High School lots of us were still in the habit of having a “nap time.” Funny, but the teachers didn’t agree it was necessary anymore. But seriously, why should we get in trouble for something that the school system taught to us at the very beginning?
What’s really ironic is that we’re still a lot like those kindergartners, aren’t we? As adults, we rush around going 100 mph, doing this and that. And it’s a battle sometimes for us to get some rest. Whether you work in town or on the farm, when it comes to a day off (assuming you take one!) you end up “working” when you should be resting. We try and plan a vacation so we can get away and rest but what usually ends up happening is that we’re so busy trying to relax that we don’t really rest. Sometimes we have to go back to work to get some rest. What strange creatures we are!
God knew this about us because He gave us the 3rd Commandment which we heard in the Old Testament reading. So often when we hear that Commandment, we think God is just telling us to go to church. But it’s much more than that. God gave clear instructions that all work was to cease on the Sabbath. The people were allowed to work for 6 days, but on the 7th they were supposed to rest. The Lord knew that we needed this in order to stay physically healthy. Studies have proven the wisdom of this. People are more productive when they take a day to rest up once a week. But God wanted more than just physical rest for our bodies when He gave this Command. He also wanted us to rest spiritually. That’s why worship is a part of the 3rd Commandment. Because in worship God calls us to come and get some good rest for our souls. Sadly, that kind of rest is what we so often miss out on when we gather for worship.
Did you ever hear about the woman who had insomnia and she called her Pastor at 2:00 in the morning? She told him about her problem and the Pastor was a little miffed that she woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him that. So he said, “What would you like me to do about it?” And she responded, “Well, could you just read the first paragraph of your sermon to me?” Pastor Meyer says that he’s noticed that some people have that same response to his preaching. But that’s NOT the kind of Sabbath rest God intended for you to get in worship!
On the other hand, some people take this worship time and turn into work. Rather than coming to worship to receive rest and refreshment from God, some people treat this as a time where we have to do something for Him. Then worship becomes a chore and drudgery. “I’m going to church today because God says I HAVE to.” This attitude leads to some of the biggest fights of the week as we struggle to get the family out of bed and ready for church on time. And in so doing, we miss out on the blessing God has to offer us here. We ruin the blessing He’s offering to us. That’s not what He intended our worship to be. This Sabbath time that God commanded is supposed to be for rest, not a burden.
Jesus had a head on collision with that kind of thinking in our Gospel Lesson for today. St. Mark tells us that He was walking through the grainfields with His disciples. It just so happened to be a Sabbath Day; the day when no work was to be done. The disciples were hungry so they picked some heads of grain to snack on. But the Pharisees saw this and raised a stink. You might be thinking, “What’s the big deal?” Well, according to their overly strict interpretation of the 3rd Commandment this was considered work. In their minds this was harvesting. Even though the combine wasn’t invented yet, they figured these disciples were performing the same action as one of those huge machines. They were plucking a head of wheat, rubbing it in their hands to get the husk to off, and then eating it. Sounds like work, doesn’t it? It doesn’t? Well, it's work if you’re more concerned with the letter of the law than its intent.
You see, treating the Sabbath rest this way took the focus off the blessing that God was offering. Instead, all it inspired people to do was to look for loopholes. For example, you could move a bundle of wheat if you planned it right. Get this: If you left your spoon on the bundle of wheat then you could legitimately move it when you went to retrieve the utensil you “forgot.” That may sound like splitting hairs but that’s what happens when the letter of the law becomes more important than the blessing. It totally ruined the Sabbath rest that God wanted for His people.
Jesus told the Pharisees that they had it all backwards. He says in verse 27: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, we were not created to serve the Sabbath law but the Sabbath law was made to serve us. It’s kind of like the old saying, “Do you live to eat... or eat to live?” In other words, “Are you a slave to food... or is the food there to serve you?” And it’s the same with the Sabbath law that God put in place. It was meant to give us a chance to lay down our burdens, not add to them with new regulations. It was meant to bring good spiritual rest, and yet sinful people turned that rest into work.
Christian friends, when you leave this house of worship God wants you to feel rested. Not just because you’ve sat still in those extremely comfortable pews for an hour! Rather, because you received His Sabbath rest for your souls. Yes, it’s fine to go home and just take it easy for the remainder of your Sunday after worship. Your body needs that rest too. But you’ll never experience the true, lasting rest that God has planned for you until you receive His Sabbath rest. And it can only be found in Jesus. In verse 28 He says, “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Jesus was saying that He is the source of the Sabbath rest.
In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus offers His special rest to you and me: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” By these words, Jesus is inviting us to come to Him and lay down all our burdens that we carry day by day. The heaviest of those burdens is the burden of guilt and shame for our sins, the burden of punishment that we know we deserve, as well as the burden of all our worries and concerns in this life. Jesus invites you to lay them down at the foot of His cross and let Him handle them. He invites us to trust Him for all our needs. Especially our need of forgiveness. Lay those burdens down and humbly receive the Sabbath rest that Christ intends for you.
I know the temptation though. We come here and unload our hearts before God. We dump our burdens at the foot of the cross. We feel a heavy load lifted from us. But then we secretly sneak back and pick those burdens up again, one by one. We look at our children and we pick up the burden of worrying about how they will turn out. We look at the checkbook and we pick up the burden of worrying if there’s enough money to pay the bills. We pick up the burden of worrying about the weather and our crops and our jobs. Then we pick up the burden of all our old sins and trudge through the week, tired out by the heavy load that we’ve forced ourselves to carry unnecessarily.
Do yourself a favor. Lay those burdens down before God today... and leave them there! Sit back and relax in the Sabbath rest that Jesus has supplied for you through His death and resurrection. That’s what we come here to receive. But there’s an even greater reason behind Christ giving us this Sabbath rest. Experiencing it here on earth is preparing us for the eternal rest that is waiting for all believers in Jesus Christ. Our Sabbath rest is just a tiny sample of what God has planned for us in heaven. There, the burden of sin and the worries that go along with this world will be completely gone. So our Sabbath celebrations here and now remind us of the perfect Sabbath rest that is waiting for us when Christ returns to take us home to heaven.
There is a very insightful commentary on the whole idea of Sabbath rest by a Jewish Rabbi named Hayim Donin. He wrote, “The Sabbath… serves as a precious island in time, removed from the mainland of the rest of the week, providing just that peaceful calm that contemporary man aspires to but never quite reaches. But the Sabbath is within our reach!” He’s right. Your time here in worship can be like a tropical island of rest and relaxation, set apart from the other 6 days of your week. It’s just too bad that Rabbi Donin didn’t believe in the real Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ, who makes that rest possible. Because you see, we can never fully enjoy that Sabbath rest until we truly know the Giver of it. Praise God that we do know Him. And praise God for the good and lasting rest He gives us, not just today, not just for this lifetime, but for all eternity. Amen.