I've been wrestling with this issue since the early part of the semester and it's reached a bit of a climax, so I figured now would be a good time to verbalize some thoughts. I think I reached the tipping point the other day when one of my friends confessed, "I'm still debating whether I should skip church on Sunday to just study." In my head I thought it was a dumb question, but I simply replied that he should still go to church. We conversed a little more and then he finally brought up Jesus' declaration, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)
Jesus said it; it must be true. But what does it mean? Does it mean we get to skip church whenever we feel like it? Or when we have "better" things to do? Anyone that has even skimmed over a commentary about this passage knows that it means that we aren't supposed to be legalistic when it comes to keeping the Sabbath. In several other passages, the Pharisees are aghast because Jesus has "worked" on the Sabbath. Not only does Jesus himself "sin" (not true sin, just a breaking of worthless Pharisaic law), but in some instances he even forces the healed to "sin." For instance, he doesn't just tell the ex-paralytic to just get up and walk; Jesus tells him to get up, take up his mat, and walk. That's just not right. You're not supposed to carry a burden on the Sabbath. Why does Jesus do this? (I think) it is to highlight the fact that Pharisees were missing the main point of the Sabbath.
Again, I'm no Bible scholar. I don't even go to Sunday school on most Sunday's. I've read less than a handful of theology-related books and only recently finished my first read-through of the Bible. But I just wanted to try to touch on the central point of the Sabbath.
Let's start with Moses and the Israelites, recently freed from slavery and now wandering around in the desert for about 10 times as long as anyone with a GPS would. God sends down manna from heaven so that they don't starve to death. He commands them to gather twice as much on the day before Sabbath-- no more and no less. Any excess manna rots. What does this show?
1. The Sabbath is to serve as a reminder of God's unfailing provision. (Maybe not the most important point of the Sabbath, this just happens to be the order in which I wrote.)
Multiply that on an even grander scale. God commanded them to have a Sabbatical year, the grandest of which was the year of Jubilee, which occurred every 49 years or so. During this year, all the slaves were to be set free and no work was to be done. This serves to highlight the purpose of the Sabbath not only as a show of faith in God's promises, but also as 2. a command to show mercy.
But back to point number 1. I think that whenever we choose studying or work over a Sabbath, it shows that we don't really trust God to deliver. Like those Israelites that tried to gather more than what they knew they needed, we try to take matters into our own hands. I'm not saying that we should just stop studying our textbooks and spend our entire day immersed in God's Word and praying (although that would be so, so sweet). But for most if not all of the people that I know, those few hours spent studying instead of at church are not the difference between passing and failing. So the point is to trust that God is still going to execute a good,pleasing, and perfect plan for your life even if you don't have above a 3.5 GPA.
Even more grievous than the idea of not trusting in God, though, is the possibility that 3. those not observing the Sabbath treasure something worldy more than they treasure God. Anyone that knows me well knows that I've been guilty of this myself. I used to always bring my notes to church (sometimes I still do). What does that show? It shows that I care more about my grades than about praising God, than hearing from Him. The result? Stellar grades but a dismal lack of God's presence in my life. But praise be to God, He's been working to pull me out of that mire. To gaze upon His beauty is so much sweeter than to glance at a 4.0 on an ephemeral and soon meaningless transcript.
So yes, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. But I wouldn't be so quick to seek freedom from the Sabbath. You might find yourself free from the obligations of a legalistic Sabbath, but you will likely find yourself enslaved to something else and miss out on all the blessing that God intended for us in our rest in Him.
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