Sermon Tone Analysis

Today’s passage take us through the rest of Mark 2 and then into Mark 3 a little bit.

I had originally had these two passages down as two separate lessons.

But they are both kind of hitting at the same teaching.

Jesus here is teaching about the Sabbath, but also teaching about His Lordship over everything.

Every aspect of life.

That’s honestly one of the main themes we have taken away thus far from Mark.

Jesus being LORD & KING.

Let’s dive right into it.

Mark 2:23-28

Now, in bringing up the Sabbath… I could literally do a whole series on that word.

SABBATH.

But we first are introduced to the principle in Genesis after God created the heavens and the earth.

That 1 day in 7 is to be observed as a day holy to God.

From the reason given for keeping the sabbath day in the ten commandments, REST had been set by God Himself in creation.

The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition (Sabbath)

In Ex. 16:21–30 explicit mention is made of the sabbath in connection with the giving of manna.

The sabbath is here represented as a gift of God (v.

29), to be for the rest and benefit of the people (v.

30).

It was not necessary to work on the sabbath (i.e. to gather manna), for a double portion had been provided on the 6th day.

It’s hard for us as western Christians to grasp the implications of the Sabbath from a religious leader point of view in the scriptures.

There was this very strict conception of “DO NOT WORK.”

The scribes had come up with the list of 39 kinds of work that were prohibited, and the third of these was reaping.

Now, in Deut.

23:25, picking a little grain by hand from a neighbor’s field was legal.

When harvesting, the corners of the field were not harvested.

And it was actually ok for other people to come and pick grain as long as you did not have a sickle.

But when Jesus and His disciples are seen doing this on the Sabbath, they interpret this as reaping, winnowing, threshing, and preparing this meal.

MORE rules SURROUNDED the SABBATH than any other commandment.

But when thinking about the way the Pharisees thought of the sabbath… how to you keep it?

IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE.

If I do not go to work on the Sabbath, is that enough?

But what about working around the house?

Okay, no house work.

No preparing meals because, as any cook can tell you, preparing a meal is work.

Untying a sash is not work because it is relaxing something.

Tying something, however, is work and is forbidden.

What about walking?

That can certainly involve work.

So do I not walk at all?

Or when does walking become work?

How far can I travel and have it not be considered work?

The Sabbath laws, and the purity laws, encompassed every moment of life.

If you were a good Pharisee, there was not a moment of your life that you did not question whether what you were doing was violating either the Sabbath or the laws of purity.

The Jews were even forbidden to defend their lives on the Sabbath.

Barclay discusses the wars of the Maccabees and how the Syrians finally overcame them by attacking on the Sabbath because they were not willing to break Sabbath laws (Barclay, Mark, p. 67).

And so the laws became more and more minute as the Pharisees, with the very best of motives, tried to define work.

The fences they set around the Sabbath became larger and larger, encompassing more and more, as they tried to make sure the Sabbath was not broken.

While setting up minute rules ensured that they kept the Sabbath, the Pharisees also became expert at finding the loopholes in their own law.

Legalism in this context loses sight of the holy.

I can almost hear Jesus tell these dudes… CHILL....... (Everlee)

V. 25-26

The “consecrated bread” was twelve loaves that were put on a table in the tabernacle (the “house of God” of v. 26) each Sabbath, probably to symbolize God’s presence and provision or to represent Israel before God (Exod 25:30; Lev 24:5–9), and which were eaten only by the priests at the end of the week.

David and his men were not priests, but Jesus implied that what they did was justified because they were famished.

Jesus set forth the basic principle that human need should take precedence over ceremonial laws.

The Pharisees could have objected that Jesus’ disciples were not starving, but the point remains that Sabbath observance should not be reduced to legalistic restrictions.

We see Jesus here getting at the fact that human beings were not created to observe the sabbath… that’s not our purpose.

It’s not our end goal to glorify the Sabbath and to keep it holy.

No, the sabbath was created for our benefit.

And then He also tells them… I am LORD even of the Sabbath.

“Jesus here affirms and even celebrates the original principle of the sabbath- the need for rest.

Yet he squashes the legalism around its observance.

He dismantles the whole religious paradigm.

And he does it by point to His identity.”

Sabbath means deep rest, a deep peace.

It’s a near synonym for shalom- a state of wholeness and flourishing in every dimension of life.

So when Jesus says, :”I am Lord of the Sabbath,” Jesus means that he is the Sabbath.

He is the source of deep rest we need.

He has come to completely change the way we rest.

The one day a week rest we take is just a taste of the deep divine rest we need, and Jesus is it’s source.

Who really enjoys a good nap???

There are a lot of good benefits to taking naps.

-Relaxation

-reduced fatigue.

-increased alertness.

-improved mood

-improved performance, quicker reaction time and improved memory.

Although there is no replacement for the deep sleep that we receive at night.

Deep sleep is in stages 3 and 4 of your sleep cycle.

Stages 3 and 4 are when you experience deep sleep.

During these stages:

your heartbeat and breathing become their slowest as your muscles relax

your brain waves become the slowest they’ll be while you’re asleep

it’s difficult to awaken even with loud noises

Deep sleep is also referred to as “slow wave sleep” (SWS) or delta sleep.

The first stage of deep sleep lasts anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes.

It lasts for longer periods

The benefits of a good nights rest are HUGE!

Glucose metabolism in the brain increases during deep sleep, supporting short-term and long-term memory and overall learning.

Deep sleep is also when the pituitary gland secretes important hormones, like human growth hormone, leading to growth and development of the body.

Other benefits of deep sleep include:

energy restoration

cell regeneration

increasing blood supply to muscles

promoting growth and repair of tissues and bones

strengthening the immune system

Deep sleep is responsible for helping process the information you encounter each day.

Without enough, the brain can’t convert this information to your memory.

Not getting quality sleep is also linkedTrusted Source

to conditions, like:

Alzheimer’s disease