Sermon Tone Analysis

*“What CAN You do on the Sabbath Day?” *Luke 6:1-11

 

A first grade teacher gave her class some popular sayings to complete.

I got a good chuckle out of how they completed some of these popular proverbs:

 

Better to be safe than /punch a 5th grader.

/Don’t bite the hand that /looks dirty./

No news is /impossible./

A miss is as good as a /Mr./

You can’t teach an old dog new /math.

/The pen is mightier than the /pigs./

Where there’s smoke there’s /pollution.

/A penny saved is /not much./

None as so blind as /Stevie Wonder./

If at first you don’t succeed /try new batteries./

And my personal favorite: Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you /have to blow your nose./

Now, I’ve got one for you: Rules are meant to be______________ .

If you said “broken,” then you knew the old saying.

But in light of this message today, I want to change it to say: Rules (especially God’s rules) are meant to be enjoyed.

In this message, we are going to look at God’s rules, His Laws, His commandments in general.

But we are also going to focus on one of God’s rules–the Sabbath Day.

Is Sunday the Sabbath Day? Are we as Christians to obey the Old Testament rules and regulations concerning the Sabbath, although the Jewish Sabbath was our Saturday?

There is a lot of confusion about this issue.

Here’s a true story to illustrate this confusion about the Sabbath.

For many centuries, many Christians have believed Sunday is the Christian Sabbath and it is wrong to work, play, or do anything but worship and rest.

There was a crisis years ago in Holland.

Much of Holland is below sea level but the Dutch have reclaimed the land by constructing an ingenious system of dikes and canals (maybe that’s where my family name originated) to hold back the seawater.

On one particular Sunday, storms raised the water level to a dangerous height and the water threatened to overflow the dikes and flood a particular city, ruining the crops.

Many residents went to the dikes to add sandbags but there were too few workers to stop the rising tide.

The local constable appealed to the local Dutch Reform Church for help.

He knew there were hundreds of able-bodied men who could make the difference.

He went to the church to persuade the members to come and help.

The elders quickly met and decided it would be sinful to break the Sabbath rules by working on Sunday.

The pastor appealed to the elders to change their minds and help with the work.

He referred them to this passage we are going to read where Jesus broke the Sabbath rules of His day for the good of others.

The reply of the chief elder is classic.

He said, “I have always had a hard time accepting what Jesus did on the Sabbath, too!”

It would be funny if it were not so tragic.

The town flooded and most of the crops were ruined–but many of the Christians felt pious because they hadn’t desecrated the Sabbath Day.

Let’s look at Luke 6:1-11 to answer the question: What /can /you do on the Sabbath?

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields and his disciples picked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands and ate the kernels.

Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

He entered the house of God and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat.

And he also gave some to his companions.”

Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man with a shriveled right hand was there.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath.

But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.”

So he got up and stood there.

Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

He did so, and his hand was completely restored.

But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.”

This religious mafia, the Pharisees, followed Jesus around and kept a list of all the things He said or did wrong.

Let’s look briefly at these two incidents from Jesus’ time, then we will spend some time talking about God’s commandments in general.

*SCENE ONE: A horrifying harvest!

(1-5)*

 

Jesus and His disciples were walking through a wheat field and the disciples simply picked a few heads of grain, rubbed them in their palms until the husks were separated from the kernel and then popped the wheat seeds into their mouths and chewed them like gum before swallowing them.

When the Pharisees saw this, they were horrified.

They began to criticize Jesus and his disciples for desecrating the Sabbath day by “harvesting.”

Jesus almost always responded to criticism or a tough question by asking a question of His own.

Did you notice the sarcasm?

He asked these religious professionals, whose full-time jobs were to read, copy, and interpret the Old Testament: “Have you not read?”

Jesus used the example of their hero, King David as an example of how they had made the Sabbath Day into a bunch of rigid rules God never intended.

In I Samuel 21, David was fleeing from King Saul and he and his soldiers ate some of the consecrated bread reserved for priests only.

Now, it’s important to note that Jesus’ example about David had /nothing /to do with the Sabbath Day; it was referring to another commandment of God but the principle is the same.

That idea will come in handy a little later when we talk about God’s commands in general.

Was Jesus guilty of breaking the Sabbath?

No, the Old Testament never prohibited a person from picking and eating grain for personal hunger.

Here’s the heart of the problem: The Fourth Commandment simply stated, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.”

(Exodus 20:8) God was saying, “Work six days, but on the seventh, day don’t work–rest.”

That’s what the word “Sabbath” means: Rest.

But leave it to the religious legalists to turn rest into work.

They “added on” so many man-made rules about the Sabbath, it was /work /just to try to keep the Sabbath!

The Talmud had 24 chapters devoted to what a good Jew could and could not do on the Sabbath rules, which never appear in the Torah.

They couldn’t walk more than 3,000 feet from their homes but the Jews “home” could be any possession so some Jews filled their pockets with items from their homes, walked 3,000 feet and placed one of the items on the ground and declared that place to be “home” so they could walk another 3,000 feet.

The Rabbis added dozens of picky rules: You couldn’t take a bath lest some water splash on the floor, thus you’d be washing the floor.

A Jewish sailor caught in a storm after sunset on Friday couldn’t touch the helm or raise or lower his sails; it was work.

Even today in Jerusalem, an Orthodox Jew won’t push and elevator button (that’s work).

So every hotel has a Sabbath elevator that slowly goes from floor to floor and the door automatically opens on each floor.

When we are in Jerusalem I always warn our groups, “Don’t get on a Sabbath elevator–you’ll be stuck on it forever.”

The modern hotels have automatic doors that open but on the Sabbath the electric eye is disabled because if an Orthodox Jew activates the electric eye, it is considered “lighting a fire.”

The rules go on and on.

Jesus wasn’t rejecting God’s beautiful, simple Sabbath rule.

He was rejecting the hundreds of man-made rules the Jews added to God’s law.

*SCENE TWO: A hateful healing!

(6-11)*

 

Luke uses a second example on another Sabbath.

Jesus was attending synagogue on the Sabbath and there was a man with a withered right hand.

Dr. Luke is the only writer to point out it was the man’s right hand.

In the Jewish mind, the right hand was a symbol of power and strength.

It was used for greetings and to bestow blessing.

The right hand was the “clean hand” meaning a good Jew always ate with his right hand.

The left hand was used for bodily functions.

With apologies to all you southpaws out there, the left hand was considered the “unclean hand.”

Since this man's right hand was withered, he was handicapped physically and psychologically.

Jesus knew the S&P’s (scribes and Pharisees) were watching like hawks to see if He would heal on the Sabbath (another man-made prohibition).

He didn’t hide his action.

It was an in-your-face demonstration of His power.

In fact, Mark tells us in the parallel passage Jesus looked at them “in anger and was deeply distressed by their stubborn hearts.”

(Mark 3:5) Without touching the man, Jesus simply commands the man to “stretch out your hand.”

When the man’s faith is combined with his obedience, healing occurs.

Notice the Pharisees’ reaction: They were so poisoned by their rules and regulations they couldn’t even rejoice in the very presence of a miracle!

What was their problem?