This is a copy of my talk given at Ayia Kyriaki and Saint Stephen’s in the Anglican Church of Paphos on Sunday 2 June 2024. The Bible Reading was Mark 2:23-3:6

Prayer

Heavenly Father
I thank You for Your word
By the power of the Holy Spirit
May You speak to my heart
And change my life
In the precious name of Jesus I pray
Amen.

Introduction
How are you feeling today? Do you feel tired? Did you get enough sleep last night? Has this past week been a good or a difficult one? Work can be overwhelming; family/home life can often be too much to bear and there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do all that you have planned in retirement!

Maybe a physical sickness is wearing you down, or a difficult situation is keeping you from having peace of mind. It doesn’t help that we are constantly fed anxiety fuelling news stories about problems around the globe. All of this combined is a powerful recipe for anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of peace.

Is this, I wonder, a problem of living in our modern, technological age of full inboxes and demanding schedules! As one writer put it:

The world at present is in a mighty hurry and being in many places cut off from all foundations of steadfastness, it makes the minds of men giddy with its revolutions, or disorderly in the expectations of them … hence men walk and talk as if the world were all, when comparatively it is nothing.

That is not someone writing in the 21C but Puritan John Owen writing in 1681.

Restless anxiety is not a by-product of living in the 21st century – it is something that has plagued mankind since the Garden of Eden when Adam was told by God: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17b-19).

Our life is often marked by exhausting, frustrating work – whether paid or voluntary. This isn’t the by product of technology – though our technological achievements may exasperate some aspects of it. The deep dis-ease that constantly nags at our hearts, the kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep will fix, is a problem that stems from our alienation from God. This isn’t the way things should be, so what can we do about it?

  1. Sabbath Rest

In these two stories from Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus enter into a dispute with the Pharisees over what is permissible to do on the Sabbath. Jesus’ disciples are plucking heads of grain (2:23-24), and Jesus performs a healing miracle (3:1-5), both of which the Pharisees view as unlawful activities.

So, why is there such a great controversy over working on the Sabbath? Well, it’s bound up with the Shabat (the Hebrew word for ‘rest/cease’) command. If you were a faithful Jew, you ceased from all your normal work and spent the day worshipping Yahweh on the seventh day. Why? In Genesis, after God has created a perfectly ordered world (telling us repeatedly that it is ‘good’), He then creates man and woman in His image and gives them dominion over all of creation (Genesis 1:28).

Here we have an idyllic picture where everything is ordered and harmonious and the crown of God’s creation is ruling and reigning, exercising dominion over it all. “And on the seventh day God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” Genesis 2:1-3.

Why is God resting? Is He exhausted? Did creating the Heavens and the Earth wear Him out? Of course not. God is not like us. He does not grow tired or weary (Isa 40:28). God is not resting the way you rest after an intense workout; He is resting the way that you rest after a job is complete. The kind of rest you have after you finish putting Ikea furniture together. What was once a disordered jumble of screws, pressed particle board, and wooden dowels has now, miraculously, come together into a functioning bookshelf!

This is God’s rest on the seventh day. But sadly, it doesn’t last. Through their disobedience, Adam and Eve subvert God’s plan. The ‘rest’ the peace that flows out of the order of creation is interrupted. Adam and Eve (and all of creation) are cursed and then exiled from Eden, from God’s presence (Gen 3:14-24).

But God doesn’t abandon His creation. God begins to work to undo the curse. He enters into a covenant with His people that will eventually lead them to put faith in a coming Messiah who would bring about the promises of God and restore the communion between God and His people.

One of the commands of that covenant is the command to rest on the Sabbath, the seventh day. In resting the nation is collectively remembering the ordered fullness of the original creation, the communion that was once between God and His people. The Old Testament doesn’t forbid healing on the Sabbath, nor does it forbid plucking heads of grain, but these acts violated the Pharisees’ traditions, which to them seemed to be just as binding as the Law itself.

  1. Sabbath Command

In the first story, Jesus simply explains: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” Mark 2:27. Jesus reminds them that the Sabbath is a servant, not a master; that it was instigated to remind man of the rest of Eden, communion with God, and the idyllic state of man’s work before sin had entered the world. The Pharisees had it entirely backwards, acting as if obedience to stop all work on the Sabbath was the point of the command. However, the command wasn’t simply to cease but to remember (Ex 20:8).

This is why Jesus challenges the Pharisees when he heals the man in the synagogue: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” Mark 3:4. Jesus is showing us what the Sabbath is for: doing good, saving life. If the Sabbath was meant to look back to the Eden ideal of wholeness and peace, what could be more appropriate than this man with a withered hand being restored to physical wholeness?

What, then, you might ask, is the point of the Sabbath command? It’s not merely a ceasing of all activity but a remembrance of the peace and rest of Eden, where wholeness and union with God was found. The Sabbath command pointed forward to something else: the renewal of God’s creation and the reconciliation between God and man.

  1. Lord of the Sabbath

But Jesus isn’t just correcting a faulty view of the overzealous Pharisees here – He is making a claim that will bring about a massive shift in salvation history. How? Because Jesus makes this powerful declaration: “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath,” Mark 2:28. Jesus is making a provocative statement of who He is and what authority He carries. In Matthew’s account, after explaining that the priests work in the temple during the Sabbath, Jesus says: “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here,” Matt 12:6.

More important than the temple? No wonder the Pharisees were offended. The temple was where heaven and earth met, the one place where man could commune with God and Jesus is claiming to be more important than that? The ‘Lord’ is the divine name used for God in the Old Testament, but it is also a title of authority. Jesus has authority over the Sabbath. He is the One who to whom the Sabbath command points to. Jesus is the One who has come to reconcile man with God (Col 1:20; Eph 1:10).

Conclusion
So how do we apply this to our lives today? Let’s return to the questions I began my sermon with: How are you feeling today? Do you feel tired? Did you get enough sleep last night? Has this week been a good one, or a difficult one? Maybe you’re thinking, okay, I get what you’re saying, but I am a Christian, and I still feel tired. I don’t feel like I am relaxing in the garden of Eden right now.

The book of Hebrews, talking about this rest, explains: “For we who have believed enter that [Sabbath] rest,” Hebrews 4:3. Jesus teaches that anyone who comes to Him will find rest (Matt 11:28-30). If you believe in Jesus, your sins have been forgiven and you have peace/Shalom with God (Rom 5:1-2). Shalom is a Hebrew word which means: “complete and perfect peace … full of well-being.”

But there is also a peace/rest that awaits us. Just a few verses later in Hebrews we read: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience,” Hebrews 4:9-11. We have not yet rested from all of our works the way God rested from His. The full experience of this rest will not come till the New Heavens and the New Earth arrive.

I wonder if half of your frustration and exhaustion with life would disappear if you kept reminding yourself that life was never meant to be easy. God never promised life would be easy, but He promised it would be meaningful, and He promised that He would supply the strength and energy we would need to follow Him. Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, 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.

A Prayer

Gracious God, as we reflect on the passage from Mark, we are reminded of the importance of understanding the true essence of your commandments. Grant us the wisdom to discern between legalistic interpretations and the spirit of your law. Help us, like Jesus, to prioritize compassion and mercy over rigid adherence to rules. We lift up to you all those who are burdened by the weight of religious legalism, praying that they may experience the freedom and joy found in your grace. May your healing touch be upon those who are suffering, both physically and spiritually, and may we be instruments of your love and restoration in the world. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: The text contained in this sermon is solely owned by its author, Revd Paul A. Carr. The reproduction, or distribution of this message, or any portion of it, should include the author’s name.