Lord of the Sabbath : Part 1
Lord Shaftesbury was a member of Parliament in London in the late 1700s. He was a devout Christ follower and a tireless advocate for the poor and the mentally ill. Because he worked closely with the poor, he was well respected among them, and his interactions generated some unique insights and improved some of their lives.
In one instance, the London fruit and vegetable peddlers told him that their donkeys, if they were rested one day in seven, could carry their loads 30 miles per day. But if the peddlers worked the donkeys seven days a week, those same donkeys could only travel 15 miles a day.
The livelihood of these peddlers depended on their animals, and they discovered that they lost 75 miles of travel each week by working the donkey every day; not only that, but they also had a sick, shabby-looking donkey. If they used the donkey just six days per week, they gained 3,900 miles of travel in a year and had a sleek, nice-looking donkey.
Do donkeys benefit from the Ten Commandments? Here’s Deuteronomy 5:14. “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
God made men and donkeys. He knew what was good for them and put both into the commandments. An unbeliever who ignores God’s law doesn’t know enough to run a donkey without killing it. In Paris, France, there was no Sabbath observance during this time (the time of the French Revolution), and there were more suicides in proportion to the population than in any other city in Christendom.
In our continuing study of Mark’s Gospel, we move into the end of chapter two. We’ve learned that the common people flocked to hear His teachings and to experience His healing and the Pharisees had begun to openly oppose Him.
The analogies that we looked at last time were an indication of the growing differences between Jesus and the Pharisees. His teaching, when compared with traditional Jewish belief, was like a new garment that will replace an old one or like new wine that will burst old wineskins. And so, at the end of this chapter, rather than try to placate the opposition, Jesus seems to “throw down the gauntlet.” He confronts them with the statement that HE is the One who is qualified to decide what constitutes keeping the Sabbath, not them!
Several words from His statement become the title for our study; “Lord of the Sabbath.” Now, I will read our text, Mark:2:23-3:6.
As we reflect on the words “Lord of the Sabbath,” we learn several things. First, the word, Lord, establishes authority. And the word, Sabbath, establishes the sphere or area in which He exercises that authority as Lord. As we study, we want to see how Jesus, in His position of authority, understood and defined the original intent of the Sabbath.
In this text, Jesus supports His claim to the lordship of the Sabbath by posing two arguments.
His Argument from Scriptural Precedent
The scene Mark creates for us in the opening verse of o...
