Friday, September 30, 2011

A Hedge Around the Sabbath

Good morning to each of you. We are in the book of Luke chapter 6. When you start studying the Jewish people and the Sabbath it gets fascinating. Under the old law God told his people this,

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but 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, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Exodus 20:8-11

Those are God's words. He not only gives a command but tells why his people should follow the command he is giving. God even models the Sabbath for his people. When he was finished creating the world he rested on the 7th day.

Here is what is so interesting. God's people were not comfortable to just rest on the Sabbath. Nope, they wrote entire books on how to rest! If you didn't follow the rules about how to rest you would be in big trouble. With each passing generation new rules were made to comply with the original rule to rest. In other words, they put a hedge around the rule to rest and with each passing generation they built a bigger hedge farther and farther away from the original rule to rest.

Let's go back to Luke now with that understanding. Jesus and his disciples were walking through a grain field on the Sabbath. In come the Pharisees who are the very best hedge builders around. They want to know what in the world he is doing in the field plucking heads of grain. Here are Jesus' words.

“Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Luke 6:3-5 (ESV)

The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. In other words, he is in charge of the Sabbath so if he feels it is okay to pick the heads of grain while walking in a field then it is alright to do so. Many times the Pharisees challenge Jesus on his practices surrounding the Sabbath. He has the gall to actually heal on the Sabbath! Jesus has much to teach us about building hedges. Something to think about.

Go make it a great weekend! Till Monday

In Christ Alone,
Jill






Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning Satan says, "Oh crud, she's up".

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