Rest Shouldn’t Be Work
Rest shouldn’t be work, and yet so often it seems that we turn things that are supposed to be good and restful into things that are bad and stressful. It’s summer and some of you are probably planning a vacation. This is supposed to be restful, but sometimes it seems there is more work than rest on vacation. The same is true of our spiritual lives. God’s law was created for our good. Yet we often look at God’s law as a burden and obligation that we need to fulfill. We are hard-wired to think we have to keep God’s law to earn his grace and mercy. We forget that Christ has fulfilled all the requirements of the law in our place. Because of our freedom in Christ, God’s law is not an obligation that we need to keep, but a guide as we live our lives for him.
God’s law exists for our good which is why Christ says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Yet how often do we look at the Third Commandment “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” as a burden instead of an opportunity for rest and refreshment? God wants us to find rest in learning and hearing his Word. He wants us to be refreshed when we gather together for worship and receive forgiveness for our sins. And yet too often church becomes something that we need to do. We forget that God’s law is for our good and instead see it as something we need to do to make God happy. But God does not want reluctant or self-righteous adherence to his law. Instead, he wants us to joyfully serve and obey him. Our rest in the Lord shouldn’t be work.
The Pharisees in our Gospel lesson did not understand this about God’s law. They did not see the Sabbath as something God had given to his people as a blessing. Instead, they saw it as an obligation that must be fulfilled. They had become obsessed with keeping God’s law and had even added to its requirements in a futile attempt to earn their salvation. They foolishly believed that they could achieve the standard of perfection that God’s law demanded, and looked down on those who were not as “pure” as they were. Their self-righteousness clouded their judgment and blinded them. They were experts in the details of God’s law but had forgotten the chief purpose of God’s law was to show love for God and love for our neighbor.
On a certain Sabbath day, Jesus and his disciples were walking through the grain fields. The disciples were very hungry and began picking some of the grain to eat. This was something that was allowed under the Law of Moses. However, the rabbis and Pharisees had added more requirements to the Law of Moses. According to God’s law, you were supposed to rest and do no work on the Sabbath, but you were allowed to provide yourself with food. The Pharisees had added more requirements that even plucking grain to feed yourself was doing work. They had even added a law that you could not stop a leak in a container in your house and had to let a puddle form on your floor during the Sabbath. They were upset that Jesus was not enforcing these additional regulations with his disciples. Instead of arguing about what was and wasn’t lawful, Jesus tells the Pharisees about an event from the life of King David.
David was on the run from King Saul who was trying to kill him. As he and his men were fleeing, they became very hungry. They went to the priests for help. The priests did not have any food available except for the bread that was placed on the table before the Lord in the Tabernacle. According to the Law, only the priests were allowed to eat this bread. But Abiathar the priest knew that the greater requirement of the Law was to show love to those who were in need. He gave this consecrated bread to David and his men. Jesus uses this story to illustrate to the Pharisees that God does not desire blind obedience to the requirements of the law. He wants us to show love and compassion to our neighbors. God created the Sabbath and the other regulations of the law for our good. The disciples were doing nothing wrong by picking a few heads of grain to eat. However, the Pharisees had gotten so wrapped up in keeping their additional rules that they were unwilling to show love and compassion to others.
This lack of love is further demonstrated in the second interaction that Jesus had with the Pharisees on another Sabbath day. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue and there was a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees were there not to hear Jesus teach the Word or to help this poor man. They were there to trap Jesus and see if he would do work by healing on the Sabbath. They were more concerned about keeping the outward requirements of the law instead of helping someone who was in need. Jesus saw straight through to the hardness of their hearts. He was filled with anger and sorrow at their lack of love. In his mercy, he healed the man with the withered hand. But what is interesting is that Jesus did not physically do anything. He willed the man’s hand
to be held and thus did not technically break the Pharisees’ made-up laws. This filled them with rage, and they stormed out of the synagogue and began to conspire about how they could kill Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ these two stories serve as a warning for us today. By nature, we are all Pharisees. We need to be constantly reminded that we are not saved by our works. The Pharisees believed that they could earn God’s favor by keeping his law, and that if they added to his law this would make them even better. But this is not the purpose of God’s law. God created his law for our good; to show us what his will is for our lives. But when Adam and Eve fell into sin they destroyed our ability to keep God’s law. By nature, we are contaminated by sin. We cannot keep even the smallest portion of God’s law. Instead, God’s law shows us our many sins and shows us our desperate need for a Savior.
Just think of how easily we fall into this sin of self-righteousness just when it comes to keeping the 3rd Commandment. How often do we compare ourselves to others? Do we think that because we come to church every Sunday, this makes us better in the eyes of God than those who hardly come at all? Are we tempted to look at the size of our offerings or the amount of time we spend volunteering at church and think this makes us better Christians than those who do less? Unfortunately, this attitude is a constant part of our sinful nature. We want to make these sinful comparisons. We want to believe that we are better than others because this allows us to ignore or whitewash our own sins.
But we can’t hide from God’s law. If we want to save ourselves by what we do, then we need to keep God’s law perfectly. But dear friends, there is no rest in living our lives that way. On our own, we cannot achieve God’s perfect standard of holiness. We can’t even perfectly keep the command to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. If we try to live by works of the law, we turn rest into work and we will never find peace.
This is why Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” We can’t keep God’s law perfectly, but Christ did. Jesus Christ came to this world and placed himself under the requirements of God’s law and kept it perfectly in our place. Paul describes this in our reading from Colossians: “Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross.”
All our sins have been paid for with the blood of Christ. We do not need to keep the requirements of God’s law to earn our salvation because Christ won our salvation by offering himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. This however does not mean that God’s law is unimportant.
God’s law is his perfect and holy will and it teaches us how to live in a way that is pleasing to our Father in heaven. We keep God’s law because we are his dear children and know that his law is for our good. This is especially true when it comes to the Third Commandment. God wants us to honor his Word. God wants us to spend time gathered with other Christians to encourage one another and praise him. God does not need our worship. Instead, he wants us to use our time in his Word as a time of rest and not work.
Dear friends God does not want us to slavishly come to church each Sunday because we think it's something that we should do. God does not want us to read his Word because we know we have to. This is doing what the Pharisees did. Instead, God wants us to spend time reading, studying, hearing, and meditating on his Word because it provides rest for our souls. We are strengthened and encouraged whenever we spend time in God’s Word. This is the blessing of the Third Commandment. It is a blessing of God’s law that draws us closer to him and gives us rest from our work.