Silent Sabbath

Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Luke 23:50-56

Friday, before the sun set, Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’s body down from the cross, wrapped it in linen, and placed it in a new tomb. Mary Magdalene and the other women watched the burial, mourned, and planned to return after the sabbath to cover the body in spices and perfumes.

Imagine the looks of silent shock around the shabbat dinner Friday night. Imagine the silence of Saturday.

It was meant to be a day of rest, but I imagine it was a day of restlessness for the followers of Jesus. Their rabbi, their Messiah, their King, their hope for freedom from Roman occupation was dead. One of their closest friends, Judas, had turned Jesus over to the Jewish leaders and then committed suicide. One of the leaders of their band of brothers, Peter, had just denied even knowing Jesus in the moment when Jesus needed him most. Everyone else seemed to scatter except the women and the beloved disciple John.

What just happened?

Everything happened so fast. Have you ever had one of those moments of confusion and disillusionment that seemed to move faster than your thoughts and feelings could process? When things finally slow down, as they did that sabbath, everything comes rushing back. Flashes of scenes play through your mind.

Jesus in the Gethsemane agonizing in prayer.

The soldiers marching toward them with torches.

Jesus getting struck on the face.

The mock trial.

The early morning pronouncement of Pilate that left them in shock.

The beaten and bloodied image of Jesus stumbling up to Golgotha.

His eyes.

What was on his head?

The clank of metal on metal met with screams of pain.

Our Savior hanging there.

The smell of blood and death.

The lifeless body.

The dark tomb.

All the images flashing in their minds on repeat. Then the questions. How could this happen? Why would God let this happen? This can’t be God’s plan. Why didn’t God stop this? What do we do now? How can I go back to my old life? Will the Romans come for us next? The Jewish leaders know us. Are they going to hunt us down? What about my kids? What are we going to do?

Silence.

They couldn’t have known that while they were feeling defeated, Jesus was defeating death.
All they knew was silence.

Sometimes God does His best work in the quiet of disillusionment…

…if we would only hold on until morning.

Un-productivity

God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.
He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.
2 Chronicles 36:17-21

In my daily devotional reading of scripture, I got to the end of 2 Kings with a deep sadness in my heart. God’s people rebelled against Him, and they lost everything as Babylon conquered them and exiled them. Rebellion and sin without repentance always leads to a tragic story. I flipped to the end of 2 Chronicles to read that writer’s version of the same story. That’s when I noticed a line that feels very familiar to what we are living through right now.

In the midst of a horrific moment in history for the people of God–the Temple burned down, the sacred items stolen, the people being enslaved and exiled, Jerusalem destroyed, the leaders killed–God mentions one bright spot, “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests…” Notice it’s plural.

In the covenant that God made with His people, giving work a rest and giving the land a rest was part of the deal. Every seven days the people were to rest from work and every seven years the land was to rest from productivity. Amid all of their rebellion, the people of God certainly weren’t following this command.

‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you…
Leviticus 25:2-6

The Lord was using a tragic situation to catch up on all the rest the land should have had but didn’t. So instead of giving the land rest once every seven years, the land got 70 years of rest all at once. Seventy times seven is 490 years worth of sabbath rests for the land. That many years reaches all the way back to the time of King David.

And what does 70 times 7 remind you of in the New Testament?

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
Matthew 18:21-22 NASB

Seventy times seven is all about forgiveness. For the people of God in exile, God was taking a terrible situation and using it to restore the land and bring rest to the productivity of the soil. He was also using the situation to restore the people’s hearts back to faithfulness and bring rest to their wayward souls. Within 70 years, the people would return to the land and return to their covenant with the Lord. The restoration of the land itself was a sign of God’s limitless forgiveness.

So, what is God bringing rest to right now? Is He allowing the earth to rest? Is He challenging our addiction to productivity and using this terrible situation to restore all the sabbath rests we should have been taking? Is He inviting us into His limitless forgiveness?

Maybe hyper-productivity isn’t what God ever wanted for us. Maybe fruitfulness is what He wanted, which includes regular cycles of rest and the embrace of intentionally unproductive days.

To Do Good On The Sabbath

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus,they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
Matthew 12:9-14

They asked Jesus if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. While this question seems strange to us, we have to understand it in context. One of the main ways to honor and worship God was to follow His law, especially on the Sabbath. To break Sabbath law was to dishonor God and make a mockery of His commands.

Jesus was trying to help them see the heart behind the law. The heart of the law was to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The law was meant to help the Jews love God and love people. If the law was then used to prevent them from loving people, Jesus was saying that it was being misused.

It would be like us asking the question, “Is it okay to totally disrupt a Sunday morning worship service if it means someone would get the help and healing they need?” Would it be okay if someone needed healing and the whole service stopped for that one person so people could pray for them? Would we be willing to cancel the sermon and cancel the rest of the worship songs?

You can hear people’s push back already, “But the worship songs and the sermon are how we honor and glorify God in that moment! Should we cancel that just for one person?” This is the tension that was going in the synagogue that day. Should the law be trampled on just for this one man?

Also notice that Jesus tells the man to stretch out his hand, but Jesus never indicates which hand. The man had two hands. One could easily be stretched out. That was his healthy hand. The other would not stretch out even if the man tried to force it. That was his shriveled hand. So if you were in that condition, and someone asked you to stretch out your hand, the most natural thing in the world would be to stretch out the good hand.

But what we witness is an incredible risk on the part of the man with the shriveled hand. What we witness here is this man step out and take a leap of faith. He could have tried to stretch out his shriveled hand and nothing happen. He was risking breaking Sabbath law for the chance at experiencing the impossible. This was a radical act of faith!

Jesus honors the man’s faith and the man’s willingness to take a risk. As the shriveled hand is being extended it is healed. The man watches his own hand transform right before his own eyes. It didn’t take weeks or months. In just a moment with Jesus, everything was healed. Surely this is cause for the whole synagogue to celebrate! Right!?!

Nope. The Pharisees couldn’t see the miracle and celebrate. Their hardened hearts of unbelief wouldn’t allow it. They could only see Jesus breaking Sabbath law and encouraging others to do so. They could only see disruption in a synagogue service. They could only see their authority and power leaking away in the presence of Jesus.

I have seen this mindset up close and personal. I’ve seen people healed in a worship service only to field complaint after complaint about how we shouldn’t have prayed for healing in a worship service. I’ve heard warning after warning about how new people will be offended and visitors won’t understand what’s happening and so we shouldn’t pray for healing in a worship service. All of this after seeing people miraculously healed because we prayed for healing in a worship service. Sometimes a religious spirit and a spirit of unbelief can cause people to not see the forest for the trees.

Miracles make people uncomfortable. Pursuing the supernatural movement of the Holy Spirit can make people uncomfortable. Change makes people uncomfortable. The feeling of not having absolute control over a situation makes people feel uncomfortable. But if we are going to let Jesus be Jesus in our churches, if we are going to let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit in our churches, we’ll need to find ways to allow room “to do good on the Sabbath.”

How would you react to Jesus doing the miraculous in your church on a Sunday?

Entering Rest

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…
Hebrews 4:9-11

When we enter into Christ, we enter the Sabbath-rest purchased for the people of God. We can rest from trying to earn salvation. Our good works won’t earn us a right standing with God. Our striving won’t conquer sin and death. Jesus did that for us by His death and resurrection. So now we can rest in Him.

Have you ever tried to rest at night but your soul was restless? Have you ever gone away on vacation only to return more tired than you were when you left? Physical rest is essential to the Christian life. But physical rest is only a picture of what is supposed to be happening in our soul. Jesus offers us true rest for our souls. He said:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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.”
Matthew 11:28-30

A yoke would sit on the shoulders of two beasts of burden as they worked the field. Jesus is offering to walk next to us and give us an exchange. He will take our heavy burden off of our shoulders if we will take his light burden upon ours. We will find rest for our souls if we continue to walk with Jesus.

This is why the writer of Hebrews tells us to “make every effort” to “enter that rest.” It takes effort and diligence to enter the rest offered to us by Christ. Jesus did the work for us so that we we can rest in Him. Our part is to put forth the effort to enter that rest.

The prophet Jeremiah warned the people of God:

This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.
    But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
I appointed watchmen over you and said,
    ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
    But you said, ‘We will not listen.’
Jeremiah 6:16-17

Jesus is the good way. He is the ancient path. If we walk with Him and remain in Him, we will live with our souls at rest. Apart from Him, we will feel a deep restlessness in our heart and mind. It’s not just about believing in Him but about remaining in Him. It’s not just about faith but about obedience. This is how we make every effort to enter that rest. Jesus said:

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5