(Audio)
Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?
We need to go beyond the more superficiality of obedience to the dynamic depth. The LORD is very concerned with keeping holy the sabbath. It is meant to teach us to enter into the rest that God has in store for us. Work on the sabbath that is not necessary appears to be putting the world before God in our priorities. In general, such work is a surrender to the tyranny of the world and its necessities. But not always. The merely superficial doesn't tell the whole story.
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.
The LORD and his action in our lives may dictate priorities that change how we are called to honor the sabbath. It is not that we ignore that command. It is just that it now takes on a new light as we recognize where Jesus is and where he is leading us on the sabbath. It turns out that any place to which he calls us can be rest even when it seems to be work. Avoiding such work for the sake of the law would ultimately leave us hungry.
With any discernment, we must look beyond appearance to try to see as the LORD sees.
Not as man sees does God see,
because he sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart.
We must be open to the work of Jesus in the hearts of those around us and in our own hearts. He will not abolish the law. But he will show us unexpected ways in which it is to be fulfilled. On our own we only perceive the letter of the law which brings death. Jesus teaches us how to read it through the Spirit who gives life (see Second Corinthians 3:6).
and from that day on, the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.
We need the Spirit to rush on us as well. We have received him in baptism and been strengthened by him at confirmation. But we cannot leave him as an artifact of the past if we want to follow Jesus in our daily lives.
That my hand may be always with him,
and that my arm may make him strong.
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