What if most people were completely missing out on of one of the most profound gifts God ever gave us as humans? What implications might that have for our lives, our health, etc.? Before we get lost in the weeds of denominational controversy over this topic, please just hear me out. We can absolutely agree to disagree and still be friends at the end of this little article if we need to! 😉 Truly, of all the things written about the Sabbath Day in the Scriptures, one of the most over-looked by Christians today (in my humble opinion) is what Yeshua (Jesus) says about it in his passage in Mark 2:23-28:
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Mark 2:23-28
Did you catch how Yeshua (Jesus) says that the Sabbath was made for man. Have you ever thought about where that even came from; why did He say that? Do you remember when the Sabbath was actually established by God?
It was in the very beginning…Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
Now, there are billions of opinions about the Sabbath from Judaism to Christianity and every denomination in between, and if you ask me, I’m humbly going to assert that most of those opinions are either man adding-to or taking-away from what God actually said. We are told specifically by God not to do that (Deuteronomy 4:2). Does this sentence ring any bells to you, “Did God really say…?” This subject almost reminds me of when the serpent says that to Eve in the garden when he was purposely twisting what God said in order to tempt her into disobedience to what God did actually say.
My question is, has that happened to us over the past 2,000 years? Have we had God’s actual words twisted to the point that we now question if He really said what He said? I know that’s a tough question, but I think in this world of continual deception, we better get ahold of what God did really say and obey Him, if we want to keep walking on the narrow path that Yeshua told us leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).
The other thing about the Sabbath that I find so interesting is what God Himself, the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob spoke to Moses, specifically the Sabbath Day mentioned in the 4th commandment (unless you’re Catholic or Lutheran, then you have 10 commandments that are not worded the same & numbered differently: https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/498/). Notice that the 4th commandment is not about the Sabbath in the Catholic version, it’s now the 3rd commandment, but it no longer says “Sabbath Day” it’s rendered “The Lord’s Day” you can read their catechism here regarding this change: https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/526/
Exodus 20:8-11 8 “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.
The LORD points us back to creation, He tells us how to keep it (without a ton of exact do’s and do not’s mind you) but did you catch what the first word of this commandment is? Remember. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
What if we just took our Father in Heaven at His word, that He really did set the 7th day apart & He made it holy and gave it to us for our good; then confirmed it by His One & Only Son, Yeshua – that it was made FOR you and me? What if it’s this incredible gift of rest from our labors, just like our Heavenly Father modelled for us, and He wants us to enjoy it, too? In your own life, are you refusing a gift He made for you? It’s a question worth wrestling out with God, bringing before Him all your beliefs about it & things you’ve heard, are they actually true? I pray you will at least take the time to bring it to Him in prayer and see if these things are so.
Before we wrap up, let’s look back at this passage in Mark 2 for a moment and take in the context of the verse about Sabbath being made for man above.
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of[d] Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Here’s what I had no idea about growing up in the Christian church, boldly and genuinely seeking God for all of my adult life, reading, studying the Bible, etc. What I still did not understand was the cultural context of things until I started researching that aspect of Biblical History. I read a book called, “Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus” circa 2009 that began to open my eyes to some pretty incredible insights I had never known growing up in church in America. Then, a trip to Israel and Jordan with my husband in 2016 really put the exclamation point on there being more to the story of the Bible than I had been taught through these American Christianity lenses I had been given to look though all my life.
So, let’s start here pertaining to these verses in Mark 2:
Did you know that plucking heads of grain actually isn’t against God’s law? There is no commandment that says you’re breaking God’s law if you do what His disciples did that day. Plucking a few heads of grain as they walked by is not reaping a field (see Deuteronomy 23:25). Now, if they had been actively harvesting that field, yes, that would’ve been violating God’s commandments regarding Sabbath, on which you are not to do work. Yet, the Pharisees accused them of being “unlawful on the Sabbath day.”
Here is the thing that most Christians do not know, what their accusation was is that it WAS against the “Oral Torah” at that time in history, which has since been written into the Talmud & Mishnah writings which most Orthodox Jews still hold to today. Yeshua and His disciples were not breaking the Sabbath instructions that Yehovah (The LORD God) gave, they were breaking the manmade traditions that the Pharisees believed were equal to what was written down my Moses at Mt. Sinai. Let’s pause and let that sink in for a moment. Jesus didn’t rebuke His disciples Himself for being unlawful because they were not being unlawful according to God’s law; there were merely being ‘unlawful’ to the extra commandments that the Pharisees had added.
Isn’t that interesting? Now, it makes a lot more sense why the Pharisees were always trying to catch Yeshua in what they called ‘disobedience’, and why He incessantly stood up to their opinions. Their opinions were largely based on their own traditions instead of the actual Words and Commandments of God. Unequivocally, Yeshua (Jesus) never broke one of God’s laws, otherwise He would not have been the spotless Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He also did not stand by and allow his disciples to break God’s law either; yet He was not concerned in the least when they strayed from the Pharisees traditions. What they did that day was only ‘unlawful’ according to man-made doctrines.
In Mark 7, Yeshua addresses a similar situation when His disciples didn’t wash their hands “according to the tradition.” I highly recommend you dive into that next if this subject caught your attention!
Blessings to all.