One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath.
But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." So he got up and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"
Luke 6v1-11
Sabbath observance is a really big deal in the Torah. The seventh day is very special, thus special laws were set up to help guarantee that it would continue to be observed. These additional laws to the Torah came to be seen as equivalent as the Torah, to not keep the special laws was to violate the Torah. Thus, very subtley, the whole point of keeping the Sabbath became lost in keeping the special laws in order to not violate the Torah.
Jesus came to pronounce God's mercy upon the people of Israel, to initiate a new kingdom where right prevailed, where shalom prevailed, where good hearts prevailed. And a center piece of Jesus' proclamation had to do with observance of the Sabbath. That special seventh day was not set up in order to restrict people and give them a day to be bored. The day has many special associations to it - one of them being about giving people freedom. God has commanded that you not be a slave! God has required you to not be a robot. You get to rest without guilt! You get to play and pray without being rushed! You get to soak in the beauty of creation without having to give a report about it to your teacher or boss.
In this story, Jesus violated the laws of the Pharisees by picking some grain (unauthorized work) with unwashed hands (unauthorized actions). Jesus likely did this because a) he was hungry, and b) because he liked to raise the ire of the Torah-teachers. Jesus really angered the Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath - and it was this action that revealed their view of the Torah and the Sabbath. The seventh day is a good day, it's a good day for rest, it's a good day to love; it is a day for goodness. Anything that is good is then in keeping with the spirit of the Sabbath. Jesus wanted to reclaim the Sabbath as a good day, a day to do good, a day to enjoy God and his Creation and his people.
What about you: do you observe the Sabbath? Why or why not?
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