Sabbath: Butcher Jesus Loves Sacred Cows

Slide1Our church recently worked through a series of teachings on Sabbath. Far beyond a weekly holiday, this biblical concept is loaded with meaning, with each additional layer creating a rich tapestry of teaching that displays the love and goodness of God in fresh ways.

This series of blog posts will aim to capture some of the highlights of discovery along the way.

Jesus-Heals-on-the-SabbathI often muse at how Jesus pushed the issue of the Sabbath. Within the Gospels, we have thirty-seven accounts of Jesus performing miracles. Straightforward statistics would suggest that one-seventh of those acts would have taken place on the Sabbath; however, we find seven Sabbath wonders, among these stories. While this isn’t overwhelming, it does paint for me a picture of a feisty Saviour. He didn’t need to heal on the Sabbath. If he would looking to be “meek and mild”, he could slotted his signs differently in his daytimer. But I imagine him eyeing the Sabbath with anticipation – not just for the rest that was to accompany it, but for the riling that he foresaw as well.

What was Jesus trying to do?

He was trying to take issue.

Jesus has a problem with people distorting the ways of the Father with too-small visions. Jesus gets worked up when life-giving gifts are mutated into death-dealing burdens. These types of silliness make Jesus angry. They also make him hungry. Such fiascoes awaken Jesus’ taste for blood – but not yours. If anything, Jesus’ dealings concerning the Sabbath give clear indication that he loves to butcher sacred cows.

BBQ JesusWhen we begin to value things more than God values them, yet expend energy convincing ourselves that our assessment is right in line with God’s, then our sacred cows come into view. And everyone has a sacred cow. Most of us own ranches full of them. One of Jesus’ hobbies is slaughtering them. After he does, he slathers them in his secret sauce, grills them, and feeds them to us. And then he lovingly watches us squirm as we awaken to the realization that our beloved Betsy’s bell isn’t clanging anymore.

Future posts will look at the practical side of Sabbath: What does it mean? How should we view it in this time and place? How might one observe? What does it mean to keep it holy?

But for today, let’s just admire the Sabbath as a still-live grenade. In his day, Jesus occasionally pulled its pin and rolled it into people’s foxholes just to see them scatter and take stock. In that sense, Sabbath will forever hold value as a case study on the eagerness of Jesus to challenge distorted values, question misplaced priorities, and nudge people to seriously consider whether they are tapped into the full life-flow of their Maker.

If that’s all Sabbath means today, it’s quite a lot.

But I suspect that’s not all Sabbath means today.

leaveacommentYOUR TURN: Your input makes this post better!

  • Why do you think Jesus liked to “mix it up” on Sabbath?
  • Ever had an experience when it felt like Jesus was hunting down one of your sacred cows? Did he succeed?

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Sabbath: Why We Stopped Resting

Slide1Our church recently worked through a series of teachings on Sabbath. Far beyond a weekly holiday, this biblical concept is loaded with meaning, with each additional layer creating a rich tapestry of teaching that displays the love and goodness of God in fresh ways.

This series of blog posts will aim to capture some of the highlights of discovery along the way.

tencommandAs a child, I don’t remember any mention of Sabbath. I memorized the Ten Commandments for bonus points at Bible school one summer, so obviously the word was in my vocabulary. But I don’t recall ever giving much consideration to how this ancient-sounding term might be meant to impact life today.

But Melanie changed that.

She and her family were some of the finest people I knew, and I counted her among the classmates that I most genuinely enjoyed in high school. Her family drove quite some distance to be active in an Adventist church. If the weekly commute wasn’t noteworthy enough, they worshiped on Saturdays. How weird was that! And they used the word Sabbath – it was a legitimate term, still alive in their mouths as they lived out their days in the 20th century.

WWF-Superstars-cerealSo I asked the question that every kid asks when they encounter a way of living different from his own: “Why don’t we do that?” Truth be told, I was desperately hoping we wouldn’t begin going to church on Saturdays; that would have ruined my sporting life and cheated me out of the Saturday morning cartoons and WWF served up by our three TV channels. But this was one of the earliest instances where I met someone else who valued the Bible and loved God and desired to please Him, yet did so in visibly different ways. What to do with that?

Back to Sabbath: I got my answer. Now you should know that I grew up in a fellowship of churches who prided ourselves on seriousness about Scripture and a fierce commitment to “New Testament Christianity”, a long-standing goal within the Restoration Movement from which my childhood church had sprung. In a sentence, this form of “restoration” was a deeply-convicted drive to (wait for it) restore the first-century church. (I confess to having a long list of questions about this entire venture of restoration, but that will have to be another set of posts. In this space, I share this only to provide context for what comes next.)

I don’t know who voiced it. It may have been my parents. It might have been our preacher. It may have even been whichever adult was teaching my Sunday school class at the time. The particular voice doesn’t matter, for the answer rang true from the collective consciousness of our congregation.

Q: “Why don’t we observe Sabbath?”

A: “Because Jesus didn’t say we had to do it.”

One could do lifelong study on how Old Testament laws are handled in light of the New Testament. One current example that highlights the issue well is found in the red-hot discussion around homosexuality. Many note that the Bible explicitly speaks of homosexuality only a handful of times. Some then make the move of attempting to undercut the majority of those passages, from the Old Testament, by highlighting inconsistencies in how we handle Old Testament laws. “God hates gays” (a statement I’ve never actually heard from the lips of any Christian I know) gets rebutted with “Well, God hates shrimp too.” Sharp-witted way of stating, “We’re obviously not heeding some of these old rules. Can’t we just toss them all?”

(For a brief-but-helpful explanation of how to handle Old Testament laws with integrity and consistency, Tim Keller offers these guidelines.)

How does this speak to Sabbath? It attempts to decode the meaning behind, “Because Jesus didn’t say we had to do it.” (JDSWHTDI) For some, Sabbath has been dismissed; it’s viewed as expired, unnecessary, burdensome, even unhelpful.

I don’t see it that way.

7_playing_cardsIf I had a handful of JDSWHTDI cards, I confess that I would not slap one down on the Sabbath discussion.

If the discussion revolved around cutting bacon from our diets, I’d lead the charge on playing our JDSWHTDI cards. If stoning rebellious children were the topic, loving parents the world over would lay down their JDSWHTDI cards. If circumcision were put forward as the chat of the day, you can already hear half the population slamming down their JDSWHTDI cards!

While joking somewhat, I am serious when I say: I think we need better reasons to disregard Scripture’s teaching of Sabbath. When your Maker puts out a call to regularly rest, to habitually slow, to set periods aside when “More God” is the only item on your task list – that seems to me like a time to put away your JDSWHTDI card, and instead to play your IDTUHTMTS card.

“I’ll do that until he tells me to stop.”

Just a thought.

leaveacommentYOUR TURN: Your input makes this post better!

  • What do you do with the concept of Sabbath?
  • Practice it? Wonder at it?  File it away?

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Saturday Six-Pack (11)

It feels like Saturdays roll around every seven days or so!  And with THIS particular one, I extend a warm welcome to you this realm of “Wandering & Wondering”.

Each weekend, the Six-Pack gathers a half-dozen articles that have informed or inspired over the past week.  Most are faith-focused or ministry-geared; others fall under my “disorderly pile of who-knows-what” catch-all qualifier!

Today’s collection:

1) The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
Craig Blomberg is a world-renowned biblical scholar, and he’s got a dozen reasons why he is confident of the New Testament’s historical reliability.

2) The Art of Being a Jerk Online
If you’ve ever felt that cyber-etiquette had become too refined or you felt a need to make a negative impression, Frank Viola has ten fool-proven methods on how to lose friends and irritate people online.

3) Nine Ways to Fight the Temptation of Pornography
To anyone who’s ever felt the allure of this destructive bait, B.J. Stockman offers nine tips that may help.

4) Why Personal Development is So Hard
Ever wanted to change for the better, then realized how uphill the climb was?  John Richardson sets up for some significant revelation on this front.  (Translation: Reading THIS article will queue you up for reading a few more posts on this blog.)

5) Where People Get Scripture Wrong
Taken as a whole, the Church clearly can’t live without the Bible—but it doesn’t seem to have much idea how to live with it, either.  N.T. Wright points out common “right” and “left” misreadings of the Bible.

6) A Super Efficient Email Process
How much of your time gets swallowed up by cyber-communication?  If you said, “More than I’d like” in any form or phrasing, then Peter Bregman’s piece from the Harvard Business Review might be your prescription for taking back control of your inbox.

Have a great weekend, friends–renew yourself and reverence God.