In our day and age, it is hard to find rest.   We are always connected and that has changed our hearts.  We often feel important and needed when we can’t turn off our Blackberries, and can’t stop working.  That’s today’s reality.

In a different way, it was hard to find rest in Jesus’ day.  It was simply hard work to survive, eat and sleep in shelter.  But the Jewish people had one major distinctive, the day of rest God gave at creation, and that they had been instructed to preserve.

But over time, a religious codification of law had been built onto God’s plan for Sabbath rest at creation.  We see it in a story of some Pharisees, or religious legalists, and their conflict with Jesus here:

On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”  (Luke 6:1-5 ESV)

Here we can see how the Pharisees had made even a day of rest into hard work.  The Sabbath, even as it’s observed today, can become a strange mixture of freedom and peaceful rest, and concern and anxiety for legal compliance.

For example, I have a friend who lived in Israel for a short time, who would tell stories of a mad rush to get enough food before sunset on Friday when the Sabbath began.  Then she’d take long walks to visit with a friend…all to avoid operating a car.  What’s more work – walking or driving?

Or at Toronto’s Mount Sinai hospital there is a Sabbath elevator that stops at every floor on Saturdays, so no buttons need to be pressed.  You can see how carefully work has been defined – button pushing is too much, but walking is okay.

The proper way to take Sabbath rest is still debated today – including debates on how strictly Christians should apply the Old Testament laws about Sabbath as a day of worship and rest.  There is a clue here in the passage we’re exploring this week, where the Pharisees are confronting Jesus about his disciples eating on what was supposed to be a day of rest.  They are plucking grain left for poor travellers like themselves, and rubbing it between their hands to make it edible, which was one of 39 types of work forbidden by the teachers of the law.

Note how Jesus responsds.  He doesn’t laugh it off as an old throwback idea.  No, he takes it somewhere different, he seems to say rest is vitally important, and that it is what he’s all about.  He says he’s the Lord of the Sabbath.  We saw in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ intention is not to throw away the law, nor to adopt the Pharisees’ interpretation of it wholesale, but rather to fulfill its original purpose.  He reveals the point of the whole law to be…himself!

Question: What was your experience of weekends growing up?  Was either day set aside as a day of rest?

Ryan Sim - August 24, 2015

Monday - A New Idea - Finding Rest

It can be very hard to find rest in our world. Between a Blackberry, kids, the home phone and social media, it can be hard to focus on anything, much less rest. One study found that people who are interrupted by technology score 20 percent lower on a standard cognition test. A second demonstrated that some students, even when on their best behavior, can't concentrate on homework for more than two minutes without distracting themselves by using social media or writing an email. We always wonder what we’re missing, what we should be doing, even when we’re supposed to be resting. With technology, we don’t have to suppress that – we can always know, we can always be available. People say it’s harder and harder to unplug. Even as I wrote this, I found myself turning to all kinds of distractions – it’s always when I try to focus on writing that I decide some amazing new change needs to be made to the app or social media. This makes it hard to work and rest – I’m constantly blending the two, and doing neither well as a result. For this year’s vacation, I committed to turning my smartphone off, and only checking in once a day to make sure things are running smoothly with Redeem the Commute. I’ll have to physically make sure my phone isn’t around, because I know I’ll be tempted otherwise. But that isn’t a foolproof formula – I can always go get my smartphone if I get too curious. Find rest can’t just be about strategies – because our problem is inside us. There is something inside me that is still wanting to check email, check the news, etc. We’ll explore what that is, and what to replace it with this week. Question: How do you “unplug” and rest? What strategies do you use?

From Series: "Work and Rest"

Just in time for summer's blend of work and rest, Redeem the Commute is starting a new series of daily challenges to help busy people restore life to the commuting lifestyle. This seven week series will look at the meaning and purpose of work, rest, and ancient practices that have helped followers of Jesus to keep the two in perspective and balance for centuries.

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