Yesterday we explored a story about Jesus and his followers eating grain in the fields on a Saturday, a day of rest, and getting in trouble from the religious authorities.  In his response, Jesus referred to one of the great heroes of the Jewish faith, David, who ate holy bread in the temple when he was starving.  He mentions the story, and lets the religious authorities do what they do best – argue about God while God is standing right there.  He asks them why David got away with eating holy bread, since David was never condemned for eating it.

This story illustrates Jesus’ approach to two kinds of law.  There is God’s law given at creation about the Sabbath: rest on the seventh day…period.  That stands, and that’s actually what Jesus is about – giving us eternal rest, even today.  But there is also the ritual/Sabbath/ceremonial law that is built on top of the basic commandment at creation.  Think of it like scaffolding around a structure to help build it – it can be very helpful in following God’s law.  But we don’t want to let it obscure God’s original purpose and law.  This scaffolding is a reality of our sin or rebellion from God.  Our hearts don’t naturally follow God’s law anymore, and so we need these additional structures.  But, don’t forget they are provisional…until something comes along and makes them obsolete

Then Jesus comes along and says, “I am Lord of the Sabbath.”

He claims to be God, and gives an invitation to find rest in him, and to stop wrestling with sin and other sinful realities around us, to stop wrestling with ourselves, and just rest in him as he fights those battles.

Claims like this got him in trouble with the Pharisees and Scribes, and eventually their urging that he be killed.   But in doing, they made him Lord of the Sabbath…exactly what he’d said.

On the cross, he is restless for us – huge work.  He takes on the restlessness of our sin and because of that, we can rest, not on our work overcoming sin and brokenness in our lives, but on his work.

We see him showing that the day of rest, the Sabbath, isn’t the point, just as the temple bread wasn’t the point.  God is the point.  Resting in God is the point.  We’ll see how tomorrow.

Question: Why do you think Jesus’ claims were so offensive to the religious legalists?

Ryan Sim - May 1, 2013

Wednesday - Change It - Pompous Prayer

Jesus is challenging those who pray in public in order to get ahead, to look religious. He says they got the reward they wanted, immediately. People saw them, were impressed. Done. Problem is, empty reward. What is God's reward for prayer? It's him. A relationship with him. This happens to be what true prayer is about anyway…talking to God…spending time with him. God makes himself, the reward, available to all who will receive him. Closet prayer is like training, shutting out all ulterior motives until we learn to pray for God alone. God is the best spectator for prayer - he sees prayer and motive. Even the worst prayer - God sees the right motive. Even the best prayer - God sees the wrong motive. The word "closet" in this reading is not where someone kept their clothes. It comes from the Greek "tameion" which means storeroom. This suggests there are immediate "treasures" when you pray for God alone. When we pray for God and God alone, we are seeking God, and he is ready and willing to hold up his side of the relationship by giving us what we were seeking. When we pray for others to see, we’re clearly not seeking God but our own benefit, so he gives us that reward we sought, but that's all. If we want applause, he says we can have it. But we're settling for second best. I once got a phone call, informing me that someone was taking Christianity 101 student because he wanted to be baptized in hopes it would helps him immigration case. In the end, I was happy for him to take the course, and would even baptize him if he decided to follow Jesus as his Lord. Those things are highly rewarding in and of themselves! An eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ – nothing is more rewarding. What about the immigration thing? I doubt it would have helped. One might have a case as a persecuted refugee if they were a baptized Christian at home, before coming to Canada. But immigration authorities probably wouldn’t care if he was baptized in Canada last year. If he took my course, and was baptized, all because he wanted to improve his chances at immigration, he would quickly discover it was an empty reward, nowhere near as good as the real reward. We settle for second best sometimes. We pursue rewards in life, on earth, when we could be pursuing rewards in heaven! We can do this with prayer. We say a bunch of things about God, and call it prayer, when we could be talking to God. We say some words we don’t really believe, simply because someone told us we should. Question: Have you ever tried to regularly spend time in prayer alone with God? What did you find easy comfortable, or difficult and uncomfortable about the experience?

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