Joan Hogge’s Sermon – 4/20/08
Still Waters
Psalm 23
Mark 1:29-35
In the New Testament lesson for today, we see Jesus and his disciples in the synagogue in Capernaum. It is the Sabbath and as a rabbi, Jesus has been teaching in the synagogue. Jesus has astonished all that have heard him with the authority of his teaching. He has also taken the time to heal a man with an unclean spirit. We can only guess that Jesus is probably tired from the day spent teaching and healing. So, Jesus, along with Simon and Andrew, set out for Simon’s house for a time of rest and renewal. But, when they arrive, they find Simon’s mother-in-law in bed with a fever. Jesus immediately goes up to her, helps her up and she is healed. The Scripture tells us that later that evening, after sunset, the whole town gathered at the door of this house, bringing for healing, many who were sick and demon-possessed. It would be a likely guess that with such great numbers of people, Jesus probably healed well into the night. We remember why the crowds came later in the evening, after sunset, because it was the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. The Jewish leaders proclaimed that it was against the law to heal and to travel on the Sabbath, which was from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday. Mark doesn’t tell us in this particular story that there was any controversy about Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law, or the demon possessed man, on the Sabbath. Later in Jesus’ ministry healing and other activities on the Sabbath became major issues. Mark does give us one other important piece of information in this passage: that Jesus arose before dawn the following morning and went to a lonely place to pray before continuing his preaching throughout Galilee. For the readers of Mark’s gospel, the question is not whether to observe the Sabbath, but what constitutes Sabbath observance.
The word for “Sabbath” comes from the Hebrew word shabbot, which means to cease or stop. For the Israelites it meant the seventh day of the week, a day set aside for worship and rest. The biblical basis for Sabbath is found in the Hebrew Scripture in the Ten Commandments given in Exodus 20:8-11 and in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. God’s words to Moses for the Israelites was that they were to “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your servants, nor your animals, nor the aliens within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God commanded a Sabbath, an unhurried time of worship and rest each week. The Exodus 20 version of the Ten Commandments is tied to the creation story and the creator’s own rest in Genesis 2:2-3: “By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all of his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all of the work of creating that had been done.”
There is a story that the ancient rabbis taught that on the seventh day, God created menuha, which in Hebrew means tranquility, serenity, peace, repose, rest, and healing stillness. “Until the Sabbath, creation was unfinished. Only after the birth of menuha, only with tranquility and rest, was the circle of creation made full and complete.” God’s provision for us is a day each week for us to rest; in our fast-paced world when we observe a regular time for rest and worship, we demonstrates how important God is to us. Sabbath says to each of us: “be still, stop”. There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never really finished. Take time to rest, eat and be refreshed.” Sabbath says to be still and know that I am God. When we look closer at the Hebrew words for God’s resting and being refreshed, the fullness of meaning is that God literally stopped and got his soul back!
The second version of the Ten Commandments is found in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. In this text the Sabbath is seen as a day of remembrance when the people of Israel were to “remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of the land with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” Remembering takes us back to recall God’s work recorded throughout Scripture with the promises and proof of God’s love for God’s people. The people were to remember that when they were slaves in Egypt, someone else owned their time. This is why some 3000 years later Jewish families welcome the Sabbath because it is a reminder of the liberation from Egyptian slavery. It is only through Sabbath time that we come back to and remember God’s goodness and blessings to us. So Sabbath has 2 purposes: a time to rest and a time to remember God and God’s great love for each of us.
It is in Psalm 23 that we hear through the words of the psalmist the trust and gratitude for God’s goodness and care. Psalm 23 is a psalm about life and living, not death and dying. The primary intent is for the psalmist to say that it is God who keeps him alive. The psalmist’s words, “he restores my soul” literally means in the Hebrew, he keeps me alive, or restores my being. This testifies that the Father has renewed his life at the very core of his being, that is, his soul. Our culture teaches us to want everything and to trust only ourselves, but Psalm 23 challenges us to put our trust in God and to live humbly and gratefully as God’s children. When we are exhausted because the world asks so much of us, God gives us times and places of refuge, and times that calm and restore our souls. Worship is one of those times when we can come apart from the business of our lives to a place where we can calm our hearts and our minds, and be with God.
There are other times that can serve as Sabbath time in our lives. Eugene Peterson, author of the biblical translation known as The Message, gives an example from his own life. He tells the story of how, when he was pastor of a church in Maryland, he always took his Sabbath on Monday. He and his wife would fill a backpack with food and water, and head to a hiking trail that wandered by a river and into the mountains. Before beginning their hike, they read a psalm and prayed. Then they would hike in silence for the next 2 to 3 hours, leaving all their cares and worries behind. When it was time for lunch, they broke their silence with a prayer of blessing for their food and for their morning. Then they would share together their feelings, thoughts and observations, and all the blessings they had received during the morning.
To be “led by still waters” is much more than being grateful for quenching our thirst; it is gratefulness for life itself. The prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:7-8) tells us that those who trust in the Lord will be like a tree planted by water. When the heat comes its leaves are always green, and it will never fail to bear fruit.
In the New Testament, Jesus sets the example for Sabbath time in our lives through his ministry, which follows a pattern of engagement and withdrawal. For Jesus, Sabbath did not have to happen on a particular day of the week, but is anytime that we come away from our activities for prayer, rest and renewal.(9) Jesus tells us in Mark 2:27, “the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” Sabbath is a gift, a part of God’s gracious provision for each of us. In other words, it was created for our benefit. There are many examples in the New Testament where Jesus went apart for Sabbath time to be with God in prayer. Mark 6:46 tells us that after teaching all day and feeding the 5000 people, Jesus sent the disciples ahead of him and he went up on the mountain to pray. In Mark 6:31-32, Jesus reminds his own disciples that they, too, needed to come away from their work and rest for a while. “Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, Jesus said to his disciples, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves to a solitary place.” Jesus recognized that in order to do our work effectively we need periods of rest and renewal. Scripture tell us that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Seeking solitude and time with God was a priority for Jesus. He made room in his busy schedule to be alone with God. Spending time in prayer nurtures this vital relationship with God and equips us to meet the challenges that come to us each and every day.
In his book entitled Sabbath, Wayne Mueller emphasizes that individuals in our society today have lost the necessary and important rhythm of life-that of finding a balance between work and rest. We are a culture that feels exhausted and deprived, even though we live in the midst of great abundance. We find we have little time for family and friends, much less times of rest and renewal for ourselves. People feel tired, overwhelmed, and overworked with no time to savor life and to recognize and enjoy those special moments that are blessings in each day. We live by our calendars and possibly our Blackberries which dictate to us each moment of the day, and remind us how busy we are with all the things that clamor for our time. We all need Sabbath time to help us stay focused on what is important in life, and to remember our Creator and our own value as children of God. In our workaholic world, many people feel guilt and shame for taking time to rest, but Sabbath gives us that permission. As the Fourth Commandment, it commands us to Stop!! “Sabbath time is finding a balance point at which having rested, we do our work with greater ease and joy and bring healing and delight to our endeavors.” All of this done to glorify God. “Sabbath is a practice designed to restore us; it is a gift of time in which we allow the cares and concerns of the marketplace to fall away. We set aside time to delight in being alive, to savor the gifts of creation and to give thanks to God for our blessings.” Our strength comes from God who leads us beside still waters, and who restores our soul. The prophet Isaiah sums it up by saying: “Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.”(Isaiah 40:31)
May It Be So
Wayne Mueller, Sabbath (New York: Bantam Books, 199), 37.
Harold Kushner, The Lord is My Shepherd (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 65.