When I was a kid growing up, I didn’t have a television in my home. (They did make televisions back then, I’m not that old) But when my dad became saved, he kind of went all the way. He took everything that reminded him of his old way of life and sat it out on the curb for the garbage pickup. He put his liquor bottles out, his cigarette cartoons out there, his girly magazines out there, and he put the tv out on the curb as well. He even put a big plastic Santa Claus out on the curb. He wanted to start fresh in this new life that he had in Christ and didn’t want anything from the old way of life reminding him or calling him back to the past.
Now that seems kind of extreme today, I know. But I think a lot of us modern Christians could use a little bit more of that kind of extremism. There is far too much of trying to see what we can bring with us into the kingdom of heaven, instead of a desire to start fresh a new life in Christ.
But as a young boy, not having a TV around meant that I had to find other things to entertain myself with. And one of the things I did was become an avid reader. And at one particular point in my boyhood I became enamored with the old Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel series about Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story of Tarzan, so I won’t go into detail. But what made me think about Tarzan was the phrase after his name, “Lord of the jungle.”
As I was driving through town the other day with a young man in our church, I pointed out Lord Baltimore Elementary School and he asked me why they called it “Lord” Baltimore. And it dawned on me that many young people today are unfamiliar with titles of nobility and the concept of Lordship. I explained that Lord Baltimore was an English nobleman to whom was given the authority to establish and govern the colony of Maryland, which also included Delaware. Lord was his title.
In the fictional Tarzan novels, Tarzan was actually a nobleman as well, the Earl of Greystroke. And so the author was achieving a certain play on words by calling Tarzan, who was rightfully an English Lord, the Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan’s estate had become the jungle, and he was the master of all the beasts of the jungle.
Now in the case of a true English nobleman, a Lord would have been the master of his domain. He owned all the land. Everyone that worked and lived in his territory did so by his permission and according to his desire. He received compensation and respect and honor from all that he governed.
And I bring this up because I think so many miss out on the significance of the title of Jesus. Some people think Jesus had three names, much like we do. They think that Lord is his first name, Jesus is his middle name and Christ is his last name. But the fact is that Lord is his title, Jesus is his name, and Christ is a title as well which means Messiah in the Greek.
But the title that we are going to concern ourselves with today is Lord, and it is found in our text as Jesus says, “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Now there should be no objection of the fact that Jesus is frequently called Lord by his disciples, and that is his proper title. But there are two ways that the rendering Lord is presented in scripture. One is as a title of superiority, of nobility, of being master of all his domain, of ownership, of sovereignty. It is from the Greek word “kyrios”. And it is a title which is given to God, and here we see Jesus ascribing this title to himself.
There is another word that is translated LORD, which is usually written in all capital letters in scripture, and this is a transliteration of the personal name of God, Jehovah, which the Jewish scribes would not pronounce and wouldn’t even spell out because they thought it was too holy so it was written as LORD.
But the word “kyrios” or Lord as a title of God is the word we see today in our text, and it indicates nobility, the master of the estate, the sovereign prince, a title of honor and respect that is due to nobility.
Now let’s back up a bit and take this in context with the passage. Jesus and his disciples are traveling through a field on the Sabbath day, and his disciples are grabbing the heads of grain in their hands as they walk, and rubbing them in their palms, perhaps blowing to remove the chaff and then eating it. And this was permissible according to the Old Testament law. God had provided in the law for a man to be able to eat if he was hungry and passing through a neighbors field. There weren’t too many Wawa’s around then and God in his mercy said that it was permissible to eat of the field you passed through. Of course, you couldn’t take a sickle and a wheelbarrow in there, but God provided for a man that was hungry.
But if you were here last week then you will remember that the Pharisees were the main exponents of a nationalistic religion that had developed among the Jews which is known as Judaism. And the Pharisees had taken God’s laws and added to them a lot of man’s traditions, by which they thought they could become righteous.
And in particular, one of the main components of their religion was the observance of the Sabbath. At the heart of Judaism was the Sabbath observance. So they had added a lot of restrictions about what you could or couldn’t do on this day. For instance, according to the Talmud, you were only allowed to travel more than 3000 feet from your home. You couldn’t carry a burden, because that would be work. And they decided that a burden could be defined as anything bigger than a fig. You couldn’t tend to a person’s wounds on the Sabbath unless they were life threatening. Of course you couldn’t work in your fields or tend to your flock. So when they saw the disciples pulling grain off the stalks as they walked, they considered that reaping, and when they rolled it in their hands, they considered that gleaning, and when they blew off the chaff, they considered that winnowing. So these Judaisers called out Jesus over these infractions of Judaism and said why do your disciples do what is not lawful?
And Jesus answers them with an illustration from scripture about David, when he and his men were running from King Saul and they became hungry, and he came to the house of God and asked the priest there if he had anything to eat. And the priest said, no, nothing except the showbread. Now the showbread was 12 loaves of bread that were kept in the temple for a week, and then changed out on the 7th day for fresh loaves. But only the priests were allowed to eat the showbread, because it had been consecrated to the Lord.
And David answers the priest, “Well give us the showbread then.” The priest gave it to them and they were able to eat of the showbread. And Jesus uses this as an example that the ceremonial laws were able to be set aside for the sake of mercy. And this is an extremely important principle that Jesus establishes here that will be a hallmark of the new covenant. These ceremonial laws had been extrapolated into an oppressive burden by the Judaisers that according to Peter in Acts 15, had “placed upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.” But Jesus is establishing the principle that the ceremonial laws would be set aside for the sake of mercy.
Because the law was never intended to provide a means to righteousness. It wasn’t a stepladder to God. As Hebrews 9 says, “both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation.” The ceremonial laws were given as symbols or pictures of future things to come in Christ. So when Christ appeared, He ushered in a new covenant. A covenant founded on mercy and grace, because as Heb. 10 says, the old covenant, the Law, since it was only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.”
So what is the purpose of the law then? What was the purpose of the commandments? And how are we to see them today in light of the new covenant? Well, I believe that our text helps us answer these questions in light of Jesus statement to the Pharisees following his example of David, in which He says, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
And what is meant by that statement was the declaration that Jesus was first of all the Creator and He established the Sabbath. John 1 says that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” That means that Jesus was with God in the beginning, He was God, He was the Creator, He rested on the seventh day. It was His day. He made it, He declared it, He established it. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the sovereign that established the Sabbath. The Sabbath does not define Jesus. Jesus defines the Sabbath. And that is what He is telling those self righteous leaders of Judaism that day. He added in Matthew’s account, that something greater than the temple was here. The temple was just a picture of Him, as was the Sabbath.
Now when you understand that, then you start to understand the purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus said in Mark 2, that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. God provided it for man’s restoration. God provided for man’s peace. God provided for man’s rest. It was a gift of God to man.
So when we look at the 10 commandments, we see God’s moral law, and yet in number 4, the law concerning the Sabbath we see a ceremonial law. And the placement of this ceremonial law of the Sabbath is significant. And remember, ceremonial laws are what Hebrews 9 we quoted from earlier was talking about. Washings and sacrifices and offerings and festivals and days which all were symbolic, they were pictures, or shadows of good things to come through Christ Jesus. So then the Sabbath was a picture or a shadow or symbolic of a good thing to come in Christ Jesus. Those shadows, Hebrews 10 tells us, can never make a man perfect. But in Christ Jesus, we are made perfect. What the shadow could never do, but only point to, Jesus Christ came to do and did through His atonement on the cross.
Perhaps you have heard that the first 3 commandments relate to man’s relationship to God, and the commandments from 5 through 10 relate to man’s relationship to man. Now consider where the law concerning the Sabbath falls. It is number 4, right between God and man. Do you see the picture? Right in the middle between God and man is the mediator between God and man, the God/man Christ Jesus. Just as the scriptures declare in 1Tim. 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
So when we understand that Jesus is the mediator between God and man, that He is the bridge between an unreachable God and an unredeemed, sinful man, then we can understand why the Sabbath was given. It wasn’t given to be some burden that keeps people from relieving hunger or keeps a man from helping another. But the Sabbath was a picture of the rest and restoration that Jesus would provide for us. As He said in the last chapter, I have come to save those that are lost. I have come to heal those that are sick of their sinfulness, who realize that they are sick unto death in their sins. He came so that we might have rest from our works, trying to keep the law, and failing, unable to achieve righteousness, to make it possible that we might be reconciled to God.
Even as it says in Hebrews 4:9 “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” Jesus gives us rest, because He established our peace. He brokered peace between God and man. He is not only Lord of the Sabbath, but He is Prince of Peace. Sabbath, then, is shalom, and shalom is Sabbath. We have rest because we have peace. We have peace because we have rest. We have both because Jesus is not just Lord of the Sabbath and the Prince of Peace but is also our Sabbath, our Peace.
Now after Jesus’ declaration that He is Lord of the Sabbath and all that means, He then demonstrates His sovereignty on yet another Sabbath. Jesus entered the synagogue and was teaching, and Luke says there was a man there with a withered hand. And once again the Pharisees were waiting to see if they could catch him in something so that they could accuse Him. Their law stated that it wasn’t permissible to heal someone unless it was a life threatening condition. So this man’s life wasn’t in danger, and they saw their opportunity to accuse Him of being a lawbreaker.
But Jesus knew what they were thinking, and He wasn’t about to run from their trap, but rather is going to use it to expose their corrupt religion. So in vs. 9, “Jesus said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?" And that prompts the question again I asked earlier, what is the purpose of the law? Is it just to make life miserable, to keep us from enjoying life? Well, Galatians 3:24 gives us the answer: “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”
See, the law established God’s standard of righteousness. And we know that God’s righteousness is good, and is meant for our good. Sin on the other hand, is death. It kills, it captivates, it condemns, it burdens, it enslaves. Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Though the law was good, as it established the righteous standard of God, yet by it we were condemned because no one is able to reach that standard of perfection. So then the law became our tutor, our teacher. And what did it teach us? That we could not keep the law, we could not attain to that righteous standard of God, and so we needed a Savior, a substitute, one who would come in our place and keep the law perfectly for us, and then offer himself as a ransom for our penalty so that we might be saved, not by works, but by faith, by the gift of God which we call grace.
So the law was made for good, and therefore it is lawful to do good, to bring about restoration. Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, is our Savior. And so He healed the man’s withered hand to demonstrate his purpose, that He came to seek and to save those that were sick, as He spoke of in chapter 4, when He preached in his hometown and read from Isaiah 61, “"THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD."
The question remaining for us today then is not whether we keep the Sabbath week after week, but whether we have obtained the eternal Sabbath rest that has been provided through the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee, speaking of the time written in the law when the captives and slaves were to be set free, when the land was set apart to rest which is a picture of our salvation. The question today is can you say that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath in your life? Has He made peace between you and God? Has He provided the ransom to buy you out of slavery to sin? Has Jesus become your Lord and Master? Do you bow your knee to the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth? Do you recognize Him as the rightful owner of all that you possess, all your time, talents and treasures? Do you renounce laws and traditions and ceremonies that only serve to tie and bind up poor souls to serve an empty religion, and instead celebrate the rest that He has provided?
Today we don’t observe the Jewish Sabbath as the Judaisers did. Today we celebrate the peace and rest that comes through the Lord of the Sabbath, who became our Sabbath rest. As Jesus described in our passage last week at the end of chapter 5, new wine cannot go in old wineskins. Christ has ushered in a new covenant, a covenant based on faith in Christ’s finished work, and the grace of God who gives us Christ’s righteousness in exchange for our sins. This is how you appropriate this rest.
Hebrews 4:1 says, “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.” 7. “He again fixes a certain day, "saying, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS."
“So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.” But, “let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
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