The First Sunday after Trinity 02 06 24
OLD TESTAMENT READING: 1 Samuel 3:1-20
NEW TESTAMENT READING: 2 Corinthians 4:5-12
GOSPEL Mark 12:28-34
The religious leaders in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ had great difficulty to understand the way he thought about sabbath.
In Judaism Shabbat is primarily a day of rest and spiritual enrichment. The word “Shabbat” comes from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest. The religion at the time of Jesus understood this very literally and they were not able to see the significance of the institution of the sabbath.
The observance of the Sabbath was prescribed in the creation account in the book of Genesis. The understanding was that God created the universe in six days and on the seventh day God rested and therefore the seventh day was considered to be ordained as a day of rest.
Further one of the 10 Commandments was ‘Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy’. (Exodus 20.8). It was a day of rest for everyone including the workers and even for the livestock. ‘But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns’.(Exodus 20.10). The Holiness of the sabbath was that God values life and the wellbeing of life and that was the intention of the Sabbath.
Jesus began his ministry, and he started healing people on the Sabbath and we can see that infuriated the religious leaders. There was constant objections to Jesus healing on the Sabbath but Jesus went about healing people on the Sabbath. He wanted to make the message clear that the most important thing for God is the wellbeing of people and for those who are suffering God offers them healing.
Caring for suffering people on the Sabbath is the best thing people can offer to God. Jesus saith the ‘ sabbath is made for humankind and not humankind for the sabbath’.
We as Christian people do not observe the sabbath but we gather together for worship and fellowship on Sunday which is the day of resurrection. The day Jesus rose victorious from the grave.
The day of worship is for us a day of revival, a day to come back to life breaking free from the clutches of sin and from all that negates life. The day of worship for us is a day of rejoicing that we share in the resurrection of Jesus in the every day experiences and in eternity.