[Homily. Assumption Chapel. January 17, 2023]
In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus and his disciples are passing through a field of grain. They are hungry. So they still their hunger by plucking the heads of wheat and munching on the grain. The Pharisees criticize them for this. Not because they were eating the grain planted by another, like stealing. Plucking the heads of wheat and eating the grain were actually allowed by Jewish law (cf. Deut. 23:5). They were criticized however because it was the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, and on the Sabbath work was forbidden.
For the Pharisees, even the minimal work of plucking the heads of wheat was forbidden. Jesus, however, does not agree. And he uses this conflict situation to deliver a message that for the Jew was as startling as it was important: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:24). More startling, indeed downright outrageous for the Jew was Jesus' next statement, "That is why the Son of Man [Jesus' reference to himself] is Lord even of the Sabbath!"
Remember the Lord's Rest
In this context, we remember the command of the Lord pertaining to the Sabbath. It is the third of the Lord's Ten Commandments: "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days, you shall labor and do your work. But the seventh 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. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it" (Exodus 20: 8-11). It was consecrated in memory of the Lord's rest on the seventh day, the day after he had labored to make heaven and earth – and found that it was good. "And on the seventh day, God finished the work that had been done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested, from all the work that he had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). God hallowed the Sabbath, commemorating God's rest after his work of creation.
And now the Son of Man, Jesus, was teaching, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Jesus justified his defense of their plucking grain on the Sabbath by citing King David and his men eating of the bread of the Temple when they were hungry (cf. Mk 2:23-28, 1 Samuel 21:1-6).
The Sabbath For Man
The purpose of the Sabbath, the Lord's day, was not just to remember God's rest; the purpose of the Lord's day was man – man and woman, humanity. With authority, Jesus was saying: Man is not dehumanized or disrespected or disregarded in his humanity for the Sabbath. Instead, the Sabbath functions for the good of man, the humanization of man and woman, for the ultimate attainment of "the fullness of life" that the Lord came to bring. Thus, on the Sabbath, Jesus repeatedly confounds – even provokes - his Jewish critics by miracles on the Sabbath. Recall that on the Sabbath, he cured the man with the withered hand (Mt. 12:10), he cured the long-disabled woman in the synagogue (Lk 13:14), he cured the man born blind (John 9:16), among many other examples.
Enter the Lord's Rest
In this context let us recall the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews 4:1-12 which we heard last Friday, Jan. 13. Addressing early Christians who were, like many of us, flagging in their faith, or in danger of falling away from the faith, or of becoming Christians merely in name but not in truth, the author of Hebrews says, "…while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it." The Sabbath is not just about you remembering the Lord's rest on the seventh day, it is about your vocation to enter the Lord's rest. Here the contextual image is that of the Exodus when after God liberated the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, because of their rebellious murmuring, they wandered in the desert for forty years before they entered the rest [not the rest as remainder but the freedom from coerced work, the respite, the repose, the peace] of the Promised Land. Indeed, because of their lack of faith in the Lord, their disobedience and fear of the Lord's enemies, there were those whom Joshua could not lead into the peace, the rest, of the Promised Homeland.
Jesus, the New Joshua
In the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus, whose name in Hebrew is Yeshua, is the new Joshua, Yehoshua, who is leading Christians, redeemed by his blood as High Priest, to the rest of the seventh day, the peace and glory of the Heavenly Sanctuary. Christians, therefore, are to stay the course and renew their faith in the good news of the Lord. When? On which day? Hebrews actually sets a concrete day. Not just any day. But today! "Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 4:7). Today, in commemorating the Lord's Sabbath, "make every effort to enter that rest" - not just the rest of the Promised Land but the eternal rest, happiness, joy and peace of Heaven after the travails and groanings of history are ended – "so that no one may fall through disobedience" (Hebrews 4:11).
The Lord's Rest is Heaven
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Father worked in Creation and entered his rest on the seventh day. He created man and woman in his image and likeness. In freedom, man sinned in disobedience and set himself against God. Today, the Father continues to work to reconcile humanity to himself, to reconcile humanity with humanity, and to reconcile humanity with his creation through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ, he works in order to guide humanity to enter the rest of our salvation. Only through the grace of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, do we enter our rest.
As the Letter to the Ephesians proclaims:
"God who is rich in mercy,
out of the great love with which he loved us
even when we were dead through our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ –
by grace, you have been saved –
and raised us up with him
and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come, he might show
the immeasurable riches of his grace
in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus…" (Ephesians 2:4-7).
In sum, keep holy the Sabbath Day, for us Christians, now Sunday! Work six days to enter the rest of the Lord on the seventh day. Rest on this day. Celebrate it. Let this practice remind you of our hope at the end of our time: after the work and travail of our lives to enter the rest of the Lord in the heavenly sanctuary!
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