Set the Timer

Mark 15:46-47

      I love this time of year. I love the sound of the timer going off, the smell of fresh cookies and those first bites of warm deliciousness. But sometimes the moments between the dough entering the oven and that first bite can seem like an eternity. It did as a kid. Mom would allow me to like the bowl while we waited. That would help pass the time.

      But waiting for time to pass can be some of the most difficult moments of life. The emergency room waiting room has some of the slowest clocks on the planet. It is the same in the surgery suite area. Time moves incredibly slowly there. You can almost hear the tick, tick, tick, each second filling the space with more than its fair share.

      Jesus has died and Joseph of Arimathea has gotten custody of the body. Joseph is a pre-resurrection believer. He actively seeks God’s presence in his life. And now he must bury Someone who seemed to exhibit such hope for the future. The ability to speak Truth to power was present in Jesus. And there was power that backed up His words, power that proved the Truth of what He said. While Joseph hadn’t witnessed all the miracles, he had heard about them. His position on the Council, the Jewish ruling body in Jerusalem, the capital city of Judaism in that day, would have brought him in contact with the best reports available.

      Jesus is taken down from the cross. I am sure it wasn’t a very delicate operation. How do you pry spikes out of hands and feet delicately? I am sure the Roman’s had a spike puller, but at this point, the end of a long day and long duty day, I am sure those soldiers on duty weren’t especially helpful. The crowds had faded. The main event had passed. One of their charge had died, the other two lingered.

      So down comes the body and now it is time for Joseph to do what he came to do. He receives Jesus’ body and hastily prepares it for burial. Time is running short. They have to complete the operation before the sun sets. Time is of the essence. Joseph has quickly purchased some cloth to wrap Jesus’ body. He has his own tomb as a loaner burial spot. They get His body placed. No other normal preparations can be completed. They will have to wait until Sunday morning.

      To ensure no wild animals disturb the body, a large stone is place over the front of this cave carved in the hillside. This was a common tomb design. It could be opened in the future, but it took effort. Remember, tombs in that day often were used repeatedly over time, much like family mausoleums today. There was a main entrance, and then individual places for current and future burials. Jesus was the first occupant of this space. And as far as we can tell, Joseph didn’t know He was a temporary occupant.

      And while Joseph is doing his job, the women watch and wait. When the stone is rolled in place the timer starts. They must wait until the sun rises on Sunday morning before they can do what traditionally would have taken place prior to burial. But the hasty nature of the burial meant that they would have to return. They would have to bring water and towels to wash His body. They would have to bring spices to mask the coming smells. They would have to honor His body with the gentle combing of His hair and beard, and washing of His wounds another day and another time. The beginning of the Sabbath demanded their exit from the tomb. This was after all Passover, the celebration of God’s acts saving Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

      And so they must walk to their temporary lodgings and spend two nights, the clock ticking, moments moving excruciatingly slowly. They just want to honor the man they spent three years caring for, and for whom no act of kindness and no sacrifice was too great. And yet they must wait.

Who’s In Charge Here?

Mark 2:28

      Have you ever walked into a room and wondered who was in charge? I notice this especially when I have been called for a meeting. As the chatter continues, I just want someone to step up, take charge, get the meeting going and keep it on track. I want someone to be the leader. Without leaders we often wander about aimlessly, getting nowhere.

      Every group will have a leader, either one appointed, or one will arise from the group. People don’t do things without having someone leading. Even when doing things by consensus, someone must take the vote. Even the Occupy political movement had leaders, even if they were behind the scenes pulling the strings, directing the structure and funding some of the participants. What is funny and disheartening is that the behind the scenes political powers have not adopted the very stances their movement stood against for political purposes. They now favor corporations over the individual. They are using power at their whim. Sad.

      Our text tells us something profound about Jesus. It says that He is in charge of the Sabbath. It is not making a statement about every human being. The Son of Man is the title, as we have seen before, that Jesus uses for Himself. Mark records this title as a way for Jesus to self-identify. Mark is making the point that Jesus is claiming authority by His statement.

      But what is the authority He is claiming? Who is in charge of the Sabbath? Well, I would have to say the LORD! He is the One who set it up and named it. He said work six days and rest the seventh. He is the One who set up the pattern in Scripture in His revealed account of the Creation of the World. Create for six, rest on the seventh.

      So Jesus is at least claiming that He has authority over the strict rules of the Sabbath, that He is at least as important as David. David is the precedent that Jesus quotes. If David can do it, and he was simply a future earthly king, how much more do I, the eternal King of the Universe, have authority over an earthly ritual.

      Mark is making the point to point out the various realms of Jesus’ authority. He has demonstrated with the teaching and miracle pattern that Jesus has authority in many realms. The earthly ritual realm is only one of those areas. The next section will show His authority over the Sabbath demonstrated with another miracle.

      Do you recognize Jesus’ authority over your calendar?

Relax and Enjoy

Mark 2:23-28

      That concept of having a Sabbath rest is something the LORD started. Work and rest are important. Most of us have forgotten how to rest, or perhaps never learned the joy of resting. We are a pretty driven people. Even when we “rest” we are usually doing something. But as I read the original establishment of the Sabbath Day as part of the LORD’s covenant with Israel, one thing jumped out at me. When we take a day of rest, others also enjoy the benefit. The text in Exodus speaks about the household help and the working animals getting the benefit of our taking a day of rest. I had never thought about the benefit others receive when I rest.

      The example of rest is of course the LORD. He worked for six days and then rested the seventh. This pattern of work and rest is given to Israel for their benefit, and a way to remember how important rest is. It is a way of demonstrating faith in the LORD to provide. We don’t work during that seventh day, and the seventh year as a demonstration of the LORD’s faithfulness and our dependency.

      But we can get the application of this idea of rest all messed up, so that it loses its true meaning. The religious climate of Jesus’ day made keeping the Sabbath anything but restful. You had to ‘do’ all sorts of things on the Sabbath in order to not be working. There were multiple steps and complicated rules that must be followed in order to be a good Jew.

      Jesus is walking through a grain field. We don’t know where he was coming from or what His ultimate destination was. All we know is that Mark includes this section of teaching as part of this series of teaching and miracle to prove the teaching. Here Mark shows Jesus refocusing the Sabbath observations. The Sabbath is to benefit us, not the other way around.

      Jesus’ disciples were hungry and picked some grain to eat. This was a common custom, an accepted practice. They weren’t doing anything wrong. But the rules became what was important, not the observation of the LORD’s Sabbath, a demonstration of trust in Him.

Day 171

Promises of believers' rest

Hebrews 4

Key Verses: 3, 11, 12, 15, 16

When we believe we start the Sabbath. So what is this Sabbath we start? Sabbath means rest from working, and came to mean seventh day. God made the world in six days and then rested on the seventh. In Egypt they worked every day, so when God instituted the Sabbath and told the Israelites not to do any regular work, they must have not known what to do with themselves.

Not working all the time required them to trust Him. They gave up one seventh of their productivity when they followed the Lord. How could they compete in a global marketplace if they didn’t maximize their earnings potential. Several stores, Hobby Lobby and Chick fil-A come quickly to mind, are open only six days a week. They could increase their market share if they opened that extra day, but they have other priorities.

But the writer isn’t really worried about market share. He is talking about the work of our spiritual walk. The Jews of his day were so focused on the ‘doing’ of their faith, the details of obeying what they thought God wanted them to do, that they missed the fact that Jesus had already secured their eternity. Their work was already done. Jesus had done it for them. They needed to rest in His completed work.

We can get caught up in this same cycle, thinking we must do one more thing in order to gain God’s approval. But we can also rest in God’s full acceptance and live our lives in that rest. Life is lived very differently when you know that someone accepts you totally and completely, knowing all your brokenness and fallibility. So many people don’t have that in any human relationship. We can have it in our relationship with God. We can breathe a bit sigh of relief: we are accepted.

What makes this an even more joyous experience is knowing that He knows it all and we are still accepted. And out of that acceptance we are free to live lives of surrender and productivity for Him. He invites us to live in His presence. We are loved. He offers mercy and grace.

And He knows what it is like to struggle with temptation. He was tempted and resisted. We can resist temptation and know that if we fall, we are still accepted and loved. This is not an excuse for sinning. He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart, so He knows genuine repentance when He sees it. But we can rest in His acceptance of us. And when we rest we can freely obey.