Luke 4:14-21 (NIV)

¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵ He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹ He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Reflection:

When Jesus proclaimed that the “year of the Lord’s favor” was upon them, the people wondered what He meant.  Was He referring to the “year of Jubilee”?  But everyone knew that it was not that special year which occurred every fifty years.  No, it was not the time to leave their farmlands unattended, so that the destitute can pick the fruits.  It was neither the time for the homeless who lost their land to get it back, nor for the slaves to gain their freedom.  It certainly was not the time for the poor to have their debts cancelled.  So how could Jesus announce that this was the “year of the Lord’s favor?”  While it was not the year of Jubilee, Jesus was bringing God’s favor in a new way - restoration, healing and salvation. He was the good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, healing for the sick, and much more.  Greater than the year of Jubilee, it was a declaration that Jesus, the true Jubilee, the favor of God had come.

Response:

The year of the Lord’s favor is upon us today. His salvation, healing and freedom have not decreased.  We can continue to increase in our worship because His proclamations continue to be fulfilled in our hearing.  How else can we respond to this great news?  Let’s praise and thank God for pouring out His favor upon us, and let’s pray and ask Him to increase His salvation, healing and freedom among us.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Reflection:

Sabbath presents many dimensions to us.  On the one hand, it is a reflective remembrance of all that God has done in the past to bring us into His salvation story.  On the other hand, it is a future hope of the everlasting and perfect rest that we will one day share with our almighty Father God.  But it is also a powerful present-day reality that we can experience through faith in Jesus Christ.  These words are the very words of our Lord Jesus who invites us to come and lay down all of our weariness and burdens.  These words are His promise that we will find real rest for our souls.  How we receive this rest is to come to Him and take His yoke upon us.  His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and we are to learn from Him.  We can do this because He Himself is our real rest.

Response:

Believing in His gentle and humble heart, let’s come before Him with one specific burden that has been in your heart.  With faith and trust, let’s offer up this burden to Him and trust that He will give us the kind of true rest that our souls really need.

Genesis 2:1-3 (NIV);

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Exodus 20:8-11 (NIV)

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ 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 male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ 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.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (NIV)

¹² “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ 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 male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

Luke 6:8-10 (NIV)

⁸ But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.  ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰ He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored.

Reflection:

“Beep…beep…beep.”  Most of us wake up every morning with the sound of an alarm clock beeping in our ears.  It reminds us to get up and get ready for the day.  In a similar way, the Sabbath was a reminder of all that God had done for the Israelites.  With each Sabbath, they remembered how God created the world and rested on the seventh day, and how with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, how He rescued them from slavery and sustained them in the wilderness.  But when Jesus came on the scene, it was no longer just a remembrance, but it became an experience.  He healed.  He restored. He rescued.  And when He healed, it was a sign that God was still rescuing and saving with His mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  Although it appeared like Jesus was breaking the Sabbath, He was actually observing it but in a deeper way and perfectly fulfilling its original intent to bring the ultimate rest for His people.

Response:

How do we remember all the things God has done in our lives?  We remember as we experience, we experience as we remember, and we do this over and over.  We believe that the same arm that stretched out to save us in the past reaches out to us to heal and restore us now.  Let’s bring to God all of the areas of our lives that need healing whether physical, emotional or spiritual.  Let’s believe in His power that heals us and trust that God’s hand is mighty for us.

John 5:1-18 (NIV)

¹ Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.  ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷ In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Reflection:

Why couldn’t Jesus have come just a day earlier or a day later?  Why did He have to heal the crippled man on the Sabbath and get the Pharisees all upset?  While the Pharisees tried hard to maintain their sense of order and righteousness through their rules and regulations, it seemed as if Jesus was intentionally rocking their “boat” trying to pick a fight.  We too, like the Pharisees, want a sense of order over our surrounding circumstances.  We feel threatened when our world gets “rocked,” we regulate our needs, and we maintain control by creating our own rules to avoid problems, embarrassment or even inconvenience.  But, Jesus is not like that.  Because Jesus knows our deeper need for salvation and healing, He breaks down all the barriers for our sake.  He sees us as more important than rules or regulations.  He works and heals undeterred by time, convenience or opposition, in order to give us the true, everlasting rest that comes only from Him.  God is at work all the time.

Response:

Even with our pharisaic tendencies to create and control our own order, how wonderful it is to know that Jesus knows our real need and is always at work for us.  How truly amazing it is to believe that He loves to heal us, restore us and give us rest.  Let’s take a moment to search our hearts and confess our sinful tendencies to the Lord.  May we surrender our hearts to the Lord and welcome the Holy Spirit to heal and restore our hearts.

Isaiah 56:1-8 (NIV)

¹ This is what the LORD says:

“Maintain justice
and do what is right,
for my salvation is close at hand
and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
² Blessed is the one who does this—
the person who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

³ Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say,
“The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”

⁴ For this is what the LORD says:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
⁵ to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will endure forever.
⁶ And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to minister to him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”
⁸ The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”

Reflection:

When you strip away all of the rules and regulations, the Sabbath is about a love story between a merciful God and a desperate humanity in need of salvation.  It boils down to a celebratory expression of worship, loyalty and obedience to God who is utterly faithful to His people.  As a call and response to live righteously, the Lord blesses and rewards those who hold fast to His promises, bind themselves to His way, and minister as His servants.  And we are his people, the ones who are truly blessed by God.  We have been given a name better than sons and daughters, an everlasting name that will endure forever.  He brought us into His presence and gave us joy in His house of prayer.  And in faith and obedience, we are being built up as a house of prayer for all nations to come, join in and celebrate together in His salvation and restoration.

Response:

Because God’s salvation has come in Jesus Christ, we can celebrate in God’s true salvation rest.  Let’s thank God for our salvation and our lives in Him.  Let’s pray that we will continue to hold fast and bind ourselves to Him.  Let’s also pray for those we know who have yet to experience this true rest, asking God to empower us to minister to them.