Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s lesson from Luke’s Gospel includes a story of Jesus healing a woman with “a spirit of infirmity”—a woman who was bent over and who could not stand upright because of that infirmity. Jesus healed that woman and she immediately stood upright. However, the ruler of the synagogue objected strenuously, stating that this healing was work, and that such work should not be done on the Sabbath.

For somebody steeped in the Jewish Scriptures, with repeated injunctions to keep God’s Sabbath as a matter of obedience, as a way to show honor for God’s creative work and his lordship, and as an overseer of a public worship space—this man had a valid point. Jesus was calling into question a basic commandment and a matter of essential identity for the people by violating the commandment.

But here is the irony: while the Old Testament bristles with commands to keep the Sabbath, the Gospels are replete with references to Jesus repeatedly violating that command, even referring to himself as the “Lord of the Sabbath.”

Why? Much could be said, but one issue here is that the Sabbath was a shadow of something that would be revealed more gloriously in the future. The original Sabbath was a celebration of God’s creative work and rest, mimicked in the shape of the days of each week. However, when Christ arrives in the flesh, his incarnation and resurrection make the whole creation immortal (think of Christ’s baptism sanctifying the very waters of the Jordan). In this sense, resurrection is the greater event for us, because it is our re-creation, our deliverance from death and slavery of sin.

For this reason, and following the compelling logic of Jesus’ earthly story, our worship has transferred from Saturday to Sunday, the Lord’s Day, when Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.

Yours in Christ,

Justin