READINGS: Deut 5:12-15; Psalm 80:3-8,10-11; 2 Cor 4:6-11; Mark 2:23-3:6
THEME: Where there is no complete free human person, there is no Sabbath Rest.
a. The Law of Sabbath
Dearest friends, in today’s readings, we are being presented with the day of Sabbath and its law. The law of the Sabbath is the third of the ten commandments as listed in Deut 5:1-21.
Having chosen the people of Israel, and Israel having accepted God as their God, it is then time for God to set them apart from other nations. The ten commandments become therefore statutes that would guide the people of Israel so that they live truly as God’s own people and live differently from other nations around them.
The law of Sabbath is God’s demand of rest from the people in imitation of him and in respect to his own day of rest. The primary demand of Sabbath is ‘rest’. But it is interesting to see how God makes a connection between this sabbath rest and the seventh day of creation.
In the account of creation, the seventh day stands as the day of completion, perfection of the work of God, and a day of meditative wondering (meravigliarsi of Italian) of the wonderful works of God. That means that sabbath becomes a consequence of God’s complete work of creation, an observance that came because God’s work was completed.
b. Sabbath means Guaranteeing Rest for All
In giving the law of Sabbath, God speaks directly to the people of Israel, as free people. But this day of rest is not only for the people of Israel, but for all including their slaves and animals. The word of God says, “Thus your servant, man and woman, shall rest as you do.”
The Hebrew word which is translated as “as you do” is ךָוֹֽ֑ מָּכ) kamoka) (Deut. 5:14). Kamoka is a comparative construction that brings two entities into a similar state. When God says that the servants, man, and woman, shall rest ‘kamoka’(just as you do) it means that the people of Israel are to make sure that everybody around them joins or lives in this ‘sabbath rest of God’.
That means, if there is anyone who has difficulty that prohibits him or her from having this reflective rest, then they are to make sure that such a difficulty is settled, and the person brought to this rest. It is therefore against the desire of God, that some people will be observing the rest, while others are in the state of restlessness because of one problem or the other.
c. Where there is slavery, there is no Sabbath Rest
Giving the people of Israel the reason they must allow their servants and everybody around them to be part of this Sabbatical rest, God said to them “remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm…” (Deut. 5:15)
Hence, the liberation of the people of Israel can also be seen as the work of God’s creation in them. The six days of work can be likened to the whole moment God was in war with the Egyptian king over the freedom of the people of Israel (Ex 4-14). The seventh day then becomes the day after their liberation, the day of rest from slavery work, and the day of praise of God for the greatness of his might (cf Ex 15:1-21).
In the same way, the people of Israel are to do everything possible, fight with everything they have, in order to lead others from their moments of slavery to the state of rest and praise of God’s greatness. Slavery can come in different forms like lack, sickness, unquietness and difficulties of life. God had no rest until he had secured the freedom and liberation of his people.
The people of God are to enter into this rest, knowing that there is no slave nor someone in difficulty among or around them.
d. The Sabbath is made for human person, and not human person for Sabbath.
In the gospel, we see Jesus expressing everything we have discussed above about Sabbath and its rest entail. And all these actions and significance of Sabbath, Jesus summarises with the sentence “the sabbath was made for human person, not human person for the Sabbath.”
In the creation account, there would not have been the seventh day, that is the Sabbath day, if there were not the first six days. Sabbath therefore becomes a day of completion.
In the ‘creation’ of the people of Israel into God’s own people, there would not have been a day of rest if the freedom of the people were not totally secured and won by God. The song of the people in Exodus 15:1-21 therefore becomes a song of a people who have been freed from their slavery and have entered into rest from servitude and oppression.
Hence, it is because there is a human person, who is now completely made (Genesis account of creation), providing him everything he needs, water, light etc., that Sabbath was possible (cf Gen 1). And it is because there was a people who had no king to fear nor hard labour to undergo, nor hunger and molestation to suffer, that ‘sabbath of praise and rest’ became possible (cf Ex 15).
If there is no human person, free and alive, there won’t be sabbath because God rested after his work of making man, free and happy.
In the gospel, we are presented with two occasions that made observance of sabbath difficult for some people: the disciples and the man with withered hand.
While the Pharisees were arguing that the disciples should have not gone into the garden of corn to save themselves from dying of hunger, and that also the man with withered hand should have been left to be in his pain and ailment because it was sabbath, Jesus argues that this is not what God means by sabbath rest. Jesus argues that whenever there is even one human person, who is in need of salvation, who is in need of freedom, and of lifting from a particular difficulty, then that must be done for sabbath to begin.
Insofar there is such a needy human person who directly or indirectly calls for our action of assistance, then ignoring such a person because of our sabbath observance would not only make such an observance of sabbath senseless but also against the intention of God.
Any observance of sabbath that overlooks the difficulties of others, or that neglects the restlessness of others due to one difficulty in life or the other, is not the Sabbath rest of God whose Sabbath came as a consequence of perfection of creation and secure of his people’s freedom and happiness.
Fr. Henry Nnamah C
Catholic Diocese of Aguleri