4) The Rest (Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-6)

Editorial comment: Sorry that this is a really long post, but it's what all of us deeply want more than anything else in all the world and in all of life: REST.

Chap 1: The Dance (of the Trinity) (Mark 1:9-11): Who's the center: God, others, or you?

Chap 2: The Gospel and The Call (Mark 1:14-20): Are you teaching good news or good advice?

Chap 3: The Healing (Mark 2:1-5): Who are your sins mainly against: God or people?

Quotes: "Most of us work and work trying to prove ourselves, to convince God, others, and ourselves that we're good people. That work is never over unless we rest in the gospel." (43)

"On the cross Jesus was saying...the thing that makes you truly weary, this need to prove yourself because who you are and what you do are never good enough--that it is finished." (43)

"On the cross Jesus experienced the restlessness of separation from God so that we can have the deep rest of knowing that he loves us and our sins have been forgiven." (43)

"Christianity...is either the most devastating disclosure of the deepest reality of the world (that Jesus is the very Creator God Himself), or it is a sham, a nonsense, a bit of deceitful playacting." N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth

"Why does Jesus become angry with the religious leaders? Because the Sabbath is about restoring the diminished. It's about replenishing the drained. It's about repairing the broken." (38) [It's not about "squeezing" and regulating people to keep the Sabbath!]

Religious Regulations Shriveled Up the Religious Elite

The law of God directed you to rest from your work 1 day in 7. The religious elite "practicalized" this law with a stack of specific regulations. There were 39 types of activity you couldn't do on the Sabbath, including reaping grain, which the Pharisees accused the disciples of doing (Mark 2:23-28). Another time, Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6), which is to do exactly what the Sabbath is all about. Yet because the leaders are so concerned about the "regulations that should be observed," they strongly opposed Jesus healing the man--an incredible example of missing the forest for the trees. Their hearts are as shriveled as the man's hand. They are "regulations-centered," tribal, judgmental, and self-obsessed instead of caring about the man. Why? Religion.

Religion Versus the Gospel

Jesus shows that there are 2 radically different spiritual paradigms. Imagine 2 people obeying the law operating from 2 opposing paradigms. Both keep the Sabbath, but in one case the obedience is a burden, an enslavement; while in the other it's a delight, a gift. Why? One paradigm is religion--which is fundamentally advice: You must keep the Sabbath, or else... The other is the gospel, which begins and ends with news.

Most people relate to God (or non-god) by being good with a million different variations--nationalistic, spirtualistic, legalistic--with the exact same logic: If I perform, if I obey, I'm accepted. The gospel is not only different from this, but diametrically opposed to it: I'm fully accepted in Jesus Christ, and therefore I obey.

In religion the purpose of obeying the law is to assure yourself that you're all right with God. You're concerned with detail. You want to know exactly what you're got to do, because you have to push all the right buttons. You don't seek the intent of the law, but write into the law all sorts of details of observance, for yourself and others to obey. But the law--though still binding on Christians--functions in a completely different way, showing you the God who loves you and has done so much for you. Instead of being absorbed with yourself (and how you and others are doing), it takes you out of yourself, to truly focus on God and others.

Lord of the Sabbath (Versus Self-Righteous Religious Preoccupation)

Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Sabbath means a deep rest, a deep peace. It's a near synonym for shalom--a state of wholeness and flourishing in every dimension of life. Here, Jesus is not saying that he is Lord over the Sabbath, but that he is the Sabbath. He is the source of the deep rest we need (not the religious regulations and observances). By saying this:

1. Jesus affirms, even celebrates, the original principle of the Sabbath--the need for rest.


2. Jesus squashes the legalism around its observance.


3. Jesus dismantles the whole religious paradigm.


4. Jesus does all the above by pointing to himself and to his identity.

The Practical Meaning of the Sabbath

What does Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, mean practically?

At the end of the account of creation in Genesis 1, God rested (Gen 2:1-3). Was God tired? Surely not. Another meaning of rest (besides taking time off work) is to be so satisfied with your work, so utterly satisfied, that there's nothing else I need to do. When God finished creating, God was so satisfied, he said, "It was very good" (Gen 1:31).

The movie Chariots of Fire, is based on the true story of Eric Liddell, a Christian, who competed in the Paris Olympics of 1924. Though he was favored to win the gold medal for the prestigious 100 meters, he was so satisfied in God that he refused to run in it, because it fell on Sun, his day of Sabbath rest. He said to his sister, "God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure." But another sprinter, Harold Abrahams, said about the 100 meters, "I've got 10 sec to justify my existence." So even when he rested, he felt weary, while Eric Liddell was rested even when he was exerting himself, as Jesus said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt 11:30).

How can we truly rest, even when exerting our self? This is hard to grasp and wrap ourselves around this thought and idea: There is a work underneath our work that we really need rest from. It's the work of self-justification. It's the work that leads us to take refuge in religion, in legalism, in morality, in conformity, in Phariseeism, in older brother righteousness, in being people-pleasers, in living before people (Pro 29:25), etc.

Jesus Sought to End Religion; the Religious Elite Sought to Put an End to Jesus

After this encounter, the religious elite plotted to kill Jesus by collaborating with the Herodians (Mark 3:6). The Pharisees represent moral conformity, upholding traditional values ("You must lead a very, very good life), while the Herodians represent self-discovery or self expression ("You must decide for yourself what is right or wrong for you."). They actually hated each other with a passion, insisting that their "way" is the right way. They hate each other as much as the Democrats "hate" Rush Limbaugh, and Rush Limbaugh "hates" the Democrats. But in eliminating Jesus, they were totally united and on the exact same page!

Is there any commonality between moral conformity (Pharisees) and self-expression (Herodians)? According to the Bible, both of these are ways of being your own savior and lord (Luke 15:11-32), and both lead to deadly self-righteousness.

• The moralist says, "The good people are in and the bad people are out--and of course we are the good ones."


• The self-discovery person says, "Oh no, the progressive, open-minded people are in and the judgmental bigots are out--and of course we are the open-minded ones.


• Only the gospel says, "The humble are in and the proud are out." The gospel says that people who know they're not better, not more open-minded, not more moral than anyone else, are in, and the people who think they're on the right side of the divide are most in danger.

Question: Do you find rest in what was done for you on the cross, or are you still restlessly trying to find rest in who you are and in what you do?

Posted via email from benjamintoh's posterous

C.S. Lewis on Pride

"A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

What a reflective quote from Lewis' chapter on The Great Sin that we heard in the sermon. I found additional meaningful related quotes from that chapter:

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves."

"There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others."

"According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison..."

"...if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise."

"In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison- you do not know God at all."

"How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people..."

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good-above all, that we are better than someone else-I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object."

"It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can smuggle itself into the very center of our religious life. But you can see why. The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly."