The Sabbath day was a special day for the Israelites to celebrate God’s love, and the rest they had from sin. That’s why they had to make special sacrifices on the Sabbath. God wanted them to always focus on his love and forgiveness.

But the Pharisees had made many of their own rules for the Sabbath and so had taken the real meaning out of the Sabbath day. And so, when they saw the disciples of Jesus plucking grain on the Sabbath and eating it, they told them off for disobeying their man-made rules.

But when Jesus heard them, he reminded them of the real meaning of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was not about keeping all these rules, but about God’s love for his people. Jesus said that David was allowed to eat the holy bread, which only the priest was meant to eat when he was hungry. That bread was on show to remind the people of God’s love for them. Just like bread keeps us alive, so God would look after his people. Yet when David was hungry, he was allowed to eat that holy bread.

With this example Jesus is telling the disciples not to take the real meaning out of the Sabbath. If they spent the whole day focusing on their man-made rules, they would not remember the day as a day to celebrate God’s love and forgiveness.

And so today, we can’t spend the Sunday focusing on rules about what we are and are not allowed to do. If we do that, we would forget about God’s love for us and that we are saved because of him and not our own obedience. But we also can’t just spend the Sunday doing whatever we please and focusing on ourselves. Then, too, we would be forgetting about God’s love.

We must spend the Sunday going to church and focusing on the love of God for us, and on how he has forgiven our sins and is preparing us for the eternal rest in heaven.

Reflection with your child:

Do you enjoy the Sunday? Why?

Source: Sermon by Rev. R. Vermeulen