A Park in Time
| He [Jesus] went to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue,
as was his custom. And he stood up to read. . . . “He has sent me to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release
the oppressed.” Luke 4:16-18, NIV. |
A park is
a refuge in space. My friends who live in Manhattan tell me how precious
Central Park is to them. They live and work surrounded by towering buildings
and pavement. The pace of city life is frantic, unrelenting. But when they
step into Central Park, everything changes. Trees offer shade. They find
grass for spreading a blanket and sharing a picnic. My friends say that
while in the park they feel a thousand miles away from the pressure, the
stress, the frantic pace.
The Sabbath is a refuge
in time. For 24 hours every week God invites us to put aside the struggle
to earn a living, to get A’s in school, to keep an immaculate house. During
those 24 hours He invites us to act out the rest we have in Jesus. The
Sabbath is the gospel in dramatic form. For a whole day we rest in the
accomplishments of our Saviour. We shut out all the demands and expectations
of the world and luxuriate in the promises of God.
Notice how Jesus kept the
Sabbath (Luke 4). During a Sabbath worship service Jesus quoted from Isaiah
61, a passage that predicts the coming of the Messiah in the language of
the Jubilee, the time when Israelites should release captives and set free
the oppressed (Lev. 25:10, 40, 54).
Luke then follows with two
healing episodes. Both of them occurred on Sabbath. The first one happened
in Capernaum during a Sabbath service at which Jesus healed a possessed
man, freeing him from spiritual slavery to a demon (Luke 4:33-37). The
second occurred later the same day in the home of Peter, where Jesus and
the disciples had gone to eat after church. There Jesus healed Peter’s
mother-in-law’s high fever (verses 38, 39).
Notice the way Luke tells
these stories. First Jesus announces His mission as Messiah by quoting
Isaiah about freeing the oppressed. Next He brings spiritual healing
to a man possessed by a demon. Then He gives physical healing to
a woman suffering from a fever. I think Jesus was telling us something
about the meaning of the Sabbath, don’t you?
| Why do you spend all your time among
towering problems and dead-end pavement, when God has provided a weekly
park in time for you to enjoy? Why not follow the custom of Jesus? |
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