Matthew 12:1-13

Chapter 49

Prayer

Almighty God, thou hast made all things good for us, and thou hast issued to our hearts a great welcome, broad as all thy love. Thou hast called to those who are hungry and thirsty, thou dost give them chief places in thine house that they may eat and drink abundantly and forget all their pain and weariness. Great voices of hospitality fall from the heavens upon our weary life: when there is no door into which we can enter upon the earth, thou dost call us upward to thyself and offer us wide liberty and continual joy. Thou hast made all things beautiful for man: for him thou dost enkindle the fires and light the flames of glory, and for him thou dost make the earth bring forth abundantly everything that could nourish his strength and delight his taste. What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou dost visit him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honour, thou hast put all things under his feet, thou dost live thine own life over again in this mystery of human pain.

We are now in thy chosen house, where thy book is read in our mother-tongue, and where is the holy altar sprinkled with the blood of the heart of Christ, even the great cross itself, whose root is in the earth and whose head is in thy heavens. Whilst we are here we will bless thee with loud psalm and sweet hymn and anthems of rapturous joy, because it is here that thy broadest revelations brighten before us and thy tenderest grace heals our heart with infinite comfort. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven: here the angels come lo speak of the risen one, and here our tears are dried as we hear the voice from heaven saying, "He is not here, he is risen." May we all rise in Christ, may we know not only the fellowship of his sufferings, but also the power of his resurrection; may we live in his life, endure throughout his eternity, and at all times enjoy the light of his countenance, which is life, and the spirit of his benediction, which is peace.

We thank thee for the language of prayer, which once we could not utter: it was a foreign tongue, we knew not the mystery of the sacred speech: when we endeavoured to speak it, the words fell dead from our unwilling lips, but today we have returned to the shepherd and bishop of our souls, and our heart's desire, expressing itself in many words, rises up to heaven in prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and adoration, because in the Lord we have all we need.

Thou dost lead us to thine house by various ways, Some have come from the dark chamber that they may refresh their eyes with light from heaven, the light of the morning, the light of the better land, that being so refreshed, they may return to the house of affliction and mourning with messages delivered to them from heaven by God's own angels. Some have come from homes of wealth, and delight and every comfort, and still they are here to confess that in thine house is a blessing not to be found otherwhere: they have come for the child's portion, they have come to claim their inheritance in Christ, to make common prayer and join in common song and enjoy the hospitality provided for the commonwealth of the Church. Some are old and withered they can see now the end, and turning round they can measure the whole span of life, and see what shape it bears and what accent it carries and what is the meaning of it all, as they say, "Few and evil have been the days of thy servant." Lord, whilst yet the light lingers in the western sky, speak some new message, comfort them with some unheard-of solace, reveal to them some hidden beauty of the infinite Christ, and give them joy: may their last utterance be a song of heaven!

Regard the young, the inexperienced and speculative, the hopeful and those who are in danger from their great sanguineness, not knowing how thickly the ground is sown with danger, and how skilfully the trap and gin and snare is laid by hands that are skilled and cruel. The Lord give guidance unto such, keenness of vision, that sympathy with the right which is as a new conscience, a high and gracious sympathy, which is as insight which shall save the young from many a danger.

As for those who are hard of heart, do thou break them with thine own hammer. Thou wilt not grind them to powder, but thou wilt take out of them the heart of stone and put within them the heart of flesh.

Help us to live more and more in Christ, that we may live more and more for Christ. Give us deeper understanding of the mysteries of his kingdom; give us clearer insight into his wonderful words, which stretch themselves across all ages, and utter the speech and the accent of every man. The Lord help us to live out the little remainder of our days with a gracious purpose; help us to illustrate the nobleness of Christian heroism; enable us in all things, in body and in soul, to glorify Christ, lo whom we owe our life, and at the last may our sin be forgotten in thine infinite grace. Amen.

Mat 12:1-13

1. At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day (the first after the Passover) through the corn; and his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn (allowed in Deu 23:25 ), and to eat.

2. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day.

3. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him;

4. How he entered into the house of God (the tabernacle at Nob), and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?

5. Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? ("There is no Sabbath in the temple:" Rabbinical maxim).

6. But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple (a greater thing than the temple is here).

7. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

8. For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.

9. And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:

10. And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

11. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?

12. How much, then, is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.

13. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth: and it was restored whole, like as the other.

The Sabbath

Jesus Christ treated the Jewish Sabbath in what the Pharisees thought was a rough manner. In their sense of the term he never kept the Sabbath at all. This was a continual subject of controversy between them: perhaps no subject of a special kind occupies in its treatment so large a space as this subject of Sabbath observance, as between the Pharisees and Jesus Christ. The fact was that Jesus Christ was going to establish a Sabbath of his own, and he began to indicate its character by putting the new wine into the old Sabbath bottle and thus breaking it. In due time he would prepare a new bottle for the new wine, and thus both would be preserved.

We learn from the incidents reported in this chapter how Jesus Christ wished to have the Sabbath regarded. In the first place, that which was necessary was to override that which was ceremonial. This was shown in the case of David. Hunger has no ceremonial law: where life is in danger ceremony must go away. There was a kind of bread, as we have just seen, which the priests only got to eat. It was called the shewbread. The law distinctly said that it was for the priests alone. Yet when David and his followers were seized with the pains of hunger he broke the law in the letter, and yet kept the law in the spirit. Always be sure what law it is you are talking about: whether it is the little law, the incidental and temporary law, the law ceremonial, or the all-including law of which these are but parts or transient phases. In the case of David and the people who followed him, you have a necessity of a severe kind.

In the next place there was a necessity of a ceremonial sort by which the priests in the Temple profaned the Sabbath and were blameless. Fires were to be lighted, sacrifices were to be slain, the whole Temple service was to be set in order and carried out. Without such labour the service would have been impossible, yet the priests performed the labour and were blameless. They broke the Sabbath in the letter, they kept it in the spirit: they did that which was forbidden to be done, and yet, because it was necessary to be accomplished, there was no blameworthiness in their profanation of the day.

Thus, again, you must distinguish between laws. Always remember that one law belongs to another, and the highest law of life known amongst us is the law that man must be preserved. Man's highest interests must be consulted and secured. The law of necessity is above all laws of ceremony: the law of life determines the law of arrangement. Well, this simplifies the whole Sabbath question, if rightly accepted and applied. There are certain necessities which settle everything: what these necessities are must be left to the individual conscience to settle: do not attempt to draw time bills and regulation rules and schedules of observance all that is mechanical, and possibly all that is nothing but silly childishness. Life cannot be codified, inspiration is better than regulation: if we have the right spirit, we can easily decide the right action. You will never determine a question of this kind by approaching it mechanically, with weights and scales and tapes and standards and measures of various kinds. It is a question which belongs to the spirit, to the inner sanctuary, to the noblest consciousness of humanity.

This is the whole pith and burden of Christ's meaning. The Pharisees broke the Sabbath in the very act of keeping it, so others may keep the Sabbath in the very act of breaking it. Again and again I would say, do not attempt to settle this question by little rules; you can only settle it in so far as you have the spirit of the Lord. I want to know how Christ treated the day; I will draw the whole of my inferences from this spirit, words and conduct. As a Christian preacher and student I have not to consider whether I will have a Sabbath or not, I am bound in this, as in all other things, to study Christ, and by that study I will abide.

Jesus Christ lays down the sovereign law, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice; I will have the substance, not the shadow; I will have the heart's love, and not the hands' reluctant service. This spirit would settle everything in the broadest and divinest manner, and would so operate as to commend itself to both master and servant, to both leader and follower. In this spirit we should never have to see how much would be done on the Sabbath day, but how little. Something must be done; David's hunger falls upon us, and the priests' necessities follow the Temple throughout the whole history of time. All work cannot be suspended: God suspends none of his own operations on Sunday; the sun shines, the river flows, the bird sings, the fruit ripens on Sunday as on Saturday, and yet he rested on the seventh day and blessed it. This is not a reading of the letter, but a reading of the spirit: the rest is in the soul; I can do all my labour of the week in one sense, where necessity compels it, and yet I can do it as if I were not doing it. It is another work when I do it under different conditions. I have to pursue much of my daily home-life just on Sunday as on Saturday, and yet I do it in no Saturday spirit, but with a new inspiration, broader meaning, tenderer love, and I lift up the action into a new atmosphere, and upon all the breadth of its face there shines the light of a new intent. The work done is not labour, it is done in the spirit of the day, and therefore the work itself becomes real and sacred rest.

Do not consult the mechanician as to how the Sabbath is to be kept, nor the precisian, nor the purist, nor the man who lives in the mere letter, and within the space, four square, of an arithmetical table. On the Sabbath day the blind must be lifted, the bed must be made, the table must be spread, the fire must be lighted, as on every other day, and yet quite differently. When I open my shutter on the Sunday I open it to take in a stranger with a known face, a visitor from heaven, a messenger with gospels on his lips. When I light my Sunday fire it does not crackle and smoke like a Saturday flame; it preaches to me there is a sacred glow upon my face as I light it, and my heart is full of a new ardour, and I forget the toil in the sacrifice.

You cannot keep the Sabbath by precisian rules. If I am ill I must have the doctor; if he is in church he must come out. Life rules your little laws. One greater than the Temple is in it; the Temple is but the shadow, robe, type, symbol, and he represents all the higher laws that gather up within their operation all human necessities and conditions, and determine everything. The ships must go on Sundays; and yet there is Sunday on the sea, the spirit of rest gets hold of the great ship in the middle of the waves; and it is possible, with the splash of the waters around you, and the throb of the great fire-power stunning your ear, to be in church, nearly in heaven a little speck upon the foam, and yet throwing out some little tendrils or fingers, to lay hold of the upper and better side of things. The city must be kept on Sunday, it must be watched; the law must be abroad, all your institutions that are to be healthy and lasting must be based upon broad foundations, and not upon a point here and an incident yonder.

What this means you will know better in your heart than can ever be explained in words. The kitchen must be opened on the Sunday as well as the parlour, and all necessary things must be done by horse and dog and man, and yet they may be so done as to have in them all the divine music. This is not to be set forth in sentences that cannot be taken to pieces by critics, but those sentences may help to teach the deeper meanings which lie far down in the honest heart. When men combine to secularise the Sabbath and to make it of set purpose as common as any other day in the week, they become as great ceremonialists as the old Pharisees were; they are secular Pharisees, and they meet their old brethren at the other end of the line. There is a ceremonialism of destruction as well as a ceremonialism of preservation. In both cases the divine meaning may be lost. In pretending to do good the anti-Sabbatarians really do harm: they operate upon a onesided view of the case, and all infidelity and non-Christianity does the same thing. I never met a non-Christian argument that did not treat life as if it were a straight line; it failed in perspective, in comprehensiveness, in that wholeness, that entirety of grasp and view, which alone can deal with the comic-tragedy and tragic-comedy of this mixed and self-colliding life.

Our human education does not lie upon any one side of our nature: it is a complex process, and I have met with no religion that goes round and round the whole case with amplitude of seizure and sympathy but the religion of Jesus Christ. Those who would secularise the Sunday degrade the day as a certainty from a religious point of view, but there is no certainty that having degraded it at one end they can elevate it at the other, namely, on the side of the people for whom they have degraded the institution. There is a certain degradation at the one end, and not a certain elevation at the other; therefore the ways of the secularists in this matter are not equal. In my opinion they should begin at the other end by elevating the people and enlarging and purifying their conceptions of sacred and noble institutions. The Sabbath is an older institution than any picture-gallery or museum that I know anything about, and if any men are anxious that the working classes should have an opportunity of seeing pictures, monuments, and curiosities, let them cut a day out of their own time, and not steal a day which has another seal upon it. If you are in awful agonies of desire that your working men should see pictures, shut up your warehouse half a day, and let them see them at your expense. If it really takes away your sleep that somebody cannot see a museum, then do you arrange for their seeing it without any loss on their part. There is a cheap generosity: the generosity of those who would secularise the day on these grounds degrades the day without certainly elevating the people. It is as if men should say: "Let us put an end to poverty by altering the law of property. That is a short and easy method of dealing with the pauperism and the whole necessity of the country. Here we have certain persons called merchants, capitalists, millionaires, and here are certain other persons without possessions of any kind: let us abolish the law of property, and raise the pauper and thriftless class by dividing the money of the wealthy, and thus making all men equal." One wonders that such an idea never struck anybody before, it is so clear, so simple, and so admirable for those who have nothing. Let us make every day alike, you know. Why are you not faithful, to your own logic? Why are you not consistent with your own principles?

Now God, who gave us all our time, has laid his hand upon one day and called it his. On that day we are asked to think of him, commune with him, and rest in him. We must not steal the day; we ought not to deface it. Works of necessity must be done, and, so done, are blameless; if we want to give men more time for recreation or sight-seeing let us give them some of our own time, and do not let us rob God. I believe that great improvements are possible in the way of rearrangement of our times of labour; I believe that all men who labour should have equal rest and recreation and enjoyment. I am not addressing myself to that side of the question now; I am only seeking to point out that even things desirable in themselves may sometimes be secured at too great a cost, and may sometimes besought in a wrong light and under the inspiration of a false principle.

But Christ says the Sabbath was made for man. Precisely; and therefore man should take care of it. A false argument is often set up on this expression, as if man could do what he pleased with the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, but was not made for man to destroy. The earth was made for man, but not for him to neglect or desecrate. The very expression itself is a proof of the sacredness of the day. It is not said that Monday was made for man. A special meaning attaches to this gift of time; it is holy, it is a piece cut out, it is a sanctuary, it is a resting-place on the journey of life, it was made for man, it was set apart for man, it is God's gift to man, it is a hint and type of heaven. I should therefore be very careful how I touched its sacredness.

There may be special cases in which the Sabbath may be profaned and the profaners may be blameless. If any man should stand up here and say, "I can get nearer heaven when I muse alone in the field or in the forest than when I attend any Church," I am not going to call that man of necessity a Sabbath-breaker or a profane person: I do not believe in his reasoning purely as logic, I do not believe in the facts of the case as entitling me to generalise so as to include the whole population of the land: I would make special arrangements for such special cases, I would judge individual cases with the largest charity; but my own feeling is this, that no man who uses the Church as the Church ought to be used can find anywhere an influence that ought to admit of a competitive position for one moment, when the Church services are rightly conducted, in their music, in their devotion, in their pulpit instruction: when the revelation of God is treated in all its firmamental breadth and all its solar lustrousness there will be no place on all the green earth so attractive and so grand as the house of God.

We may have to begin by enlarging our definitions of that very name. It is possible that we may have to rearrange our whole method of observing the Sabbath within the sacred walls. I am not set upon any form of observing it in any Church: I hold myself open to inspiration from heaven, to guidance and suggestion from good men and experience: and it does appear to me perfectly possible that we may have to enlarge our conception of the divine service in the divine house. But if there is any meaning in the words, "Day of God, House of God, service Divine," the Church ought to be able to look down upon all competition with a dignity that need not be contemptuous because of its superlative and unquestionable grandeur.

I do not wonder at people running away from certain kinds of service; I do not wonder at any patch of green being a more favourite spot than the places where certain methods prevail of conducting the service in the sanctuary. I have attended services which have done me great harm, and if the service was limited to what this or that man has done or said I would never enter the place again with any hope of being edified or blessed. I have had to exclude the external and shut myself up with God himself, or I should have been lowered and narrowed and vitiated by things pronounced without the spirit of the Sabbath animating their utterance or lifting them up into the region of music.

On both sides of the subject there are great difficulties and great differences, and when it is said the Sabbath was made for man it was meant for man to keep and not for man to throw away. Professor Tyndall says, in a really beautiful document, written in the most tuneful English, that he would like to see tramways from slums and back places of the city out into the green fields on Sundays. Very good, Professor Tyndall, we will lay tramways, and you shall drive the cars. So many persons propose these grand arrangements who also propose to be passengers themselves. I have never known any article-writers propose to be drivers.

The Professor says that a rigid Sabbatarianism has been tested and has resulted in ghastly failure. I do not propose a rigid Sabbatarianism: I know nothing of mechanical rigidities in God's house and God's service. When a man talks about a rigid Sabbatarianism he changes the ground of controversy and changes the issue of the argument. I am speaking of a day of rest, a day of joy, a day of fellowship with God. But the Professor must be just, and allow us to say, on the other hand, that we have seen a lax Sabbatarianism tested, and the results have appeared to us to be hideous failures. I know of no sight abroad that has distressed me more than a week without a Sabbath. I would avoid narrow-mindedness as I would avoid offence against God and against man, but speaking with my present information and under the influence of what I believe to be a good feeling, I would pray God that England might be saved from what is known as a Continental Sunday.

The people who quote the expression "The Sabbath was made for man" forget the further expression, "The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." The servant, then, should consult the Lord if he would know how the Lord's gifts are to be enjoyed. What would Christ have us do on this day? What value does Christ set upon the day? When it is called the Lord's Day, what is the meaning of the expression? If any man find it hard to spend one day with Christ let him eke out his day with green fields and silvery streams, and tuneful woodlands, and all the other enjoyments of nature. To me the day is too short: I would the sanctuary could be opened with the dawn and closed with the midnight bell. What is the day meant to be? A day of joy. This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. It is resurrection day; its morning opens with visions of angels, with empty tombs, with risen lives and sweet comfortings of peace. It is the day on which the seed brings forth sixty and a hundredfold; the heart sees widening heavens, and hears supernal music, and responds to new calls of duty, and hears a voice ruling the tumult of time and hushing the wild uproar of all passion. To-day the heart drinks wine with Christ, today the banqueting-hall is open and the hungry are called to great feasting. Never was this intended to be a day of gloom, of long faces, of dejected aspect and afflictive memories. Yes, some so-called Sabbatarians have injured the day, have degraded its meaning; they have narrowed its benevolent purpose, they have assumed a solemnity they did not feel, and they have lost the naturalness of their voice in a whining cant as offensive to God as it is objectionable to man, To me the day is full of joy, a great golden day, wanting only in one thing, and that is in duration so short, a flash and gone. If ever we may be glad even to passionateness of joy it is on this day, with its resurrection light and its triumphant Lord.

We are sometimes asked if it is not better to go to a picture-gallery than to a public-house. There is no meaning or pith in the question; we are not shut up to that alternative. The question does not narrow itself into picture-gallery or public-house; if it did so we could settle it in a moment. Certainly to the picture-gallery and remain there all day. Beware of the sophistical inquiry whether it is not better to do this than to do that; no greater argument rests upon such narrow alternatives. It is better to steal wheat than to steal nettles, it is better to steal oil-paintings than to steal photographs, it is better to tell lies for a thousand a year than to tell lies for a hundred a year but this is not the question, this is a sophist's inquiry. The question is, What is right? what is good? what is God's law? what is best for the human family at large? The question can have no difficulty as to the true value and purpose of the Sabbath. Christ gave the Church his laws, and I should wish to keep my Sabbath just as Jesus kept his. My distinct view is that instead of having too much time for religious service and instruction we have too little. Rather than destroy one Sabbath I would create two. The rest is always profitable. You do not rest half enough, you men of business. Napoleon truly said that no man could long work for seven days in the week. Religious rest is indispensable. He is the true benefactor of England who holds to the sanctity of the Sabbath, and makes that sanctity not a miserable gloom, but a radiant and grateful joy.

Notes on the Sabbath

1. I do not believe that the Jewish Sabbath is binding on Christians but believe that the Creational idea of the Sabbath is unchangeable.

2. By the Creational Sabbath I mean the seventh-day rest. When, in this discourse, I speak of stealing God's time I mean stealing the seventh day of rest, be it Sunday or Saturday, Monday or Thursday.

3. Christians can have no doubt as to choice of day. That is determined for them. They want no other. It is Resurrection day. They would as soon change a birthday as change the Lord's Day.

4. The Sabbath controversy can never be settled by references to Judaism, or by references to anything of the nature of mere usage, apostolic or patristic. It is the heart that remembers the elect day, and it is the heart alone that can " keep" it. Christian obedience is a sacrifice of love and joy, without one particle of mere legalism, or one link of bondage. We cannot keep the Sabbath because we are commanded to do it, but because we long for it with all the eager expectancy of love.

5. What wonder if Christians are unwilling even to appear to de-sanctify the day? I do not use the strong word "desecrate," for it is not the intention of many free-Sabbatarians to do anything so violent. Christians have what to them are the tenderest reasons for preserving and hallowing the day of Christ; not only have they an argument, they have also an emotion to direct their policy. Even if their logic could be answered, their sentiment would be indestructible.

6. I believe it would be perfectly possible to open museums and galleries of art on Sunday without doing injury of a social kind in thousands of instances. But Christians as such, who really reverence the day because of its distinctively Christian memories, can never promote such opening. As citizens and as reformers of some kinds of social abuses, they may not hinder the introduction of any healthy competition as against taverns and places of dissipation, but as Christians they can never consent to fall below the level of the day's one great meaning the triumph and the joy of their Lord's Resurrection.