²³One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” . . . . ²⁷Then He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2 NIV)

We have a way of taking some of the best blessings of God and turning them into burdens. Children become obligations. Before we know it, friends become competitors, and work becomes a chore. Take the Sabbath, for example. God gave the Sabbath to his people as a gift, not an obligation. “Remember the Sabbath day, by keeping it holy,” God said in the Third Commandment. Yet the Lord’s Day becomes an intrusion; it cramps our lifestyle. “Me, go to church? Worship? I need my weekends to rest.”

God really intended the Sabbath to be a blessing for his people. It was, indeed, a holy day—set aside and apart for God. Remember that on the Sabbath the great, powerful God himself paused from his work of creation. So God gave the Sabbath rest to his people as well. Once every seven days, they were to pause from their normal labor, to rest weary bodies, and to refresh weary souls in his presence. It was literally a day marked uniquely by the Word of God and worship.

But sure enough, God’s people made his gift into an obligation, adding all kinds of rules and regulations. The rules God’s people created even specified, for example, how far one could walk on the Sabbath day and technically still keep the law. They wanted to earn God’s approval by keeping every regulation. And so Jesus was criticized in the text because his disciples were plucking the heads of grain along the road on the Sabbath and munching on them. In the Pharisees’ eyes, he was undermining the Sabbath and breaking the rules. The Sabbath was an obligation to them.

But we’re not much different. God gives us his law, and we immediately begin to think, “I may not be perfect, but I am certainly a cut above other people.” What is this thinking if not pharisaic—the detestable idea that God grades on a curve and that we can somehow work our way into his favor. The temptation religious people face is always to find comfort in our performance of the law, rather than in reliance on Jesus. “Just tell me how I should live, Jesus, so I can be pleasing to you. Then I’ll clean up my act.” We want security in our own lifestyle rather than in him.

Jesus Christ has only one answer for people in every age: The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He is, in fact, the very Sabbath rest for God’s people. For in his Word and sacraments, he is present to give us his peace, solace, comfort, and quiet joy in the complete forgiveness of sins. He has gained our approval before God by his death and resurrection. We couldn’t do it. He did. We are at peace with God—at rest—because of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath.

“Lord, as you awaken us to delight in your praise, grant that we may know you, call upon you, and praise you, for you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Amen.          —St. Augustine X

The devotion above, by the Rev. Dr. Harold L. Senkbeil,  is reprinted from

Where in the World Is God!

Dear Member(s) of Trinity,

We have been blessed by God with a beautiful new office building which is just about ready for occupancy. The temptation is there to treat that building as an obligation in no less measure than treating the Sabbath day as an obligation. “Me, give of my treasure and my time to that building? I need my money and my time to pursue summertime interests and fun.”

The only real God-pleasing way to keep from treating our new office building as an obligation is to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. That is, to remember why God wanted us to take a break one day a week from our normal activities. First of all, He wants us to remember that each one of us is a sinner by nature (Psalm 51:5) and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and secondly, in remembering those two realities, we cannot help then but remember where our salvation from those two evils comes from—Jesus (Acts 4:12). He stood in our place before the wrath of God against sin, and He desperately wants to give us the forgiveness He earned as our substitute.

Is our new office building a huge responsibility? Of course! Is it an obligation? Not in the least! It’s a gift of God to do His work in this place, and we have his promise to see us through any difficulties that might arise in connection with it (Psalm 46:1). Indeed, he has been the faithful one at Trinity for over 159 years!

God grant each member of Trinity to carefully consider all the issues before us this summer and beyond. The value each of us places on our time and treasure management in regard to remembering the Sabbath day will go a long way in determining where our faith is and what our view of Trinity is in all its different facets. Trinity is still here and has a new office building only because God has determined to continue his word and sacrament ministry in this place for the salvation of souls! So, how do you see it—as a blessing or as an obligation?