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A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf
What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

April 14th, 2018

4/14/2018

1 Comment

 
The Gospel text for this week in Easter comes from the Gospel according to Luke (24:36-49). I enjoy this account because it connects so closely to the things in Acts. Matthew looks to the past; Mark looks to the present, and Luke looks to the future.
 
So one of the reasons I like looking at Acts is its close similarities to the life of the Christian Church today. And one of the special characteristics of both Luke and Acts is the comparatively large number of interruptions that happen throughout the texts.
 
You can read about this in other places, but, in general, ‘interruption science’ has declared that interruptions are, almost always, bad. And the fact that they are frequent within this gospel account, as well as within Acts, is, in my opinion, good.
 
This is an imperfect world. We all have interruptions, and we can call them ‘bad’ or ‘good’, but, if they are connected to Jesus, there WILL be some good in the end. So an interruption is basically a hidden miracle.
 
At the beginning of this text, Jesus’ followers who were going to Emmaus had come back and were talking to the other disciples, but the word for ‘talking’ here can also mean just making sounds (BDAG, p. 582). Now I certainly do not think that is what they were doing, but I do think that what they said could have been better.
 
So Jesus shows up. He interrupts what is going on. And things get significantly better. This gets much clearer when the text that says that he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. When he does that, he goes all the way back to Moses, saying that the fulfilment all points toward him.
 
Now even a short summary of that would be too big to cover at this point in time, but I hope you can see at the end of some of the books which end some of the sections in the Old Testament—Genesis, Deuteronomy, 2 Chronicles, and, of course, Malachi—these leave the reader hanging in some way. The story of Israel is not finished until it comes to Jesus.
 
Jesus interrupted the history of the world. Some people took it badly. Many were significantly changed because of it. Jesus is a hidden miracle, even in the ways that he shows up today.
 
At the end of the text Jesus promises to send a promise to them, a promise that his Father made. This interrupts their lives even more, but, of course, there is a purpose behind this.
 
One thing I had not noticed before is that they were to be sitting in Jerusalem, waiting for this promise. Now did you know that was exactly their position in Acts 2? Good job guys! It is also interesting to note that the tongues of fire are described as sitting on them.
 
So to focus on the disciples at any time would be missing the point. At this point, they become like a chair for someone much more important.
 
One of my teachers used to say, ‘To be ordained is to be rendered irrelevant.’
1 Comment
Janice M link
4/28/2021 06:46:31 pm

Great reading your blog posst

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