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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 Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'.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!

December 28th, 2019

12/28/2019

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It is not surprising that the Gospel text for the First Sunday after Christmas stays very near to the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew [2:13-23]. And there is an extremely interesting fulfillment passage within that text. At the very end of chapter two, Jesus makes a move to a ‘memorable’ city. And this is how the last verse of chapter two describes the situation:

And [Jesus] went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazarene (ESV).

When Matthew lays out an Old Testament fulfillment, he usually quotes only one prophet. But now he is pointing out more than one, and, to make matters worse, there is no Old Testament bible verse that says what the text above says. This has bothered people for literally centuries.

The easy way out would be to say that there were prophets who said this, but we simply do not have that in writing. That would be a more historical answer. A more literary AND theological answer would be to look at the rest of scripture to see some connections.

Before we look back into the past, it may be helpful to look into the future. This naming of Jesus as a Nazarene happens in the Gospel according to Matthew when Jesus is on trial, when Peter is challenged by yet another servant girl. In Matthew 26:71, she (literally) says to the bystanders, ‘This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.’ The first servant girl had said that Peter was with Jesus the Galilean.

Connecting Jesus to both Galilee and Nazareth were not very positive connections. This gospel account even details that Jesus made the move from Nazareth to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (4:15; this is the very next fulfillment passage after 2:23) ‘when he heard that John had been arrested (4:12).’ And actually, the text does not say that he simply moved, but he ‘withdrew’; in a sense, he retreated.

These are not the actions of a leader. This is the actions of someone who is despised, and you have many Old Testament predictions of the Messiah being despised.

You probably did not know that, very close to the word ‘Nazareth’, is the word for ‘branch’ (nezer; a Hebrew word, the ‘base’ part of it, usually has three consonants.). And the Jews definitely saw the Messiah predicted in verses like Isaiah 11:1. (‘Then shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit’; ESV; see Concordia Commentary, Matthew 1:1-11:1, by Jeff Gibbs, Concordia Publishing House, 2005, page 132.) The Messiah was to be related to King David. And do not forget that he was the youngest son of Jesse. And he was also the despised one, in a sense, since he was the one who ended up being the shepherd for his father’s flock.

Very close to the word ‘Nazareth’ is the word for the special vow that a few people in the Old Testament took, the Nazarite vow (see Numbers 6). And, of those who took that vow, Samson, one of the judges, was probably the most famous.

So usually we think of Samson as a hero and being well supported by the other Israelites. After all, he fought and killed all those Philistines. But he also acted alone. Other judges worked with various sizes of armies. But Samson usually fought those Philistines by himself. You might say that he was despised as well.
​

When you combine the references to the Nazarite vow, along with the references to a despised Messiah, along with references to David, the Old Testament DOES talk a lot about Jesus. He was the VERY Good Shepherd, and he was the one who ALONE defeated the devil.
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