Mark 2:27

Then He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

From Background Notes [BN] for September 1^st & 2^nd written by Pastor Bob Brown:

This connection between Sabbath, work and human salvation receives additional explanation in the book of Hebrews. In that New Testament book, the writer argues consistently that the Old Testament rituals find complete fulfillment in Jesus. He says, in effect, come to Jesus for the things you formerly sought in the sacraments of the Torah.

Deuteronomy 5:12-14

 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do.

From Background Notes [BN] for September 1^st & 2^nd written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.


From Background Notes [BN] for September 1^st & 2^nd written by Pastor Bob Brown:

 

For the Wisdom writer, it simply wasn't enough to expend energy and mark achievements. He certainly was a busy fellow! Had we asked him, "What have you been up to lately?" he could have easily answered us. But had we asked him, "How do you feel about your accomplishments?" his reply would have been...

 

Isaiah 55:1-3

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.

From Background Notes [BN] for September 1^st & 2^nd written by Pastor Bob Brown:

There is excitement in God’s call since “food and drink” were essentials to life, and poor people labored severely to provide enough for their families. It was good news for them!

 

Luke 11:46

Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

From Background Notes [BN] for September 1^st & 2^nd  written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Among the 613 commandments were instructions for keeping Sabbath, dissected down to the distance one could walk from their homes on the Sabbath, or when clothing one wore became a burden they carried. Such rules had to do with work: when an action was work and when it was not so that Sabbath might not be broken. Jesus saw the irony in such regulations: rules about Sabbath-keeping become burdens for Sabbath-keepers on the Sabbath Day! Here’s a contemporary example:

2 Chronicles 2:5-6

“The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods. But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?

2 Chronicles 1:7-10

That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

 Solomon answered God, “You have shown great kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place. Now, Lord God, let your promise to my father David be confirmed, for you have made me king over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

1 Chronicles 29:20-22

Then David said to the whole assembly, “Praise the LORD your God.” So they all praised the LORD, the God of their fathers; they bowed down, prostrating themselves before the LORD and the king.

The next day they made sacrifices to the LORD and presented burnt offerings to him: a thousand bulls, a thousand rams and a thousand male lambs, together with their drink offerings, and other sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. They ate and drank with great joy in the presence of the LORD that day.

1 Chronicles 29:10-14

“Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things.

In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

Psalm 16

A miktam of David.

¹ Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.
² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”
³ I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
⁴ Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips.

John 11:41-42

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 18^th & 19^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Jesus does not choose to act alone in his work of raising the dead. He needs followers who will share with him in his grief for the world, and also in his anger at the damage death has done to the world. He needs followers who will roll away the stone when he commands them to do so.

John 11:46

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 18^th & 19^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

What follows in John’s Gospel (11:47-54) is an official decision to put Jesus to death, and that threat is repeated in 12:10-11 where Lazarus is added to the agenda! Imagine that! The man Jesus raised from the dead is targeted for execution also. Thus, irony saturates the narrative: the one who raised Lazarus from the dead now faces his own death. Resurrection Road…

John 11:44

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 18^th & 19^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Readers familiar with burial practices in Israel would hardly miss the difficulty posed by Lazarus’ grave clothes, and that is why the writer engenders the image of a bound man trying to leave his tomb. Though alive, he struggles yet with the remnants of the past, the marks of death, and the reminders of his mortality.

John 11:41

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 18^th & 19^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Postures of prayer communicate attitudes of the heart, and the Bible includes many of them: standing, kneeling, falling on one’s face, lifting up hands, and, as in this case, lifting up the eyes to heaven.

John 11:39a

“Take away the stone,” he said.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 18^th & 19^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Did anybody but Jesus know what to expect when the stone was taken away? What sort of language can make sense out of what was about to happen? As we noted early in our series, few people actually thought that dead people could or should rise from their graves. With the exception of a few texts from the Old Testament, supported by certain sects of Judaism…

John 11:38

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The command to take away the stone in John 11 has a parallel in John 2 where Mary, Jesus’ mother, gives instructions to the servants at the wedding feast “Do whatever he tells you” (2:5). We hear this only after Jesus and his mother have their own dialog when the guests run out of wine.

John 11:39

“Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Our culture is greatly isolated from the dead. We go to great lengths to secure the body shortly after death and put it in good order, complete with makeup and a perm. How often do we say about the deceased in their casket: “He/she looks good.” Really?
 

Luke 19:41-44

 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Here are stones of a different sort than the one at the boundary of Lazarus. These are rubble stones, inflicted by war, the failure of Israel’s leadership to “recognize the time of God’s coming.”

John 11:35

Jesus wept.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The weeping Jesus is the priestly Jesus, fully attuned to the painful condition of the mourners and Lazarus, and willing to feel the deep agony that death imposes on their existence. Unlike the Stoics of his time, Jesus does not exhibit “a hardened senselessness” but…

John 11:33

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th  written by Pastor Bob Brown:

From the tone of the underlying language, we surmise that Jesus is angry about what he sees and hears. He is furious at death and the damage it has done to the lives of these grieving souls.

 

John 11:24

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 4^th & 5^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The apostle Paul left behind the safe world of Jewish certitudes, learned within the context of the Pharisee party. Challenged to give Israel a summarized version of its faith, the rabbis distilled Torah down to 613 commands or mitzvoth. Paul wrote that at one time he considered himself fully expert…

John 11:33-35

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.  “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept.

From Background Notes [BN] for August 4^th & 5^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

As Jesus identifies with the anger and the sorrow of Lazarus’ death, he also looks forward to his own future. John wisely gives room for the reader to ponder the significance of the Resurrection Road at Bethany in light of Jesus’ own coming death and resurrection. Friday is the day for grief and anger and doubt. Easter does not happen on Friday.

John 11:32

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 4^th & 5^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Calvin suggests: “Although people used to throw themselves on the ground before kings and leaders, Christ, so far as his human life was concerned, had nothing royal or magnificent about him, and yet Mary fell at his feet for a different reason. She would have not have done so had she not been persuaded that he was the Son of God.”