Be Still And Know

Mark 2:27-28 Jesus said to them: “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” Some years ago, I spent a couple of months living in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, which is home to a very large number of ultra-orthodox Jews. I very soon learnt, to my surprise, that the Sabbath begins late afternoon on Friday. It begins when the first star is seen in the sky and, from that moment, the shops shut and people go home to begin the rituals that mark the start of the Sabbath. There is something incredibly special about setting aside one day in seven as a day of rest. This was the example that God set when he created the world, and the law of Moses protected the day with a penalty of death for anyone who worked on the Sabbath. Over the centuries, the laws of the Sabbath were developed extensively. By the time of Jesus, there were scores of laws which regulated people’s activities on the day. There were, essen