In Exodus God gave very strict instructions about the keeping of the Sabbath; failure to do so involved death. Today that sounds very harsh. At that time the Israelites were travelling in the desert and were free from the restraints of the Egyptians. It is probable that in Egypt they would have had to work seven days a week. Now they had freedom to obey the new laws.
Jesus found that the Pharisees took the instructions to an extreme level and condemned Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Don’t you want to shout, ‘Hey, look, the man has been healed, does it matter what day of the week it is. It’s a miracle.’
When I was growing up I lived near a synagogue and had many Jewish neighbours. Some of them kept the Sabbath very strictly and even called on their neighbours to help them with a few tasks on their Sabbath.
Today God asks us to keep our Sundays holy and different. In our culture many of us have to work on Sundays and I was once accused of being wrong because I read a Monday paper which had been printed on a Sunday. We need to guard against being legalist. What we need is an attitude of the Sabbath. It has been proved that working without breaks is counter-productive. It does not cause more work being done. God gave us the Sabbath or our Sunday because it is good for us. Let us guard it.