LORD of the Sabbath
Mark 2:23-3:6
Jesus’ understanding of the Sabbath embroiled Him in a great deal of controversy, especially among the Pharisees and led to many disputes. “Sabbath” is the Hebrew word for “seventh.” It goes back to the beginning of Genesis where it says that God rested from His creation on the seventh day. This was reinforced by the 4th commandment in Exodus 20:8-11 where it says to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The explanation which follows says that one should do all their work on the other six days of the week and that the Sabbath is “to the LORD.” It of course is a means of remembering that Yahweh is the creator of all. The rest, besides giving time for the body to recover from a week;s kabour, was a reminder that the LORD took a day to contemplate on what He had made. So this becomes a pattern for us, to take a regular time to remember the works of God.
Israel was not always scrupulous about keeping the Sabbath, and this led to judgment. The land enjyed its Sabbaths for seventy years when Judah was sent into captivity. The Pharisees remembered this and wanted to make sure that the Sabbath was never broken again. They made very strict Sabbath laws, well beyond the rules for keeping Sabbath in the Torah. The rationale was if they kept the stricter laws, they would also keep the laws for the Sabbath prescribed by Moses.
So it should not seem odd that the Pharisees took quick exception to Jesus’ disciples. They were travelling along the road at the edge of fields of either wheat or barley and were hungry. The Law of Moses allowed the sojourner to pluck the grain at the corners of the field. For this very reason, the Jews were to leave the corners of their fields unharvested. It was a form of welfare as well as hospitality. Ruth was a recipient of such a practice, and Obed even showed her more generosity by instructing his servants to do a sloppy job of harvesting the grain so that Ruth and her mother in law might have something to eat. But the problem here was that it was the Sabbath. Reaping and gathering was prohibited by the Law of Moses on the Sabbath. By their plucking the grain and threshing it in their hands, the disciples were guilty in the Pharisees of a major Sabbath violation. As per usual, they did not accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. Apparently Jesus did not pluck the grain. We know that Jesus kept the Law perfectly and was in every way above rightful reproach, even if it meant He had to fast alongside the way. But his disciples were obviously an easy target for the Pharisees, and it seems Jesus did nothing to stop His hungry disciples.
The Pharisees began to point out to Jesus that it was not lawful to do what His disciples were doing on the Sabbath. The Greek here is in the imperfect tense which indicates they pointed this out to Jesus more than once. At some point, Jesus got annoyed and answered the accusations. He related to the Pharisees something David had done. As King David was a hero in the eyes of the Pharisees, Jesus’ response would either force the Pharisees to accuse David of being a Sabbath breaker, lighten up on their accusations against the disciples, or else be logically inconsistent. Maybe because David was so great that he was above the law and as being above the Law was lord of the Sabbath. This kind of inconsistency is clearly on display here in America today where the elitists think themselves the law which is only for ordinary people. But anyone who reads the Bible should come to the realization that this is not the way God thinks about the law. If anything, the authorities are even more duty bound to be beyond reproach and set the example of lawful conduct.
David not only broke the Sabbath, he far exceeded the hungry disciples who had plucked and eaten a few grains of wheat. David and his men on the Sabbat day ate the holy shewbread that only the priests were allowed to eat. So Jesus is arguing from the greater to the lesser. If David was not held culpable for eating the holy things on the Sabbath, surely his disciples were justified in eating a trifle of grain. Jesus’ verdict on David’s behavior was to justify it on the basis that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Jesus responds in the imperfect tense which shows that He repeated this fact to the Pharisees.
Jesus even becomes more controversial. He calls himself the Son of Man. At first, this sounds like Jesus is referring to His humanity, but if one reads about the Son of Man in Daniel, he or she would recognize that it is actually a divine figure equal to God. So Jesus is calling himself superior to David, and in fact Lord of All. This Son of man is also the Lord of the Sabbath, a point that is very emphatic in the Greek word order which is literally “LORD is the Son of Man, even over the Sabbath. So Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they have it all wrong about the Sabbath. As LORD, Jesus is actually above the Law as it’s creator. We remember that the Law was written on stone tablets by the very finger of God, the same One who was speaking to them. So the Sabbath is what Jesus says it is and not man. And even as being above the Law, Jesus came in human flesh and lived a perfect life under the very Law he had made, And what Jesus’ says is that He wrote the Sabbath commandment not for His own benefit but for the benefit of humankind. He knew it was necessary for refreshing creation as a whole, and humankind in particular. It was to be a time of renewal. And what the disciples were doing was lawful under this purpose because they were refreshing their weary bodies on the Sabbath.
The chapter breaks here, but chapter three continues the controversy. This is apparently the same day. Jesus came into the synagogue and saw a man who had a withered or paralyzed hand. The same Pharisees who had been accusing Jesus along the way were all watching carefully to see if He would heal the man. If he had healed by touching the man, they would accuse Him of working on the Sabbath. Jesus, or course, knew their duplicity. Jesus commands the man to stand in the midst where all could clearly see. Jesus then addresses the crowd and asks if all work, good or evil is banned on the Sabbath. He further elaborates by parallel restatement, “to save life or to kill.” At first, this seems a bit odd, but we will soon see the trap Jesus is setting for the Pharisees.
The Pharisees did not answer Jesus’ question, and Jesus was full of wrath at the hardness of their heart. Their refusal to answer was that it would be better for this man to die rather than to rescue him. Jesus glared at the Pharisees and told the man to extend his withered hand. This is ironic because the man could not move the arm. But he did and was shown to be healed. But Jesus did it without even breaking their convoluted idea of the Sabbath. He did not touch the man or work by proclaiming words of healing. He just told the man to stretch out the hand, and lo! It was healed. Jesus had escaped their trap. Yet the man received healing.
Now the meaning of Jesus words whether it was lawful on the Sabbath to do evil (kill) comes to be understood. On the Sabbath day, it now says the Pharisees and the Herodians took a council of how they might kill Jesus. This was just about as bad a Sabbath violation as it gets. They were willing to try to ensnare Jesus as a Sabbath breaker for doing good and restoring a man on the Sabbath and thought nothing about breaking the Sabbath to try to entrap and not to kill Jesus. Holding court on the Sabbath was expressly forbidden in the Sabbath as well as to accuse someone falsely as an evildoer who did nothing but good. This would eventually result in the nighttime trial of Jesus, false witnesses, condemnation, and handing Jesus over to the Romans, all strictly forbidden by the Law. How much legalism blinds! The Law is for every one else and not for self. They might have been totally blind to the evil they were doing, thinking they were doing God a service.
So we need to take some warning about our attitude as we are just as subject to blindness. It is hard to remove splinters when there is a log in our eye. We are subject to picking a minor fault by someone else into a capital offense while committing far greater faults. In England, they once hung a starving 12 year old girl for stealing a loaf of bread. She was so emaciated that she was too light for the rope to break her neck. Men grabbed at her legs as she struggled to breath to help strangle her quickly. All this in Christian law-and-order Britain. No one looked at the conditions which had caused this poor girl to steal. Were the lords who hung her guilty of stealing far more from the poor. We also read of prelates burning common folk for what they considered heresy while they were guilty of real heresy.
When we look into our own lives, are we also blind to our faults? Instead of preaching to gospel which sets people free, have we instead received a condemning spirit which eventually condemns ourselves? How much we need the grace of God ourselves! How much do we need to offer grace to others? Others are dying both physically and spiritually. They are hungry for both bread and the Bread of God. We must bring the Spirit who reconciles to them that thye might finally enjoy what the LORD meant by Sabbath, that they might have rest in soul and body. We have a gospel which transforms people. We must like Jesus proclaim liberty to the captives and preach the acceptable year of the LORD. Is the Spirit of the LORD upon us? If it is, we will do as Jesus did.
