#13 Silly Sabbath Rules
Series: Mark
March 22, 2020
Chuck Sligh
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com. Please mention the title of the sermon and the Bible text to help me find the sermon in my archives
TEXT: Mark 2:23-28 – "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles. 23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."
INTRODUCTION
Sometimes the people who make our laws get a little carried away and pass some silly laws. I did some research on the Internet and found some examples of some of the silliest laws I have ever heard of.
• In Fairbanks, Alaska, it’s illegal to serve alcohol to a moose. – I wonder if it is legal to serve alcohol to a bear?
• There’s a city in Arizona where it is illegal to drive a car in reverse. – Apparently, they didn’t think about how people would get out of your parking space at the mall?
• There’s a town in Minnesota where a woman can be arrested for impersonating Santa Claus. – Now There’s something I want our elected officials to be concerned about!
• In Oklahoma, people who make ugly faces at dogs can be arrested and jailed or fined. – I wonder if a bulldog can get thrown in the pound for making ugly faces at people?
• In Nicholas County, West Virginia, a preacher is not allowed to tell jokes from the pulpit. – Maybe a better law would be that a preacher has to know HOW to tell a joke.
I think we all agree that those are some pretty silly laws, but this is nothing new. In today’s text we’re going to see some people who were very zealous in keeping God’s laws, especially the Law of the Sabbath. But in their hyper-protective desire to keep people from disobeying God’s laws, they came up with some “Silly Sabbath Laws,” the title of my sermon.
Let’s read our text in Mark 2:23-28 – “And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”
Now notice in today’s text three things.
I. NOTICE FIRST OF ALL A SUPPOSED INFRACTION. – Verses 23 – “And it happened that he went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went, his disciples began to pluck the ears of grain.’”
One day the disciples of Jesus were walking through some grain fields and being hungry, they plucked heads of grain as they passed through the field. In itself, this was allowed in the Law of Moses. Deuteronomy 23:25 said, “If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand; but you shall not use a sickle on you neighbor’s standing grain.”
The problem was not what the disciples were doing, it was WHEN they were doing it. Mark tells us they did this on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, the seventh day of creation and extends from sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays.
The Sabbath day had a unique place in Judaism. Most of the world’s religions venerate sacred PLACES: Islam honors Mecca, Hinduism the Ganges River, and Shintoism the island of Japan. Judaism also venerated Jerusalem and especially the temple as sacred places. But it venerated something beyond these, and really above them: A TIME—the Sabbath day.
Because Sabbath-keeping is not required in New Testament Christianity, the importance of the Sabbath to Jews is often puzzling to modern readers of the gospels. Yet even to this day, there are two observances which above all else define Jews and set them apart from the nations: circumcision and observance of the Sabbath.
The Old Testament Law forbade Jews from every kind of labor on the Sabbath. The fourth commandment in the Ten Commandments says, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
II. CONSIDER SECONDLY, THE PHARISEES’ DISTRACTION. – Verse 24 – “And the Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’”
The Pharisees got their muumuus in a bunch because they believed the disciples of Jesus were not honoring God’s laws of the Sabbath. The problem with this is that the Pharisees mixed up man’s laws with God’s, rendering God’s laws onerous and burdensome rather than a blessing as God intended them to be.
The Pharisees, following rabbinic traditions in their oral law, listed thirty-nine classes of work that profaned the Sabbath, including things we might expect, such as plowing, hunting and butchering, and things we might not expect, such as tying or loosening knots, sewing more than one stitch, or writing more than one letter.
The general rule of observance was not to do any work on the Sabbath that was not absolutely necessary—by “necessary,” meaning life-threatening. Such scrupulousness inevitably resulted in silly man-made rules in their attempt to cover every conceivable Sabbath question that could arise: For example, it was forbidden to set a dislocated foot or hand on the Sabbath, or to repair a fallen roof (though it could temporarily be propped up). If a building fell down on the Sabbath, enough rubble could be removed to discover if any victims were dead or alive; if alive, they could be rescued, but if dead, the corpses had to be left until sunset.
Now it appears the disciples violated three silly Sabbath rules the rabbis had invented:
• First was the rule of travel on the Sabbath. – Walking more than 1,999 paces, or about 800 meters, was considered a journey, something forbidden in the Law of Moses on the Sabbath. How they came up with exactly the number of paces is anybody’s guess.
• Second, plucking a head of grain was considered the equivalent of reaping.
• And finally, rubbing away the husk to eat it was the same as threshing.
Now NONE of this stuff—not setting dislocated bones, not fixing fallen roofs, leaving dead corpses in rubble, not walking more than 1,999 paces and making the plucking grain heads and rubbing husks equivalent to reaping or threshing—NONE of these were GOD’S laws. All of these were rules and traditions that had been handed down over time and had taken on the same weight of authority as God’s Word itself.
This adding to God’s Word rankled Jesus to no end and He dealt with it on several occasions in the gospels. In Matthew 15, after describing several ways the Pharisees twisted God’s intended meaning of His laws by their own man-made rules and traditions and elevated them to the same authoritative level as God’s laws, Jesus harshly condemned them for it, saying, “You hypocrites, well did Isaih prophesy about you, saying, 8 ‘These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (verses 7-9).
Now don’t misunderstand me: these teachers were well-intentioned. They honored God’s Law; they revered it; they practically worshipped it. God’s Law was GOOD; all you have to do is read Psalm 119 to know that. Their desire was to help people obey God’s Laws, which is what good leaders do.
But in the process, they reduced one’s relationship to God to a list of manual do’s and don’ts, or as Kent Hughes described it, the Pharisees traditions resulted in the “domestication of real faith into humanly attainable standards.” People’s hearts could be full of evil thoughts and anger and lust and selfishness, but if they obeyed the outward requirements of man-made rules they could appear to others to be holy and they could feel themselves to be holy. But Jesus said they were NOT holy; He said they were hypocrites who worshipped God in vain.
All of this became a distraction from what was really important to God. As John Phillips put it in his commentary on Mark, “They were too busy with trivia to see truth, even when it stared them in the face. They were too fond of allegorizing and legalizing and dissecting the sacred text, debating it and distorting it and devaluating it by their pontifical traditions. They failed to see the obvious. To them, what the fathers had said was more important than what the Father had said. But Jesus ignored all of their endless rabbinical discussions, all of their footnotes and marginal notes, all of their rabbinical interpretations, and all of their traditions and ex cathedra pronouncements….”
III. LAST, NOTE JESUS’ REACTION. – Verses 25-28 – “And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need, and was hungry, he, and those who were with him; 26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful for any but priests to eat, and he also gave some to them who were with him?’ 27 And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.’”
Jesus points back to the desert-fox years of David’s life when he and his men were outlaws from King Saul. In hunger and desperation, David went into the tabernacle, searching for food. The showbread refers to twelve loaves that were placed on the altar every Sabbath which had been consecrated to God as food for God’s priests and therefore was not to be used for any other people or purposes.
What is notable in 1 Samuel 21:3-6, where this incident is recorded, is that God did not condemn David for what he did. Jesus used this incident to show that the narrowness of the scribes’ interpretation of the Law did not agree with the tenor of either Scripture or God’s nature. The tradition of the Pharisees was unnecessarily stringent and went beyond the intention of the Law. Jesus was being common-sensical: He was saying that human need takes precedence over rules, ritual and sacred things.
In verses 27-28 Jesus added two important principles after telling the story of David:
First, in verse 27, He corrected the mistaken interpretation that the Sabbath was meant to be a burdensome yoke.
The Sabbath was meant by a loving and benevolent Father to be a weekly blessing for His people. One day in seven was to be a day of rest from work. It was meant to be a day for our bodies to rest, and our souls and spirits to be restored by the worship of God.
It’s true that we are not required to observe the Sabbath, and there are a number of biblical reasons we won’t get into today why the Lord’s Day is Sunday in the New Testament instead of Saturday. But we ignore the principle of a day set aside for rest and worship at our peril. The idea of one day of rest is part of the creation narrative. We are created to have one day completely devoted to rest and worship. When we honor the Lord’s day by worshiping God in church and by refraining from work, we are not putting ourselves under Old Testament Law; rather, we’re fitting our bodies and souls to God’s original plan.
The point is that one day set aside for these things was not a burden, but a blessing. A bunch of silly man-made laws added to the basic principle that God wanted to bless us with just ruined the Sabbath for the Jews.
Second, in verse 28, Jesus made a startling statement about His deity when he said, “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”
• Note first that Jesus’ reference to Himself as “The Son of Man” is an open statement inferring His deity.
You may recall from our third sermon in Mark our discussion of the “Son motif” in Mark, that is, Mark’s emphasis of Jesus as “The Son of God” and Jesus’ reference to Himself as “The Son of Man.” Both titles are found in the Old Testament referring to the Messiah, and both titles intimated deity of the Messiah. The implication was unmistakable: Jesus was clearly alluding to His deity, His divinity; that he was God in human form.
He had not said so explicitly up to this time. This is the first time He so boldly references it.
• Furthermore, Jesus claims for Himself in this statement imply authority reserved only for God, furthering His claim of deity.
He, the Son of Man, was the Lord of the Sabbath. Every Jew knew that GOD was the Lord of the Sabbath: God had instituted it; God had codified its observance in the Law of Moses; part of its purpose was to devote time in worship of God. GOD was the Lord of the Sabbath; now JESUS is saying that HE, the Son of Man, was the Lord of the Sabbath. Hence, He was claiming to be God.
Having already claimed the authority to forgive sins earlier in chapter 2, Jesus ups the ante, claiming to be the Lord of the Sabbath. This sets the stage for the plot to kill Jesus which we’ll see later in Mark.
CONCLUSION
I think this passage confronts us with some important truths we must not miss and we must apply to our lives personally.
First, remember that Christianity does not consist in rules and regulations.
Sunday church is vitally important to a Christian’s spiritual growth, but there is a great deal more to the Christian life than Sunday observance. If it were possible to become a Christian simply by abstaining from work on Sunday, and by attending church on that day, and saying prayers and reading the Bible, being a Christian would be a very easy thing. Whenever we forget the love and the forgiveness and the ministry and the mercy that are at the heart of Christianity and replace them with the performance of rules and regulations, we’re headed for spiritual disaster. It inevitably devolves to some extent into outward show of religious duties and places less emphasis on the heart-relationship with Christ and the need to manifest love and mercy to others and to serve them.
Those who live by external rules often preach them to others out of good intentions. Most rules and regulations are the personal convictions of someone who has sought to have guardrails in his own life to protect him against sin. Unfortunately, sometimes leaders think that since these rules and regulations help them, they should impose them on others as well. This is the heart of Phariseeism.
How much wiser it is for us to really believe that the Holy Spirit truly IS forming the fruit of the Spirit and godliness in the lives of His people. It’s not a human’s job to develop the fruit of the Spirit; it’s the Spirit’s job. That’s why it’s called the “fruit of the SPIRIT,: not the “fruit of RELIGIOUS LEADERS.”
Let GOD guide you and tell you what you should and should not do. Now if something’s clearly defined in God’s Word, then we are bound to obey it. But where the Bible is not decisively clear, we should seek God’s counsel through principles in the Word of God and live by them but give liberty to our brothers or sisters who God may not have led to follow the same path as you.
Second, understand that the first claim on any believer is human need.
As William Barclay put it in his commentary on Mark, “If ever the performance of our religion stops us helping someone who is in need, our religion is not religion at all. People matter far more than systems. Persons are far more important than rituals. The best way to worship God is to help people.”
Every one of us ought to be faithful to church. That’s a command in the Word of God. God tells us in Hebrews 12 not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. You SHOULD be faithful to church. You should be faithful to a homegroup and attend a Bible Study.
But this is the kind of issue we faced with this coronavirus thing. Someone we don’t know posted a snide remark on the church Facebook page about us stopping church gatherings, insinuating that we were buckling to popular sentiment.
Listen, this was a very difficult decision for the deacons and me to make. Initially, I resisted the idea of stopping church services and group meetings here at GBC. It’s just built into a pastor to have church, no matter what! We know that Christianity is meant to be both private and corporate.
But then I began to realize how infectious this disease is and how dangerous it is for some of our older members and others with underlying vulnerabilities and I realized that their lives were more important than a legalistic insistence on meeting together for a few weeks Your lives and safety are why we are meeting together via Facebook Live this morning!
This is precisely what Jesus was talking about when He referenced the story of David in 1 Samuel 21. David’s need for food superseded GOD’S OWN DIVINE COMMANDMENTS about the showbread being reserved only for the priests. Similarly, the need of the disciples to eat superseded the silly laws of the Pharisees. You see, God cares about PEOPLE first and foremost.
Let me give you another application: You dear mothers with 2-3 kids, don’t beat yourself up if your child erupts into tears over an owie just when you’re getting into your devotions and somehow you couldn’t get back to it because it was one child’s need after another. Listen, the Lord would rather you minister to your kids’ needs in that particular moment than to neglect them to read your Bible, and it’s a truly SPIRITUAL thing to minister to your kids’ needs.
Yes, you should try to plan better tomorrow to get your Bible study time in, but you haven’t failed as a Christian because you did what God has called you as a mother to do in a given moment of time. It’s tough to be a Christian mom! Just do the best you can; and stop beating yourself over the head…because ministering to human needs takes precedence over religious duties.
Finally, are you without Christ in your life? If so, may I lovingly call you to Jesus today.
Many people think Christianity is a list of rules and God is some killjoy up in heaven wanting to make your life miserable. Nothing could be further from the truth! That’s what the Pharisees thought, and Jesus fought them tooth and nail every step of the way in His three years of ministry on this earth.
Christianity is not about rules, it’s about a relationship with Christ. It’s a relationship with a Person who loves you and wants only what is best for you. Even the commandments of the Bible are not designed to ruin your life, but to ENRICH your life.
Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
When you come to Jesus, He gives you two things: eternal life in the next life and a more abundant life here in this life on earth. Not a dreary life here below; not drudgery—but ABUNDANT LIFE!—Life at its best.
One of the most amazing things I’ve discovered about the Christian life is that I’ve never known anyone to say they lived their whole lives for God and regretted it—NEVER! I’ve heard people say they regret sins in their past, or they regret bad decisions they made and I’ve know people to regret that they didn’t turn to Christ earlier in life, but never have I heard anyone who lived for God his whole life say, “Man, I sure wish I had never been saved and lived for God.”—NEVER!
Why is that?—Because when we trust in Christ and live for Him and know Him personally, though we are not immune from the problems of life as members of the human race, we have the resources of almighty God to face them with hope and confidence; we have the promise of joy and peace and fulfillment and contentment; we have a family called the church to come alongside us and encourage us and help us grow and mature. We experience ABUNDANT LIFE.
I invite you to come to Christ today by turning from your sin and trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior.
