Matthew 12:1-8 At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law constantly assessed Jesus’ teaching and activities to find fault with him. Since Jesus was gathering many followers, the religious leaders worried about him displacing them as authorities about God and how to please him. They could not duplicate Jesus’ miraculous healing, but they could attack Jesus as unfaithful to the law of Moses. They berated Jesus many times for doing unlawful acts on the Sabbath. For the Jewish people, the Sabbath was a day of rest when no one would do any work. When they saw the disciples crushing heads of grain between the palms of their hands to dispel the kernels from the heads of the grain, they evaluated that effort as work. Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. Their classification of this activity as work was meant to discredit Jesus as a divine messenger from God. If the Israelites decided affirmatively that Jesus was divine and truly a messenger from God, the religious leaders knew their time of deference with the people would soon disappear. Jesus and his doctrines would replace their position of authority and adulation within the Jewish culture. Consequently, they followed Jesus everywhere, critiquing actions and his teachings. Jesus responded to their criticism about his disciples eating in the grain fields by pointing to the most revered king in their history: David. Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. David who was not from the house of Levi ate the showbread that was eaten only by those from the lineage of Aaron. No one else had the privilege of eating this sacred bread, only the priests could partake of these loaves.. Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf. Arrange them in two stacks, six in each stack, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. By each stack put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the Lord. This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the Lord. (Leviticus 24:8-9) The religious order might have considered David’s violation of God’s directive as being okay because he was a man after God’s own heart. Maybe God would allow this exception to his law, but David also gave this bread to his men who of course were ordinary men with no special dispensation from God. This whole scene was an abomination to God’s authority and his laws, but Jesus points out that God is full of mercy and grace. He knew David and his men were famished and needed their strength restored, so He allowed this desecration of his holy place and the sanctified bread. In using David as an example of violating the Sabbath rules, Jesus emphasizes a major weakness in the religious leaders’ understanding of God. They served a rigid and harsh God, without the qualities of mercy and grace. This misunderstanding caused them to pile up even more laws on the people, coming from their own wicked perceptions of the God of the universe. Heaping more laws on the people elevated their position of importance, for they tithed a tenth of everything, even their spices. But Jesus knew their hearts were far from God, for they placed huge burdens on the people, making them unable to please the God of perfect righteousness. In combating their negativism about Jesus and the disciples’ actions that day, Jesus quotes Hosea: For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6) By quoting an honored prophet, Jesus exposes the religious leaders’ nakedness in their knowledge of God. To know God, a person must appreciate God’s heart of love and compassion for humankind. The God of grace and mercy would allow David, his passionate follower, to eat of the showbread under the dire circumstances surrounding him and his men.
Jesus points out that the Pharisees and the leaders of the law are really hypocrites, for they criticize his disciples for an activity that is allowed even in their own homes of feeding themselves on the Sabbath. Eating is a necessary activity on the Sabbath to maintain one’s health. All the Israelites were permitted to eat on the Sabbath, but work was not allowed. Finding themselves in the grain fields, the disciples had a table of food set before them. All they had to do was use their strength to separate the food from the chaff, just as a person in the home would have to lift his hand to his mouth to eat: both demanded work. This was considered appropriate in the law, as with eating within the priests’ homes. But any work outside of this necessary act might be considered a violation of the Sabbath. Jesus points out that work does take place in the temple on the Sabbath, necessary work to honor the God of the living. On the Sabbath day, make an offering of two lambs a year old without defect, together with its drink offering and a grain offering of two-tenths of an ephod of the finest flour mixed with olive oil. This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. (Numbers 28:9-10) Yet this work is not considered a desecration by God, for it reveals God is a God of mercy. By doing this act, God’s mercy will cover the sins of a willful people. If eating for survival is a violation, then the sacrificing of animals on the Sabbath is a violation even though it is a necessary act to keep the penalty of death away from the Israelites’ door. If the Pharisees are going to criticize Jesus’ disciples, then they must also consider their own acts on the Sabbath as a violation. Both conditions are necessary for survival: eating to promote health in the body, sacrificing to keep the judgment of death away from a sinful people. Jesus points out that God is a God of grace, considering the needs of people above the rigidity of the law or the requirements of holiness. Jesus’ understanding of God supersedes the shallowness of the religious leaders.
Jesus concludes his response to the Pharisees and teachers of the law by saying, For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. In actuality, He tells them that He created the day of rest. After the six days of creation ended, God ceased from his work. God assessed his work to be good and He rested. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3) The seventh day was to be holy—without any work of creating. It was a day of peace, no activity at all. The seventh day in man’s historical accounts has never been a day of rest. Trouble, conflict and war have always been present on the Sabbath. The activity of man to disrupt and hurt has never ceased on a certain day of the week. The Sabbath is like every other day, a day corrupted by man’s disease of sin. Even today, when people try to observe the seventh day as set apart, holy, there are disruptions, fights and hurts on that day, even under the best of intentions. Man has not been able to rest in the goodness of creation and the Creator. Strife and contention have always been a part of every day. Of course, the hearts of men long for a Sabbath, a place of peace and tranquility. By saying He was Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus fulfilled everything the Sabbath should be. He is peace. He breaks down the division or the wall of separation between people. He not only reconciles people with each other but also to the God of creation. Without his dominion no peace will be found on Earth. We can sign treaties about peace; we can make agreements about peace, but peace or rest will never be accomplished in men’s hearts. We are a warring people, violators of every rule and law that is set before us. In Judges, God said that people did what was right in their own eyes. They each decided what they wanted to do or did not want to do, based on what they thought was best for them with little or no consideration for others. Judges reveals there was no authority in the land, no king. In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. (Judges 21:25) We might say no governing principles presided; not even God’s light penetrated the darkness. People say they desire peace, but without the Lord of the Sabbath, men and women will never take on the mantle of peace. A person’s soul is disquieted, unrepentant, demanding of his or her own way. We have a DNA in us that is uncontrollable outside of Christ. Paul found this DNA in his own soul, unable to find rest or a Sabbath. GOD RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY. We need to rest! Our rest is our hope in Jesus Christ who is our peace. He alone satisfies the unruly condition of the heart. He provides an eternal perspective of God resting on the seventh day. In him we find rest, the eternal Sabbath. Dear friends, trust in the Lord of the Sabbath, and He will bring eternal peace to your souls, that which is beyond belief. If you are hungry, the Lord of the Sabbath will satisfy your soul. Amen!
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