Matthew 12: 1-8
Jesus
was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
“See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.”
He said to the them, “Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
“See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.”
He said to the them, “Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
When a man points to toward the moon the fool stares at
the finger. The Pharisees were so wrapped up in the letter of the Law that they
couldn’t see the Law incarnate standing before them. Instead they parsed the
Law in a way that they could trap Jesus and his disciples. Work was prohibited
on the Sabbath and here they have caught these men harvesting wheat (picking
the heads of the wheat as they walked), threshing wheat (they rubbed the wheat
in their hands to separate the fruit from the chaff), and winnowing wheat
(blowing the chaff away from the fruit). These men were in clear violation of
the Sabbath law however miniscule it seemed.
Jesus countered them in three ways that they could not
understand. First he tells them that King David violated Sabbath laws when his
friends ate of the sacrificial bread reserved to only priests. Jesus would
assume the throne of King David and become the king of kings. Therefore his
disciples were justified to do this labor in the presence of the king. Second,
Jesus reminds the Pharisees that priests are also exempt from Sabbath law when
they serve in the temple. Jesus’ disciples would go on to become his first
priests and were serving him in the field. His last point was the most
important.
There is
something greater than the temple here.
The temple was where God resided among the Jews. It is
the place you went to offer praise, worship, and sacrifice. The disciples were
in no need for the temple for the Lord was present in their midst. He was not
longing for sacrifice. He was longing for mercy. The Pharisees gave him
condemnation instead. The Pharisees put the Law before the Lord when the
purpose of the Law was to give us direction on how to have right relationship
with the Lord. Man was not made for the Sabbath but Sabbath for the man.
Sabbath is a day set aside for man to worship God. The Sabbath was made for the
Son of Man.
When the disciples pointed toward Jesus the Pharisees
stared at the disciples.
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