THE LORD OF THE SABBATH (Mark 2:23-28)
INTRODUCTION:
As we come into our passage for today and finish up the second chapter of Mark, we are introduced to another of our Lord’s titles. Jesus Himself declares that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, again setting Himself in direct conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees. By declaring Himself Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus was striking a direct blow at the entire system of works-righteousness that found it focal point in the Sabbath. The seventh day of the week had become a day for the Pharisees to publicly showoff their self-righteousness and legalism. The Pharisees had turned a day of weekly worship and rest into a rigorous burden of minor and unnecessary rule keeping. But Jesus openly defied the man-made traditions, rules, and regulations regarding the Sabbath which put Him in direct conflict with the religious leaders at their most sensitive point.
By claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus was declaring His authority over the whole Jewish religion, because the Sabbath-day observance was its high-point. The implications of Jesus Christ’s claim struck deep. Remember this day of rest was established at creation when God rested on the seventh day. Then years later it was God who wrote on the tablets of stone in Exodus 20:8, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8, NASB95)[1] God was the One who established the Sabbath, to claim to be the Lord of the Sabbath was to claim to be God, and this fact was not lost on the Pharisees and scribes, causing them to believe that Jesus was blaspheming by claiming to be God.
The Sabbath as originally established was to be a day of worship and rest for God’s people under the old covenant. The word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word shabbat which means “to rest,” “to cease,” or “to desist.” On the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, the Israelites were to refrain from working in order to focus their attention on honoring the Lord. But over the centuries, from the time of Moses to the time of Jesus, the Sabbath had accumulated a vast number of restrictions which made observing the Sabbath an overpowering burden. No less then 24 chapters of the Talmud (the main text of rabbinic Judaism) focuses of the Sabbath regulations, carefully and precisely detailing the almost innumerable specifics of what would be considered acceptable behavior on the Sabbath.
The rabbis through the centuries had written down rules and regulations that if followed they believed it would gain God’s favor. They had rules about every area of life, anything that might be considered work was strictly forbidden. On the Sabbath scribes could not carry their pens, tailors could not carry their needles, students could not carry their books. To do so might tempt them to work on the Sabbath. The rules went on to say that it was forbidden to carry anything heavier than a dried fig and if the object in question was picked up in a public area it could only be set down in a private place. If you tossed the object in the air it had to be caught by the same hand that tossed it, if you caught it in your other hand that would constitute work, a violation on the Sabbath. No insects could be killed, no candle or flame could be lit or extinguished. Nothing could be bought or sold. No bathing was allowed because water might spill on the floor and accidentally wash it. No furniture could be moved inside the house because it might cause ruts in the dirt floor and that would be plowing. An egg could not be boiled, a radish could not be left in salt because that would pickle it and boiling an egg and pickling anything constituted work. Sick people were allowed enough treatment to keep them alive. Any medical treatment that improved their condition was considered work and prohibited. Women were not allowed to look in a mirror on the Sabbath because they might see a gray hair and pull it out and that would be work. Nor were they allowed to wear jewelry because jewelry weighs more than a dried fig. You could not wash clothes, dye wool, shear sheep, or spin wool. You could not tie or untie a knot. You could not plow, sow seed, reap a harvest, bind sheaves, thresh wheat, grind flour, knead dough, hunt for wild meat, and prepare it. Another restriction on the Sabbath was that you could not travel more than 3,000 feet from your home or take more than 1,999 steps. Due to practical concerns the rabbis devised ways for people to get around this. If you placed food at the 3,000-foot point before the Sabbath began, that point would be considered an extension of one’s home, thereby enabling a person to travel another 3,000 feet. Or, if a rope or a piece of wood was placed across a narrow street or alley, it was considered a doorway—making it part of one’s home and allowing the 3,000 feet of travel to begin from there.
So, you can see how the rabbinic traditions became more of a burden than a day of rest focused on honoring God. And this is just a small example of the more than 24 chapters on the regulations on the Sabbath in the Talmud. Jesus refused to follow these man-made rules and offered freedom from them to His followers.
As believers under the new covenant, we must understand that observing the Sabbath is no longer a requirement in the church age. The early church set aside Sunday, the first day of the week as the day in which we gather for worship, instruction, and fellowship. We must not equate the Lord’s Day (Sunday) with the Old Testament Sabbath. The Sabbath was for the Jewish people, the church celebrates the resurrection by gathering on Sunday. Even so, what this passage in Mark 2 reveals about the Lord Jesus Christ are rich truths for the church
This passage records the first of two incidents in which Jesus Christ directly challenged the Pharisees false understanding of the Sabbath. We will look at the second incident next week Lord willing. This incident and the incident which is in Mark 3:1-6 did not take place on the same Sabbath, but possibly only a week apart. This incident has four parts, a stroll through the grainfields, a scornful accusation, a scriptural precedent, and the Sovereign of the Sabbath. Let’s pray and then read our passage.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles to Mark 2:23-28, our passage for this morning. Please stand, if you are able, in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
Mark 2:23-28,
“And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ ” (Mark 2:23–28, NASB95)[2]
A STROLL THROUGH THE GRAINFIELDS (Mark 2:23)
Mark informs us that on a certain Sabbath, Jesus and His disciples were walking in the grainfields. Remember the Pharisees are watching everything that Jesus is doing, trying to trap Him in something. While they were walking through the grainfield some of the disciples became hungry, the parallel passage in Matthew 12 tells us about them becoming hungry. So, as they went along, they began to pick heads of grain. Luke adds that they were rubbing the grain they picked in their hands and eating the kernels (Luke 6:1). The crop growing here was either barley or wheat. Grain in Israel ripens from April to August, the barley first and then the wheat, so this event took place sometime between spring and summer.
In Israel from the time of Jesus and earlier, it was normal for pathways to crisscross fields, it was the way of dividing one field from another. Because of these paths travelers would regularly walk between the crops. Roads were scarce, especially in the more rural areas, so travel usually took place on the wide pathways that went from one town to the next, passing through fields and pastures. So as people went from one place to another, they would walk alongside the crops that lined both sides of the path. God had even put into the law of Moses a provision for those who traveled along those paths and got hungry. Deuteronomy 23:25 states, “When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.” (Deuteronomy 23:25, NASB95)[3] You were not allowed to harvest someone else’s grain because it did not belong to you. But you could pluck a few heads of grain with your hand while you were walking beside a ripened field of wheat or barley, this was a provision God Himself had made for His people.
This is exactly what Jesus’ disciples were doing, just as the Old Testament law permitted them to do. They picked off the heads of grain, they rubbed them in their hands to remove the husk and the shell, then they ate the kernels that were left. Their actions were perfectly allowable within the purposes of God, but not in the mind of the religious Jews.
A SCORNFUL ACCUSATION (Mark 2:24)
As we consider what is taking place here, it is hard to imagine how the Pharisees could have followed Jesus through the grainfields and stayed within the 3,000 feet they were allowed to go from their homes. Whatever justification they used for their own unlawful actions, they somehow saw what Jesus’ disciples were doing and they were enraged that they would break the traditions. They charged the disciples with doing what is not lawful. As I already stated, Jesus and his disciples had not broken any biblical law. The religious leaders had raised their man-made laws and traditions over Scripture. Not only had they elevated them above the law of Moses, but they had appointed themselves as the authority over the Sabbath-day rules and regulations and traditions, usurping the position from the only true Lord of the Sabbath—as Jesus would soon make clear to them.
They could not believe what they were seeing, and they were offended and outraged that a rabbi would allow His disciples to do something that was unlawful. “The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ ” (Mark 2:24, NASB95)[4] In the parallel passage in Luke 6:2 they not only accused the disciples of doing what was unlawful but included Jesus in the accusation. The only law that was being transgressed was that of the Pharisees. According to the rabbinic standards, the disciple had transgressed several of the laws of the Sabbath. They had reaped when they picked the heads of grain, they had threshed when they rubbed the heads in their hands to remove the husks and shell, they had winnowed when they had thrown the chaff into the air, and they had prepared a meal by eating the grain after they had cleaned it. None of these activities were permitted on the Sabbath according to the rabbinic rules and regulations, they all constituted work.
Notice that the Pharisees showed no concern for well-being of the disciples or the fact that they were hungry. Their only interest was seeing that their regulations and rules for the Sabbath were carried out to the letter. The very rules and regulations that made up their hypocritical system of religion, that they themselves got around by devising ways to circumvent the rules. They followed Jesus so that they could observe His behavior in hopes of finding something that they could accuse Him of doing. But it had to be good if they were going to get rid of Him. The reason for their questions was because they hated Jesus and they hated Him because He and His followers lived in such open defiance to their system of religion, in which the Sabbath was central.
A SCRIPTURAL PRECEDENT (Mark 2:25-26)
They had asked Jesus a question, so Jesus responded. He did not apologize for letting His disciples do something unlawful, instead His response was a challenge to the Pharisees that exposed their ignorance of the Old Testament Scriptures that they were supposed to be experts in. Mark writes, “And He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?’ ” (Mark 2:25–26, NASB95)[5] When Jesus said, “Have you never read?” He was showing the ignorance of the Pharisees. They had certainly read about this event and were aware of the facts, but they had failed to understand the true meaning. The account that Jesus is referring to is found in 1st Samuel 21:1-6. David is fleeing from king Saul because Saul wants to kill him. Because David had to flee, he is empty-handed, so he fled about a mile north of Jerusalem to the town of Nob where the Tabernacle was located. He arrives hungry and without any provisions. David asked Ahimelech, the priest for food. Listen as I read verses 4-6, “The priest answered David and said, ‘There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.’ David answered the priest and said to him, ‘Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will their vessels be holy?’ So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.” (1 Samuel 21:4–6, NASB95)[6] What is this consecrated bread? This was the bread of the presence which consisted of twelve loaves of bread that were baked and set out fresh every Sabbath on the golden table in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle. After the fresh loaves were put out the priests were allowed to eat the week-old bread, but it was only the priests that could eat it, no one else was allowed to have it. Recognizing David and his men’s need, Ahimelech showed compassion by making this exception and giving them the consecrated bread. His only condition was that the young men in David’s company must have kept themselves from women so that they would be ceremonially clean. It must be noted that God did not punish David or Ahimelech for their actions. He allowed a ceremonial law to be violated for the sake of meeting an urgent human need. The only person that was offended by the priest’s kindness was King Saul.
The point that Jesus was making using this Old Testament event as His illustration was that compassion, in God’s eyes, always trumped strict adherence to ritual and ceremony. Jesus used this illustration in the rabbinic style of the day by arguing from the lesser to the greater. If it was permissible for Ahimelech, a human priest, to make an exception to God’s ceremonial law in order to show compassion to David and his men by supplying them with food, then it was certainly right for the Son of God to disregard unbiblical, rabbinic tradition in order to meet the needs of His disciples. The Pharisees were more concerned with preserving their own authority than with the needs of anyone else. In the same way that Saul was pursuing David to kill him, the Pharisees were already seeking to put the Son of David to death.
In the parallel account in Matthew, Jesus also told the Pharisees in Matthew 12:5-6, “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.” (Matthew 12:5–6, NASB95)[7] By pointing this out to the Pharisees, Jesus was showing them the inconsistency of their own legalistic standard. On the Sabbath the priests were required to light the fires for the altar and to slaughter animals for sacrifice. These activities clearly violated the rabbinic restrictions for what was permittable on the Sabbath. Even so, the Pharisees considered the priests innocent of any wrongdoing. Even under the Pharisees’ own super legalistic standard, some Sabbath violations were allowable and even considered necessary.
By stating that “something greater than the temple is here” Jesus was again declaring His deity. The only One greater than the temple (which symbolized the presence of God among His people) was God Himself. As the One greater than the temple, Jesus had the divine authority to condemn the practices of the Pharisees.
THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SABBATH (Mark 2:27-28)
The Law with all its ceremony, ritual, and tradition, was never intended by God to stand in the way of mercy, compassion, kindness, and goodness toward others. Jesus explained to the Pharisees that even originally the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God’s purpose in establishing the Sabbath was to give His people a weekly rest. But the Pharisees had turned what should have been a divine blessing into a dreaded burden.
Again, looking at the parallel passage in Matthew to this one here in Mark, Jesus also told the Pharisees in Matthew 12:7, “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Matthew 12:7, NASB95)[8] Jesus is quoting to the Pharisees from Hosea 6:6 and in this reminds them that God established the Sabbath to be a merciful day of spiritual reflection and physical rest for the people. But the Pharisees had missed this and turned it into a burdensome day of restrictions that completely obscured the true purpose of the Sabbath. The reality that Jesus was trying to point out was that they were the true violators of the Sabbath. The fact that they cared more about the observance of their rules and regulations, than they did about the needs of people showed just how their religion had become a system of dos and don’ts and that all it produced was self-righteous people who were still dead in their sin.
By this time the Pharisees were seething when Jesus escalated the matter even more. In verse 28 Jesus declared, “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:28, NASB95)[9] Jesus claimed to be the sovereign ruler over the Sabbath. If they had somehow missed Jesus’ earlier claim that something greater than the temple is here, they got it now. Jesus was clearly claiming to be God, the Creator and the One who established the Sabbath in the first place and that He was the sovereign over it. This is the second time in Mark that we have seen this title, “Son of Man” a messianic title from the prophet Daniel. Jesus was declaring that He was the divine King who created the Sabbath and established its parameters. The scribes and the Pharisees prided themselves on being the authoritative interpreters of God’s Word and will. But standing here in their midst was One whose interpretation was infinitely more authoritative, the very Son of God Himself.
CONCLUSION:
As God in human flesh, Jesus Christ condemned the Pharisees self-righteous attempts to please God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God was characterized by grace; the religious leaders prided themselves on their works. Jesus Christ demonstrated mercy and compassion to people; the scribes and the Pharisees cared only about protecting the rabbinic tradition of rules and regulations. The Lord of the Sabbath exemplified the true purpose of the Sabbath; the Pharisees with their myriad of rules had transformed the Sabbath from a day of divine blessing into a dismal day of drudgery.
The scribes and the Pharisees believed that the Sabbath belonged to them. For centuries they had been working out its rules. When Jesus Christ declared that He was the Lord of the Sabbath, that He was the sovereign over it, that He was God the Creator who had created the Sabbath and had given it to the people of Israel to be a divine blessing, the hostility and hatred of the religious leaders grew to a point that they would not be satisfied until they had Him murdered.
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.