Sabbath Rest

Introduction

Mark 2:23-28

Recall:

Jesus’s ministry is making waves in Capernaum and the surrounding area.

Challenged about eating with Tax Collectors and sinners (Mark 2:16)

Challenged about not fasting like John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees (Mark 2:18)

Point: Jesus is explaining that He is inaugurating a new age and bringing about Kingdom realities which (a) are designed to heal and atone for sin and (b) is something to rejoice in.

The text for this morning will develop these ideas as it relates to the Sabbath.

Relevance of this Passage

Before getting into some of the nitty-gritty of this passage, there are two things that could be said about the broader concept of “Sabbath” as it appears in this passage.

Sabbath is a HUGELY important topic to God and we must grapple with Sabbath realities as Christians. This is to say that Sabbath is not an issue of this passage alone, but is rather a whole-bible subject.

Sabbath is something that we do not understand or practice in our culture more broadly. As we will get at momentarily, Sabbath is something that the Pharisees carry too far; for us, Sabbath is something that we don’t do at all. So, between some of Jesus’s earliest audiences, his message which he delivered here challenges people from multiple directions.

Greek Exegesis Notes (Not for Sermon)

Translation

[23] … and it was (happened), that he, on the Sabbath proceeded through the field and his disciples passed on the way and picked heads of grain. [24] And the Pharisees said to him, “behold why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful?” [25] And he (Jesus) said to them: “Have you never read what was done by David when he and those who were with him were hungry and in need, [26] how he entered into to house of God when Abiathar was high priest? And how he ate the bread of the presence which no one is permitted to eat except the priest and gave it to those who were with him? [27] And he said to them: the Sabbath on account of man was made and not man on account for the Sabbath. [28] Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.

V. 23

Setting of the case study is given:

Jesus and disciples

Going through field

Disciples are picking heads of grain

On the Sabbath

[Note] This is a classic law-based text because of features three and four.

3. Disciples picking heads of grain

Lev. 19:9-10, 23:22, Deut. 24:19-22 - All give instructions to Israel to not reap every last head of grain from their fields so that poorer brothers and sisters could go through and get what they needed to feed themselves. Deut. 23:24-25 is explicit that the action which the disciples are doing is lawful. In particular, the thing which the disciples are doing is taken as something other than “reaping” because it is not performed with a sickle, and is merely a way of satisfying hunger.

Matt. 12:1 specifies that the disciples were hungry when they did this.

Doing what the disciples were doing was lawful according to the Torah.

No sort of “Sabbath” clause attached to Deut. 23:24-25. It is taken as an unqualified, “you are allowed to do this.”

The TENSION emerged because of the question: Is it lawful to reap heads of grain on the Sabbath?

To tighten down on the bolts of this question, a Pharisee would be likely to point out a couple of different things:

The language of Exodus 20:8-11 seems absolute.

The command is rooted or based in God

The command seems to hit everyone in Israel (the scope is absolute or total)

Exodus 31:14-15 and Exodus 35:2 both attach death penalties to the person who was working on the Sabbath

Numbers 15:32-36 recounts a moment when a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was put to death as well.

The question here is thus fairly straightforward: Was the gleaning that the disciples were performing closer to working on the Sabbath, or was it closer to eating on the Sabbath? Were the disciples committing a high-handed sin against God, or were they enjoying freedom which the law permitted?

V. 24

Is interesting for three reasons:

The question asked is actually a statement with a question mark.

Implied within this scene is that the Pharisees are following Jesus and His disciples on the Sabbath.

The heart displayed by the Pharisees is not that of acceptance but of suspicion.

I won’t linger on this last point, but this is one of the things that is very dangerous to do. There are many people who read the Bible as if it was written to trick them. So, they receive what Jesus says and does with the same attitude that is present in the lives of the Pharisees. The problem with this attitude is that it is the kind of thing which is rooted in hard-heartedness and renders a person unable to receive any kind of blessing from Christ.

Just imagine how much better the lives of the Pharisees would be if they took Jesus at His word here and found themselves being blessed again by the Sabbath.

Hence, they ask the question in Mark 2:24 - Note that their question has already built-in their answer to the question.

Pause on this Point - Jesus Does Not Take The Bait

The Pharisees have created a question which builds in an answer and is, by design, set up to corner Jesus on the actions of His disciples.

Another way to say this is that the question builds into it a statement which is actually a matter of debate, but is taken as a fact.

A close example of what the Pharisees are doing here could be found in the example of a mom or dad asking their kid: “Why did you break the shelf?” The hidden statement in the question is: “You broke the shelf...”, but the phrase has been turned into a question. If the kid was in another room, and the shelf was not anchored well and fell onto the floor because it couldn’t hold the weight of the books anymore, and dad walked in and asked: “why did you break the shelf?” The kid’s response would be: “I didn’t break the shelf.” Notice here that what the kid is doing is correcting the wrong assumption of the parent by trying to explain the nature of what is happening.

At any rate, the Pharisees pose a statement wrapped as a question to Jesus. They believe that something wrong has occurred, so Jesus’s response is an explanation for why their thinking is wrong-headed.

Here, Jesus’s response is both helpful, but also something that we must work through slowly.

V. 25-26

Have you never read?

This introduction by Jesus is sharp. He knows his audience all too well. For people whose lives are wrapped in pride and sprinkled in obsession, this specific line of Jesus cuts. The Pharisees are the people of Israel who know the Bible.

Jesus has positioned his response so as to communicate: “You might have knowledge of the words, but you need to revisit my word and think about the implications of this...”

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Beyond this point, Jesus does the following:

He cites 1 Sam. 21:1-6

He draws a conclusion which is stated in verses 27 and 28

Note the reference to Abiathar was akin to us speaking about President Eisenhower in his D-Day invasion. Though Ahimelech is the priest who actually gives David the bread, Abiathar was alive during the incident and wound up being the main high priest represented during David’s ministry. Jesus’s words here in reference to Abiathar were merely intended to guide his hearers back to the incident.

What is Jesus’s logic in this response? Of all of the possible choices for proof texts, why choose this one? —> Jesus in his example is able to capture both the Spirit of the Law and the Letter of the Law.

It seems that Jesus is arguing from greater to lesser (or vice versa depending on how you frame this)

David and the High Priest

Both highly regarded individuals. Neither of these individuals would be the sort that the Pharisees would challenge in person. Both are of status.

Situation of David and Jesus Disciples are Similar:

Both are groups of guys who are hungry

Difference

Abiathar stood in a place where he could have withheld the bread because of the law

No one could withhold the grain from the disciples on the grounds of the law

Abiathar rightly displayed a compassion for starving people which the Pharisees lacked

God’s heart in his law is provision and mercy NOT starvation and attrition.

Connection

God’s law about the showbread was intended to be a mercy upon the priest. Namely, the Levites and the descendants of Aaron were given the bread (along with a number of other things in the law) because they did NOT have land or any other means of supporting themselves. This is to say that the provision about the showbread (Lev. 24:9) was designed to be a protection for God’s people and not a club.

So, in the situation of the high priest and the showbread, was he required to give the bread to David and his men? No. The law protected him from this.

Who did the bread belong to? The high priest.

Could the high priest give the bread out of his own mercy? Yes. It was his to give.

In the Abiathar story, the law was a protection and not something that the high priest had to contort his life around in order to do what was obviously right.

In the disciples’ case, the law was still a protection. In this case, they were doubly protected. They were given warrant to eat (which is a greater reality than David and his men), and the heart of God displayed through the law via Sabbath was to give them rest.

—-> This is the point of verse 27. <—

“What does it look like to give Sabbath to someone in need?”

Further Steps

If God’s law made Abiathar the steward of bread, which he could demonstrate mercy through to David, then how does this map into Jesus’s scenario? Who is the one to whom the Sabbath belongs?

V. 28 Ultimately, it belongs to the Son of Man who is Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus’s response in verse 28 marries two titles:

“Son of Man” - Messianic title of Daniel 7:13-14

“Lord of the Sabbath” - Clearly a reference to God who instituted the Sabbath in creation (Gen. 2:2-3)

Connection with John 5:17-18

How Ought We Be Moved By This Text?

Learn to Marry Spirit and Letter | Grace and Truth

Jesus is marrying the Spirit of the Law with the Letter of the Law

Grace and Truth of Jesus (John 1:14)

God’s heart for us through the Sabbath is that we as people can rest (physically), but also learn to rest in Him spiritually (Hebrews 4:9-10)

This is reflected in Christ for his disciples

Arc of Sabbath Enjoyment

A person is commanded to Sabbath

A person must receive the command to Sabbath with obedience

For the Sabbath to be a blessing, the person has to trust the character of God

When a person learns to trust the character of God, his Sabbath is amplified because he not only Sabbaths in letter, but he also Sabbaths in Spirit.

Working backwards, when a believer returns to the letter of the law; he is unable to treat the command as anything other than grace.

So, the Old Testament command shows itself to be two things:

(1) Christotelic (2) Christocentric

God doesn’t get tired (Isaiah 40:28), but He still rests.

A. Some of you are overworked, and need to touch grass. This is the opposite problem of the Pharisees. Just the simple: stop, put down the phone, be alone with your thoughts, don’t fill your time with junk, etc. Kill the temptation to fill rest time with non-restful things.

B. Some of you need to adopt God’s perspective for your life. This is to settle into a type of rest which kills anxiety. I think of Philippians 4:6-8. This passage tells us how we ought to pray in order to receive peace, but also how we ought to direct our minds in Christ Jesus.