Mark 2 - Jesus & The Sabbath

Jesus and the Sabbath

Mark 2:23-28

This section of Mark chp 2 highlights the next scandal or controversey that Jesus had to deal with.

First controversey we had was Jesus and the paralyzed man , second was Jesus and the Tax collectors , third was Jesus and Fasting and now fourth we have Jesus and the sabbath.

These were all things that were brought up to Jesus by the scribes and pharisees to try and ping something on Jesus and or try and discredit him.

So just as we read , Jesus is going through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and in verse 23 the disciples begin to pluck the heads of the grain.

Lets look at a verse: Deuteronomy 23:25

Deuteronomy 23:25 NIV

25 If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain.

This command here was designed for providing food for those who didnt have food. If you go into your neighbours grains and take some to eat it was fine if you lacked food but just dont use a sickle which was like a sither blade and start cutting it all.

So in this sense God has already provided all the food for them to enjoy. They didnt start planting the crops or work the field to get the food , the food was already there for them through his command in Deuteronomy.

But the Pharisees try and challenge this as if they breached Gods commandments by breaking the sabbath by working.

Mark 2:24 NIV

24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Lets look at the little details in the text here. The first one we can see is that the Pharisees came out of nowhere. No one came and reported to them what was happening, that means they were just there following and watching Jesus and the disciples looking for a reason to accuse him.

These guys are the sabbath police. They finally saw them grab the grains and pluck them and they blew the whistle like a ref calling a penalty.

They start saying the disciples are doing what is unlawful on the sabbath day because they see them grabbing the grains and plucking them is work. So in the pharisees traditions that they added to the law they say that its okay to eat the heads of the grains but your not allowed to pluck the heads.

Becuase they call that threshing which is seperating the grains, they see that as work and you cant do that on the sabbath.

But the Pharisees werent reading the scripture in Deuteronomy 23 correctly. The whole point was that the disciples did not have to do work to get the grain because it was already left there for them.

Have you ever wondered why the Pharisees had made the law bigger and added in their own traditions? Its because a few centuries before Christ came they were exiled or like banished from the promise land by the Babylonians because they kept breaking Gods law.

They came back into the land of Israel but they were still under the Romans rule.

The Pharisees thought they if they kept the law and were obedient enough then the Messiah would come. If they kept breaking the laws then they would go into exile again.

So the pharisees tried to be extra careful , they didnt want people to break the laws again so they made more restrictions, added more rules to stop people from breaching.

So Jesus when they challenged him here about the sabbath day he could have spoke back to them about how plucking wasnt the same as threshing or working but instead he uses the same argument he used when he spoke about the wineskins when something new comes it will break the old.

Mark 2:25–28 NIV

25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

He shows the Pharisees that they are wrong in 3 different things here.

When he says “have you never read” he tells them their understanding of the bible is wrong.

The Sabbath in verse 27 he said the sabbath was made for man not man being made for the sabbath

The Son of Man - Jesus is over or higher than the sabbath.

Jesus pretty much schools them in the bible because in verse 26 when he talks about David eating the priests bread hes quoting 1 Samuel 21:1-6

1 Samuel 21:1–6 NIV

1 David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” 2 David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.” 4 But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.” 5 David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

So here the priests would bake bread on the sabbath and place twelve loaves on the table in the temple or tabernacle. This bread was called the Bread of Presence. The priests and only the priests were allowed to eat it but the scriptures here shows that when David and his companions were hungry they ate the bread. David ate and because those companions were with him they could eat also.

Jesus situation here is very much the same as Davids situation.

In both situations something unlawful has happened that is not judged by God as a sin.

Jesus carries on to correcting the Pharisees and he says that the sabbath should be served. Jesus says teh sabbath was made to serve humanity , not the other way around.

The Pharisees still dont see Jesus as the Messiah because they ask how Jesus relates to the sabbath when they should be asking how the sabbath relates to Jesus.

Mark 2:28 NIV

28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Jesus is Davids son by ancestry. David had authority over the Israelites as the king. Jesus is Lord not only over the people but over the Sabbath.

Jesus is the reference point for everything, everything must relate back to him , everything revolves around him , not the other way around.

The Pharisees dont even see that they are questioning the sabbath to Jesus who is the one who made the Sabbath in the first place thats why he is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is the one who created the world and then rested.

He gave the sabbath as a blessing for humanity not a burden to crush humanity.

Its actually funny , because if this logic of breaking the sabbath day was turned against the pharisees they would be actually breaking the sabbath in their sense because they see keeping the sabbath is a work to be accepted by God.

But the sabbath is not a work that we bring to God so that he can be impressed with how well you are resting. The sabbath is not a point , but its a pointer. The sabbath providing rest points to Jesus an even greater rest we can find.

The sabbath is only a shadow of the actual thing thats coming. It would be foolish to have a relationship with someones shadow and not the real thing.

The rest that Jesus gives is much more greater than the shadow that comes from the sabbath. Sabbath rest had to happen every week and needed to be repeated.

But God rested on the sabbath day, not because he was tired but because his work was finished. The same is with Jesus when he did his work on earth redeeming us. When Jesus died on the cross and said “it is finished” it meant that his work was complete.

You cant add to the work of Christ on the cross. But we can now rest in the finished work of Christ.

Jesus and Healing on the Sabbath

Mark 3:1–6 NIV

1 Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” 4 Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. 5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

This passage here is like the climax or the height of the controverseys that Jesus faced with the pharisees. This time Jesus doesnt get challenged by them , he bring the challenge to them.

Sometimes when we read the gospels and we see these things and we are like “ how do these guys have the audacity to talk to Jesus like this the son of God” sometimes we get to familiar with the stories that we miss that.

But think about that , the audactiy they had to try and question God in the flesh.

verse 1

Jesus goes into the synagogue and theres a man there with a withered hand. The Pharisees see him and they start wondering if Jesus is going to heal this guy on the sabbath. They watch him carefully.

verse 3 Jesus commands the man with the withered hand to come to him and he asks the question in verse 4 wether it is lawful to do good on the sabbath. This was the heart of the Law it was to do good and punish evil. Its hard to see the law punishing something good.

verse 4 we see their response. They say nothing. This just exposed the pharisees as being frauds because they dont really care about the people , they lack compassion, they dont have hearts that are set on doing good and saving others.

Their motives for following the law is not love. The sabbath to them has become like a competition to see who can do nothing best. The sabbath is meaningless when its not kept the way God intended it to be.

verse 5 Jesus looks at them with anger. Because of their hearts being so hardened they try and accuse the one who made the law.

verse 6

They reject Jesus and to do that is to reject life and choose death and they are literally choosing death because they start plotting on how they are going to kill Jesus

The Pharisees had no political power so they had to team up with the Herodians to cause Jesus death to take place later.

If Jesus asked them is it lawful to harm and kill on the sabbath , the pharisees would reply “ofcourse not!” But harming and killing is exactly what they are doing when they start planning to kill Jesus. So in chapter 2 or Mark and the start of chapter 3 Jesus is hit with many challenges and he is very controversial to the Pharisees and scribes and Jesus exposes all their pride, their hardened hearts and their hypocrisy.

Amen.

Questions for reflection:

What does it mean that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath?

2. What tends to interrupt your rest in Christ?

3. Are there areas in your life or parts of your heart that Jesus would be angry about? If so , find someone who could pray for you about this.