Lord of the Sabbath

I. Christ defends the disciples from the heavy burden of the Pharisees (1-2).

A. The agriculture of the Jews.

It was the sabbath day so we can assume that Jesus and the disciples were either on their way to the synagogue or had already left. The Bible says they were walking through the corn. That may sound odd to us. We wouldn’t normally cut through a corn field. That would upset the landowner. We would also be trespassing.

The roads in that culture were different than ours. There were a lot of wide paths that led from town to town. Often those paths were between the fields of farmers. It was common to walk very closely to the crops of someone. Landlines were marked by rows of stones (Deut. 19:14).

During my time in Haiti, I witnessed this type of farming. You would be walking along a road and before you know it you feel like you are in someone’s garden. You could literally reach out and pick a banana.

Quite literally Jesus and the disciples are walking through crops of grain. The Bible says the disciples were hungry. They didn’t have any food. Jesus didn’t do miracles for the sake of miracles, so He wasn’t about to create some food for them to eat. By the way, let’s never forget the poverty of Christ. It’s clear He lived the life of an extremely poor person. Here they have nothing to eat. The Bible tells us in 2 Cor. 8:9:

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

The disciples begin to pick and eat some of the grain. Because we live in the West this is difficult for us to understand. We don’t want anyone eating the apples off of our apple tree. We don’t want anyone eating the pecans out of our yard.

But in the Old Testament God made provisions for travelers and for the poor. In Leviticus 19:9 God told the farmers:

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest.”

God said to leave some of the crop for the poor and the travelers. Now there were boundaries to this law. In Deut. 23:25 God said, “you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.”

The idea was that you could get enough to eat at that moment, but you couldn’t take any home with you.

The times were hard then. It sometimes took days to travel from one city to another. There was no unemployment or social security. Poverty was common. God wanted His people to be aware and concerned about those around them, so He gave laws concerning agriculture.

B. The accusation of the Pharisees.

Notice the Pharisees didn’t accuse them of stealing. They knew it was ok for the disciples to take the grain. Their problem was the disciples picked grain on the Sabbath.

There were areas of the law where the Pharisees were loose. In those areas Jesus showed the Pharisees were not strict enough.

They were loose in the area of lust. They were against adultery but were silent on lust.

They were loose in the area of divorce. They divorced for whatever reason they wanted.

They were loose in the area of love. They hated their enemies.

When it came to the Sabbath the Pharisees were too strict. Through the years they had added many rules to the Bible. The sabbath had become impossible to keep. John Macarthur has done extensive work on this subject and he gives us insight into how difficult keeping the Sabbath had become.

You could not travel farther than 3,000 feet from your house. If your food was within 3,000 feet you could go and get it. Then your food was considered an extension of your house, so you could travel another 3,000 feet from there.

You couldn’t carry a load that weighed more than a dried fig.

You couldn’t eat anything bigger than an olive.

You couldn’t throw an object into the air with one hand and catch it with the other.

Tailors didn’t carry needles so they wouldn’t be tempted to work.

Nothing could be bought/sold, dyed/washed.

You couldn’t mail a letter.

You couldn’t light a fire or extinguish a fire but you could light a fire from an existing flame. I witnessed this firsthand when I was a chaplain. They could not light the candle themselves. They would always have to have a non-Jew light the candle for them.

You couldn’t take a bath because you might spill some water on the floor thereby “washing” it.

You couldn’t move a chair because you might drag it and create a furrow (which would be plowing).

You couldn’t tie a knot.

Women were not to look in the mirror because they might see a grey hair and be tempted to pull it out.

If someone was sick you could only give them enough help to keep them alive until the next day, couldn’t help the person improve, only stay alive.

The Talmud says

“If a person rolls wheat to remove the husks, it is sifting. If he rubs the head of wheat, it is threshing.

If he cleans off the side adherences it is sifting.

If he bruises the ears it is grinding.

And if he throws it up in his hand it is winnowing”.

In the Pharisees eyes the disciples had sinned. They harvested wheat. They were working on the Sabbath. It’s obvious they want the disciples to be punished. That’s why the Pharisees go to Jesus. He is their teacher. They are a reflection of Him.

C. The Advocate of the disciples.

It’s important to recognize the connection between this section and the previous section. What we see here is an example of what Jesus just condemned in the religious leaders. Remember verses 28-30. Jesus is speaking to the weary and the burdened.

Why were the people burdened? They were burdened because of their sin, the law and the traditions of the religious leaders. The religious leaders offered no hope of salvation. All they did was pile more laws on the backs of the Jewish people.

The disciples had come to Jesus. They had found rest. They had found salvation. Now here comes the Pharisees piling unbiblical laws and false allegations on the disciples.

You’ll miss something here if you’re not careful. Christ speaks for the disciples. They don’t have to give an account to these ungodly religious leaders. Christ speaks for them.

It’s interesting to me that this is the only sin they lay upon them.

Matthew had been a thief.

Peter admitted he was an exceedingly sinful man.

Simon had been a terrorist.

No one needed to convince these men they were sinners. They certainly didn’t need a false accusation to show them that.

The good news is they had come to Christ.

They had found forgiveness.

They had found righteousness.

Now Christ is their Advocate. 1 John 2:1 says.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The Bible says there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Christ is our Defender! Christ will not lie. He will tell the truth about all of us. He will say more than the Pharisees did. He will say:

He has lied!

He has lusted!

He has stolen!

He has dishonored father and mother!

He has taken the name of the Lord in vain!

He has broken the Sabbath!

But more than that He will say:

He has been bought!

He has been washed!

He has been made new!

He has been forgiven!

If Christ is our Advocate in our actual sins, then He is certainly our Advocate when it comes to the false accusations of the religious hypocrites.

Christ defends the disciples from the heavy burden of the Pharisees.

II. Christ corrects the teaching of the Pharisees (3-6).

A. He addresses their ignorance.

Notice two times He asks the question “Have ye not read?” It’s almost as if he is saying “You guys do have a Bible, don’t you?” They had just proven they knew tradition, but it seems they don’t know the Bible.

Jesus is about to bring up two very elementary subjects as far as the bible is concerned. The problem with most of the religious was they knew what people taught more than they knew what God said in His Word.

This is one of the reasons it’s important your pastor teaches through the Bible.

This is one of the reasons it’s important you have your Bible open when I’m preaching.

There are many people in church who think they know the Bible but only know what people have taught them. What has been taught to them may or may not be in the Bible. You can be religious and be ignorant to the Scripture. You can be a preacher and be ignorant to what the Bible says. It’s become common for preachers not to study the Bible anymore but to find a sermon on the internet and preach that to the people. That’s in essence what the Pharisees were doing. They were preaching things they had heard preached rather than preaching the actual Word of God.

Jesus is blunt with them. He asks them if they have even read the Bible at all.

B. He gives them a history lesson.

The story Jesus mentions is found in 1 Samuel 21. David was on the run; King Saul was trying to kill him. He and his men were famished. He told Ahimelech, the High Priest, that he was on a private mission no one could know about from the king and he and the men were hungry. It was the Sabbath day and Ahimelech had in his hands the Shewbread. This was twelve loaves of bread that were replaced in the Tabernacle every Sabbath. They were to be eaten only by those of the Aaronic priesthood (Lev. 24:9). Ahimelech permitted the bread to be given to David and his men (1 Sam. 22:10).

David and his men ate the holy bread, and it was sanctioned by the High Priest. God didn’t strike David or his men down, neither did He correct the High Priest so the Lord must have been ok with it. An exception was made to a ceremonial law to meet a genuine need.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t eat holy bread. This was just some grain they picked. If God allowed His ceremonial law to be broken to alleviate the suffering of David and his men, then certainly it’s ok to break a man-made law to alleviate the suffering of Jesus disciples.

C. He gives them a theology lesson (5-6).

No one works harder than the priests on the Sabbath. They light fires, kill animals, place the animal on the fire. There was a lot of work that had to be done on the Sabbath (Num. 28:9-10). If the Pharisees were consistent, they would have to shut down the Temple on the Sabbath because the priests are working all day long.

Look at verse six. Jesus says One who is greater than the Temple has arrived. He’s talking about Himself. The Pharisees knew if there was no Temple there was no sacrifice for sins. They depended on the Temple for their relationship with God. But now Christ has come. Our salvation is found in Him. If Christ stops working the work of redemption stops. In fact, it would be worse to stop Christ from working than it would be to shut down the Temple.

They didn’t understand how great the Messiah was. They had a shallow theology.

They had a theology of works salvation. They believed they could earn God’s favor.

They had a theology of worldly ambitions. They thought salvation was all about success and power in this world.

III. Christ elevates compassion over ritual (7-13).

A. He heals a man on the Sabbath.

Jesus enters a synagogue on the Sabbath. There is a man there with a withered hand. That means it was useless. He couldn’t use it at all. This wasn’t a life-or-death issue, but it certainly affected his life.

It looked bad.

He probably couldn’t do much work.

Jesus told the man to stretch forth his hand. When he did the Lord healed it and it was as good as the other.

B. He reveals the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

Notice that it was the Pharisees who pointed out the man to Jesus. They asked Him if it was lawful to heal this man. They did this the text says, “so they might accuse Him”. Why do you think the Pharisees were always hanging around Jesus? They wanted some information they could share with the religious elite. They needed ammunition. They actually want Jesus to heal this man, not because they care about the man, but so they can say that Jesus is breaking the law.

The crazy thing is there wasn’t a law that said you couldn’t heal on the Sabbath day. But they assumed healing someone was work.

To reveal how hypocritical they are Jesus mentions a common situation everyone could relate to. Jesus says if one of your sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath do you get it out? The answer was obviously “Yes”. Jesus then reminds them that people are more valuable than animals.

I’ve lived in the south all my life and I have witnessed a number of times that church members had their cows get out on a Sunday. When the cows get out on Sunday are we supposed to let them roam the roads until Monday? That would be ridiculous.

Jesus says if you’ll help animals on the Sabbath why wouldn’t you help people on the Sabbath?

C. He quotes a prophet.

In verse seven Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6. He tells the Pharisees that’s a verse they don’t understand. Rituals mean nothing if we don’t love people. The Pharisees didn’t care about people.

They wanted to say to the disciples who were hungry- “You can’t eat!”

They wanted to say to the handicapped man- “You can’t be healed.”

That wasn’t compassion. That was legalism.

IV. Christ is Lord of the Sabbath (8).

A. Jesus explains Himself to the Pharisees.

He tells them He is Lord of the Sabbath. This is an important statement. Leviticus 23:3 says that the Sabbath belongs to the Lord. It is the Lord’ s Sabbath. Jesus says He is Lord over the Sabbath. In other words, He is greater than the Sabbath and He can do whatever He wants on the Sabbath. This is a clear statement of Jesus Deity. He is telling them He is God. That’s why they want to kill Him in verse 14.

Jesus is the One who created the Sabbath. He is the One in Genesis who saw all that He had created and rested on the seventh day. Because Christ instituted the Sabbath He certainly has the authority to instruct people upon it.

B. Jesus should be exalted on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath points to Jesus. Hebrews 4:9-10 tells us that Joshua did not lead the Israelites into rest and that a day of rest is awaiting the people of God. That rest is found in Jesus.

We rest from our works- salvation is paid for.

We rest from our anxiety- we don’t have to worry about standing before God.

We rest in peace- knowing that Christ is taking care of us and will one day come and take us to our home in heaven.

Jesus is our Sabbath. We rest in His finished work on the cross.

It’s interesting to see in the New Testament that believers began gathering for worship on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2). Why did they do that? Because Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week.

The day of worship changed from Saturday to Sunday because Jesus is greater than the Sabbath. This is one of the proofs that Jesus did rise from the dead. His resurrection was such a miraculous event that it resulted in the changing of the day of worship.

Now if you want to keep observing Saturday as a day of rest, that’s fine. Colossians 2:16 says not to judge one another in these matters. But if you do you should still gather with believers and lift up the Lord Jesus on the Lord’s Day. There is a commandment to gather with the body of Christ and exalt Jesus.

Some people will read what we have read today and conclude this means we don’t have top go to church. That’s not what it’s teaching. Jesus went to Synagogue every Sabbath.

There are always those people who say you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. Well, you don’t have to go home at night if you’re married either. But I’m betting if you don’t you won’t have much of a marriage.

Jesus deserves one of your days. He deserves every day. But He deserves a day in which you gather for the sole purpose of exalting Him. As believers our Sabbath day is Sunday and we should exalt the Lord of the Sabbath on that day.

One of the purposes of the Jewish Sabbath was for them to remember how the Lord delivered them from Egypt (Deut. 5:15). In the same way you and I should spend the day thinking about how the Lord has delivered us from our sin. It’s good to have an entire day each week in which we meditate on our salvation.

C. Mercy should be extended on the Sabbath.

The priesthood was busy on the Sabbath day. The Bible says believers are the new priesthood. We should be busy extending mercy.

Sunday School Teachers should be teaching

Preachers should be preaching

Deacons should be serving

The poor should be ministered to

What better way to extend mercy than to gather and share the message of Christ? Look at the end of verse 12. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

While we are not obligated to keep the Sabbath as the Jewish people were there is a pattern laid out for believers when we look at the Sabbath. God’s people should gather to:

Worship Christ

Rejoice in our salvation

Extend mercy to others

Let me ask you a question friend. Who is Lord of your Sabbath? Who determines the way you spend your time on the Lord’s day?

Is it your family? They call and you drop everything?

Is it your hobby? If the weather is clear is it hard to go to church?

Is it you? Is it a week to week decision for you? Do you just ask yourself if you feel like giving the Lord a day?

Is it Christ? Is He Lord of your Sabbath?

I pray that Christ is everything to you. I hope that you give Him at least one day in which you clear your schedule to worship Him and meditate on His goodness.