The Lord of the Sabbath: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

[Benediction and thanks]

If you have your Bibles, please open it up with me to Luke 6:1-11

Luke 6:1–11 NIV

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Let’s pray.

The story we read today began on a Sabbath.

Us, non-Jewish folk of the 21st century, might look at this word, Sabbath, and have no idea of what is taking place.

What do you think about when you hear the word Sabbath?

Maybe, you think about someone who takes a sabbatical—someone who takes a break from work for a period of time.

I know of teachers and professionals who have done this, and it’s a good thing.

We all need a break.

But maybe, when you think about Sabbath, you think about the 10 commandments.

You might recall how God said to the nation of Israel,

Exodus 20:8–11 NIV

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

This is one of the lesser known commandments.

It’s kinda obvious that God would ask Israel to not murder or lie.

But God also said that the Jews were supposed to keep the Sabbath holy.

The Hebrew word for Sabbath is שַׁבָּת

And ever since God had commanded the Israelites, the Israelites saw the Sabbath as an important day.

On this one day, the Israelites were supposed to rest.

No one was supposed to work on this holy day.

It was a good day.

We all need rest.

During the time of Jesus, there was a strict observance of this day.

The religious leaders of their day, the Pharisees had their laws and traditions.

God had given the people a good thing.

He gave the people a day when they could rest—we all need rest.

But the Pharisees took a ritualistic and religious approach to the Sabbath.

The Pharisees added more laws and rules in honoring the Sabbath.

One of the laws that the Pharisees made to “honor” the Sabbath was not making food or going to the field.

According to the Mishna, their oral tradition, threshing, as the disciples of Jesus did in the fields was prohibited on the Sabbath.

In fact, they had all of these prohibitions:

1. Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking.

2. Shearing wool, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads, the making of two meshes, weaving two threads, dividing two threads, tying [knotting] and untying, sewing two stitches, and tearing in order to sew two stitches.

3. Capturing a deer, slaughtering, or flaying, or salting it, curing its hide, scraping it [of its hair], cutting it up, writing two letters, and erasing in order to write two letters [over the erasure].

4. Building, pulling down, extinguishing, kindling, striking with a hammer, and carrying out from one domain to another [Read bold]

One scholar noted that the disciples had committed forbidden kinds of work—they were reaping, threshing , and preparing food.

By plucking the corn they were guilty of reaping,

by rubbing it in their hands, they were threshing

To us, this whole thing seems fascinating—crazy how people thought back in the day.

But we need to remember that to a strict Pharisee,

what the disciples had done was a deadly sin.

Rules and regulations had been broken.

This was a matter of life and death.

One scholar (D. L. Bock) noted that

The law and its associated traditions, especially the sabbath regulations (6:1–11), are a major source of conflict in Luke’s Gospel.

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So when the Pharisees saw Jesus going through the field, rubbing the kernels, and eating what they had worked, the Pharisees were furious.

Here we have the Messiah and his disciples breaking the tradition of the Pharisees.

But Jesus and his disciples were not breaking the law of God.

Jesus rested as he should.

But Jesus was breaking what the Pharisees had added to God’s intentions.

God had said to not work on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees added to this law to say more than what God had intended.

Sometimes we do that.

God says a good thing.

Be modest, as we should all be—it’s a good thing, but men sometimes add and say you need to dress in a certain way that reflects their standards that were just developed in the last century.

God said to rest on the Sabbath, and men made it say more.

No working on the field was supposed to take place.

But here, Jesus and his disciples grabbed kernels to eat because they were hungry.

Jesus responded to the Pharisees by doing something we have all seen him do before.

Just like he did in the wilderness with Satan and in the synagogue back home, Jesus used the Scriptures to respond to the Pharisees.

Jesus quoted a story from 1 Samuel 2:6.

Jesus spoke of a story about king David.

Jesus sarcastically said,

“Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?”

Of course the Pharisees have read this passage—they were religious leaders.

They were teachers of this passage. But they didn’t understand the real meaning of this story.

So Jesus begins to retell this story:

King David, Israel’s best king, entered the house of God.

In the house of God, there was this bread that was intended to only be used for the priests.

That was it’s purpose.

No one was supposed to eat the bread except for the priests who took care of God’s house.

Yet, David and his companions were hungry, and they took the consecrated bread and ate it.

There’s something we need to understand.

God gives laws for the goodness of his people.

He set up the law about the bread in the temple being consecrated for a reason.

The priests needed to eat.

But there are higher laws that God has established.

God recognized that David and his companions were hungry.

So, while God had originally established a way whereby the priests were able to eat, God was fine with David and his companions eating the consecrated bread this one time.

Extreme human need, hunger, made a claim prior to that of sacred ritual.

In other words, as one prominent scholar of the New Testament, William Barclay, correctly said,

The Gospel of Luke The Increasing Opposition (Luke 6:1–5)

David’s need had taken precedence over rules and regulations.

Similarly, God had originally established a day of rest.

Every Sabbath, the Israelites were supposed to rest, but God understood that Jesus and his disciples were hungry.

Thus, it’s okay that Jesus and his disciples ate on the Sabbath.

God intended the Sabbath to bring rest to his people,

His intentions were not to cause people to be without food.

So if it was a Sabbath and Jesus went to grab food, that was okay.

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Then, Jesus said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

You will note, as we go further into our study of Luke that Jesus would primarily teach on three things:

The Kingdom - How people are to live under God’s will in this earth.

Discipleship - What does it mean to follow Jesus.

(And) The Son of Man

The Son of Man was the title that Jesus used to refer to himself.

It was Jesus’ favorite title to us to refer to himself.

We know that Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus is the one who would come from the line of David, who would rule on God’s behalf, and who would have God as his father.

But Jesus was also the Son of Man.

He was a human one.

Jesus borrowed this title from a passage that we have looked at before.

Back in Daniel 7, the prophet Daniel had a vision.

He saw the Son of Man go to the Ancient of Days, who is God.

And this is what Daniel 7:13-14 says

Daniel 7:13–14 NIV

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

The Son of man, a human one, went to God, received authority, glory, and power—every nation and people group from every language will worship him.

The dominion and kingdom will not pass away—it will last forever.

Each time Jesus referred himself as the Son of Man, he was saying that he believed that he was the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14.

He believed he was the human one who would approach God and would receive authority, glory and power.

He believed he would be worshiped.

And he believed that his dominion would be forever.

In our starting passage in Luke, Jesus believed that as the Son of Man, as the human one who had all authority, Jesus knew that he was over the Sabbath.

Therefore, Jesus said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

The Pharisees were trying to accuse Jesus for not following the Sabbath, but Jesus is over the Sabbath.

The Pharisees had said,

The Gospel of Luke v. Plucking Corn on the Sabbath 6:1–5

Mekhilta Ex. 31:14 (109b): ‘The Sabbath is given over to you and not you to the Sabbath’

The Sabbath was over the Israelites.

It lorded over Israel.

But Jesus is saying that he is Lord of the Sabbath.

He is over the Sabbath and lords over Israel.

Jesus has authority over the Mosaic law and Israel.

Now,

To show that the motives of the Pharisees

and to show what Jesus would do as Lord of the Sabbath,

we see this next scene in Luke, where it’s the Sabbath again.

And just like a good teacher, Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath in the synagogue.

Then, a man with his right hand paralyzed, atrophied and useless, had arrived to the synagogue where Jesus was teaching.

Having a hand that was paralyzed was tragic, especially back in the day, as men typically worked with their hands.

And, then, again, the scribes and Pharisees were present.

They were watching closely to see if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath.

You could just see how malicious these Pharisees are.

The Pharisees didn’t care about the man with a withered hand.

All they wanted to do was catch Jesus failing—catch Jesus breaking the rules that they had made.

According to the Pharisees, no healing was supposed to take place on the Sabbath.

They had taken what God commanded and extended it to mean something more, to mean that no healing was supposed to take place

Jesus wasn’t dumb.

He saw the Pharisees, knew that they wanted to blame him for healing on the Sabbath.

But Jesus didn’t care about what the religious leaders had planned.

Instead, he told the man to get up.

And the man listened to Jesus and got up.

Then, Jesus posed a question to the Pharisees, so that they could evaluate their motives.

He asked such a good question—he asked,

Is it permitted to do what is right on the Sabbath or to do what is evil?

To save lives or to destroy them?

The Pharisees had overly committed themselves to the law on the Sabbath, that their commitments had eclipsed the basics of the faith.

Their devotion to the Sabbath had caused them to be malicious and to not care for this man whose hand was paralyzed.

Sometimes people of God overly focus on things that are good, but they extort it, and then they forget about the basics—about loving and caring.

Jesus reminds us that we should do good every day; we should try to help lives every day.

We can have these commitments to biblical practices, but we should not distort them in such a way that we neglect our neighbor—that we fail to love them—that we neglect the basics.

The Pharisees had committed themselves to the biblical practice of Sabbath—a good practice—but they distorted it and neglected to love their neighbor.

Jesus did the right thing, as he always does.

On the Sabbath, Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand, and the man did.

And Jesus did the impossible: He healed the man’s hand.

You could tell that the Pharisees had the wrong motives.

They should have been rejoicing that God had healed a man.

But instead, the Pharisees were beyond furious and began to talk about how they would plot against Jesus.

As we close today, I want you to consider this.

As a follower of Christ, you may be like the Pharisees at times.

You elevate certain practices, over the basics.

We should follow the example of Christ.

He was the most spiritual person to have ever lived on this earth.

And he knew what to prioritize. We should interpret—understand—the Bible as Jesus understood the Bible, not as the Pharisees understood it.

We should never get to the point where we elevate a certain biblical practice higher than the basics.

Next week we will talk about some of the basics.

But for now, do not neglect loving a brother or sister.

Pray, as we should all do.

But prayer should not make us neglect our neighbor.

Prayer should help us love our neighbor,

just as the Sabbath should have helped people rest so that they can love their neighbors.

Spiritual practices should never be an excuse to neglect loving a fellow human.

Biblical practices should motivate us to love with even a greater passion.

Get a clear view of what God says, and apply what he says accordingly.

Don’t miss the point why God has said what he has said.

And if you have heard this message, and heard about Jesus,

I want to tell you this:

Jesus, who has the clearest vision of what God wants, calls you to follow him.

And I encourage you to do so today.

Declare him as the Lord over all, as the Lord of the Sabbath.

Let’s pray.