18 July 2025 - Lord of the sabbath

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath."

The Pharisees used what should have been laudable zeal for the sanctity of the sabbath and turned it into a weapon against Jesus and his disciples. They wanted to make the disciples appear lax in regard to the law, and less concerned with the discipline of the sabbath than themselves.

Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry

David and his men were fleeing from the aggression of King Saul in a way similar to how Jesus and his disciples were been pursued by the Pharisees. Because David had been anointed at the command of God to be the king of Israel his mission was so important that he and his men were permitted to share in the priestly privilege of eating the bread of the presence. Serving the mission of Jesus, who was himself anointed by God, and was therefore the promised messiah, was a still greater justification for the disciples' eating grain on the sabbath.

Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?

A separate analogy by which Jesus justified his disciples was regarding the service of the temple on the sabbath. Because of the divine purpose of the temple the service thereof being performed on the sabbath was right and just. But Jesus was himself the true temple, the place were God was most perfectly present with the human race. If the service of a temple which was only a symbol and a shadow of what was to come, which would one day be reduced to rubble, was sufficient to justify work on the sabbath, how much more was the service of Jesus himself.

I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.

Jesus was able to make the claim that he was greater than the temple, because he was the one whose worship the temple was created to facilitate. This claim may have been implicit, but it was not subtle. It only made sense in light of the fact that Jesus himself was worthy of the same degree of worship offered in the temple that he could legitimately make such a claim.

For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.

Only the one who created the sabbath could truly claim to be Lord of the sabbath. Only he saw the purpose of the sabbath so clearly that he could truly say what was fitting on the sabbath and what was not. But since Jesus was indeed the Lord of the sabbath he knew that the deepest purpose of the sabbath was ordered toward communion between God and man. And he knew there was nothing more central to seeing this communion restored and celebrated than the mission of his Kingdom. Therefore, that which was done in service of that Kingdom was always going to be about mercy more than sacrifice, because it was always mercy to make the presence of Jesus available and to facilitate his worship.

 

Shane and Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)