This morning, we continue to see conflicts between Jesus and the religious leaders over the rituals and practices of the Old Covenant. Today, we come to a conflict over the practice of the Sabbath. This was a persistent objection that Jesus faced, and we find two different ways that he confronted it in Mark 2 and 3. So, today, we are going to consider the first instance of this conflict, and then next week we will see the second. To begin, let’s read Mark 2:23-28 together. This morning, I want you to see two points: the Priority of the Sabbath and the Primacy of Christ.
First, from verses 23-27 we see the priority of the Sabbath. Mark tells us that a new conflict arises in the ministry of Jesus as he and his disciples are traveling along the edges of a grainfield on the Sabbath. It was customary (even required by the OT Law), in Jesus’s day, that farmers would leave the stalks at the edge of their fields so that the poor could glean from them. In our day, this might be like planting the right of way on a road, an area that is essentially public land. As the disciples passed by this right of way, they picked a few heads of wheat, sifted it in their hands, and ate the kernels. It’s obvious that this was a thoughtless, trivial act on their part, but it was not so for the Pharisees who were tagging along, looking for any fault. In verse 24 we read that the Pharisees immediately took offense to this and objected, asking “Why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Their question raises two important issues.
First, we have to ask, why are they so upset about what the disciples did? In Exodus 20:9-10 we find the fourth commandment, which says, “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.” The command is simple enough, but for the rest of time, Jewish scholars debated what exactly it meant to “work”. Can a person get an ox out of a ditch? Well yes. Can he walk to synagogue? Yes, but only within two miles. Can the wife cook lunch? No. Can someone take money out of his pocket? As long as it is with his non-dominant hand, sure. Can someone harvest grain? Well, it’s fine to pick the grain, but they cannot sift it. And here is the problem with what the disciples did. The Pharisees had established so many rules around the Sabbath, that it meant that even the basic act of rubbing a head of wheat between your hands to get out the kernels was akin to sifting, and therefore it was unlawful.
Second, we have to ask, what is the Sabbath, exactly? The Sabbath was intended to be a blessing. In Gen. 2:2, we find the first Sabbath, in which God rested after his work of creation and blessed the Sabbath, making it holy (or set apart). In doing this, God established a pattern of work and rest for all of creation. We find this pattern every day, as we rise to work and lay down to rest. We find it every week, as we work for a living, and then hopefully, have a day or two to rest. We find it in seasons, as we take days for holidays and vacations, that we might rest and refocus. But, we also find that the entire pattern of world history is a movement from work to rest. God is moving this world from the toil that was brought on by the fall of Adam to the rest of the heavenly kingdom he will bring. So, there is a redemptive aspect to Sabbath. When God delivered the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, he was delivering them from the endless toil of their bondage. Exodus 1:13 says, “So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service.” When Moses delivered the people of Israel from this slavery, he led them into rest. God provided for their needs with water from rock and food from the sky. He led them by a pillar of fire and cloud. When he gave them his law, he even forbade them from working themselves to death by establishing a Sabbath rest into the very law of their nation.
This fact of the blessing of the Sabbath brings us to Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees’ objection. Jesus responds in verse 25 by calling them to remember a story about David from 1 Sam. 21:1-6. In that story, David and his men are on the run from Saul. They’ve had to leave everything behind and run into the wilderness, and they are tired and hungry. So, they come to the city of Nob, where the Tabernacle resided at the time. The priest, Ahimelech, hides them in the tabernacle, and while there, David and his men eat the Show Bread, which was reserved only for the priests. Jesus uses this example to show that there is an inherent hierarchy to the laws of the OT. Some laws are given to define the general order of humanity. For example, the command to be fruitful and multiply is a general order for all of humanity. We are to value life, to promote family, to respect marriage. But, not everyone will get married. Not everyone will be able to have children. Does that mean that such people are living in sin if they remain single or can’t have children? No, certainly not. In other words, there are laws that are a means to an end, but not the end in themselves. There are other laws that are the end, though. Specifically, those commands related to the worship of God (“you shall have no other gods before me”) and to value human life (“you shall not murder”) are ends in themselves. So, the command to observe the Sabbath is a “General Order” command. It is intended to be a means to an end – that end is to bless mankind with rest in the Lord. So, Jesus explains, “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God created the Sabbath and gave us commands to keep it not so we could measure our righteousness by it or judge our neighbors for it. He gave us this command for our good, so that we would put down our work for one day and rest in his goodness.
Jesus then makes a move in answering this question which again establishes his position as the true Son of God, which is my second point – the primacy of Christ. In verse 28, he goes further by saying, “The son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Just like he did with fasting, he centers the true end of every ritual, every law, every practice, not on obedience for its own sake, but on himself. And, again, he makes an explicit claim to be God. God is the one who created, blessed, and commanded the Sabbath, and now Jesus claims to be Lord over that very thing. In this claim, Jesus establishes himself as the whole focus of the Sabbath. The Pharisees don’t get to decide what is allowed or forbidden on the Sabbath. Nor, does every individual get to decide (“I can worship God in a tree stand!”). Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He gives us rest from sin. Heb. 4:9-10 says, “So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” Jesus also brings the hope of a future, eternal rest in him. We have a symbol of that rest set before us in the Lord’s Supper. In this supper, Jesus commanded his disciples to “do this in remembrance of me.” As Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This supper proclaims two things: the sacrificial death of Christ, and the hope of the final rest he will bring when he returns.
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