New Testament Doctrine — Matthew 12:1-14

The Sabbath Law was surprisingly simple: Don’t do any work. Treat it as a day dedicated to Jehovah for His use. The only question about executing this would be: How would God want to use this day? Eventually, distinctions were made. Obviously it’s okay to sustain life; feed your family and domestic animals. Assist people and domestic animals who suffer misfortune. If anything, the biggest issue is that you cannot require anyone else to perform labor for your profit. It was a day of rest; that was the whole point. Thus, there are no business transactions on the Sabbath. The whole point is promoting shalom in your community. Give people a break so they can stop and contemplate their Lord. You would think it was a matter of common sense.

But as we have already seen, with the Pharisees it was all about turning the Law into a false god. Their elaborations on Sabbath Law were downright cult-like. They insisted this was what God required, though it was clear He had not. Rather, it was a bunch of nonsense they required of others in order to maintain their dominance. Their whole existence was consumed in discussing the existing legalistic conclusions of previous experts, and adding more to them. They openly claimed that they were building a hedge around the Law to protect it. They never understood that the Law protected God’s people.

Jesus was on a mission from His Father to restore the Covenant to the people. Fields of grain were not fenced in; there was a general custom of free passage. And according to Moses, anyone walking through your field of ripe grain could pluck a few heads and eat as much as they were able without carrying any away. In other words, they could eat whatever they could pluck, strip from the stalk, and rub the chaff off between their hands. They weren’t supposed to stop and just pig out.

So the disciples of Jesus were having a small snack while passing through a field of ripe grain — on the Sabbath. In the wild imagination of the Pharisees, the disciples were harvesting, threshing and winnowing grain, all prohibited labor. And obviously Jesus permitted it, as the rabbi in charge, and that was the key issue here.

But even the traditions of the elders admitted that David didn’t sin when he stopped off at the Tabernacle in Nob and took the expired showbread, and on a Sabbath, no less. That’s when the bread is swapped out, and the priests eat it that day as part of their perks of office. These were large flat cakes of unleavened bread, so it doesn’t spoil quickly. The flour was donated, and they used about a pound for each cake. After a week, the Levites could come in early Saturday morning, bake a new batch of a dozen cakes, and swap it out for the coming week. David wasn’t even king at that point, just one of King Saul’s most famous servants. Yet he claimed to have a mission that took priority over the ceremonial rules.

Did David have the authority to do that? The rabbinical traditions say he did. He compelled the priests to serve him food on the Sabbath. David was always a favorite of the Pharisees in their ruminations. Note that Jesus points out how David did this as much for his small entourage as for himself. He was showing mercy and preserving life and health for his troops on a special mission. And Jesus was allowing His disciples to feed themselves while on a special mission, too. If the Pharisees condemn Jesus, they have to condemn David, too.

And what about the priests and Levites? Don’t they labor on the Sabbath? They baked that bread and moved it around, “serving” it to the Lord as a Sabbath breakfast. And then they all puttered around the Tabernacle or Temple all day long, doing all kinds of labor: starting fires, butchering animals, carrying stuff around, etc. That was their job. Did they have the authority to do break the Sabbath command like that? And then there are the worshipers who bring all those offerings into the Temple on the Sabbath — herding and carrying loads. Just what is it about the Sabbath in the first place? All of those silly traditional rules about things you can carry, how far you can walk, and whether you can feed yourself, miss the point.

Jesus had a mission that day that took priority over rules about the Temple services, same as David that day when he took the showbread. To be precise, anything Jesus did took priority over everything that didn’t actually adhere to the Covenant. The Pharisees’ rules were a violation in themselves, since they were adding to God’s Word, when they weren’t coming up with cutesy tricks to take away from it so they didn’t have to follow the same rules they put on everyone else. They had no concept of mercy; they were all about making the people sacrifice for their benefit.

Then Jesus said, “This human is Lord over the Sabbath.” He was the expert. It was for Him to decide what was consistent with Sabbath Law.

To prove the point, the next time He visited one of their synagogues on the Sabbath, some more Pharisees questioned Him about one of the folks in attendance. One of this fellow’s hands was withered. Of course, they were testing Him, given His reputation for healing just about every malady in His presence. Was it lawful, Rabbi, to heal on the Sabbath?

Jesus pointed out that everyone one of them would have been quite willing to rescue a domestic animal on the Sabbath. Was not a Covenant brother worthy of rescue on the Sabbath? Indeed, it is just and righteous to do good things for people on the Sabbath. That’s not work. So Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand, and it was healed just like the other.

That very day, the Pharisees began holding council on how they could get Him killed. They couldn’t definitively argue with His teaching, and certainly couldn’t restrain His miraculous power. It never occurred to them to wonder how He could exert God’s power if they were right and He was wrong. They had God figured out, and God Himself couldn’t argue with them.