(Matt Koerber)
Matthew 12:1-14 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
9He went on from there and entered their synagogue. 10And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. 14But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
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This is a pretty remarkable passage. The conflict that Jesus has with the Pharisees reaches the breaking point, and at the end the Pharisees are found to be conspiring to kill Jesus (v.14.) Ironically, the debate that tips them over the edge is around issues of Sabbath observance. The very thing that Jesus taught was supposed to be a blessing and an occasion to “do good”, became the moment that prompted them to pursue his death. Along the way, we learn about the Sabbath, how Jesus interprets the Bible, and who Jesus understands himself to be.
The term sabbath is a Hebrew word which means “to rest.” The fourth commandment specified that the Jewish people should remember God’s salvation in their lives by resting from their work on the last day of the week (Saturday). In the Old Testament, the term Sabbath was also applied to other, longer periods of time. I suspect that forms the root of our modern word, “sabbatical.” However, when we speak of “THE Sabbath”, we are thinking about the day of the week set aside for worship. This was intended by God to be a blessing and contrasted with their former life as slaves in Egypt. During that time they did not have rest. However, the other side of the issue is that resting from work requires faith. If we are going to stop working, we need to believe that God can care for our needs. For Christians, the Sabbath was shifted to Sunday, the day of the resurrection of Jesus, and referred to as “the Lord’s Day.” (See 1 Cor 16:2, Acts 20:7, Rev 1:10).
However, it is easy for people to distort the purpose of the Sabbath. The prophets would condemn Israelites for “profaning the Sabbath” with religious idolatry (Ezekiel 22:8). It is possible to profane the Sabbath by focusing on your own work and ignoring God’s call to rest. When we do this, we demonstrate our spiritual independence and self-reliance. Or, it is possible to profane the Sabbath by turning your focus to false gods and idols. However, in this passage Jesus shows that there is a danger of profaning the Sabbath by trying to make it a measuring stick for legalistic performance and judgments. The Pharisees wrongly believed that if they could be meticulous about eliminating all possible work, they would therefore succeed at keeping the Sabbath. However, Jesus interprets the Sabbath1 as something intended to be a blessing. It is meant to be a time to “do good” (v.12). The Pharisees blew right past this concept and missed the whole point of the Law. Jesus wanted them to prize “mercy”, but instead they used it to condemn others who were not able to fully comply with their strict expectations (v.7).
In the midst of this, we learn something important about Jesus. He regards himself to be “something greater than the temple (v.6)”. He also named himself to be “lord of the Sabbath (v.8)”. This implies that Jesus has authority to interpret Sabbath practices. It also shows us that Jesus closely identified his mission as being a mission of rest. You may remember that in yesterday’s devotion, we saw Jesus invite “all who labor” to come to him and find rest.
Finding our rest in Jesus requires us to surrender control and trust his care. But the life that Jesus invites us into is one in which we can find deep and abiding rest because of the work he did on our behalf. We honor him when we set aside Sundays for worship, rest and fellowship. We honor him when we take time to read and pray and meet with other believers. We honor him when we go about our daily activities trusting that he has made us righteous and that we do not need to prove ourselves to anyone. May God give us a deeper appreciation of the rest we have in Jesus.
- Take note of how Jesus made his argument. He assumed that the Law of God was unified and therefore, the narrative sections (David in the temple) would help to clarify proper practices. In a recent Adult Education class, Josiah Hall described the way in which the narrative sections of Scripture (in particular the OT) are intended to inform our approach to Biblical interpretation. That is the methodological approach that Jesus used here. ↩︎
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An audio version of each devotion will be posted on our church podcast “Life Together at CRPC,” which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.