Sermon for Sunday, January 11th, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[1 Samuel 21:1-6 ESV] 1 Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread–if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
New Testament Reading:
[Colossians 2:16-23 ESV] 16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. 20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations– 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)–according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Gospel Reading:
[Mark 2:23-28 ESV] 23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Sermon Text:
[Matthew 12:1-8 ESV] 1 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. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how 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? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
Introduction
The fourth commandment is to “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
And, like each of the 10 commandments, these are blessed laws for the benefit of the people. Don’t think of the commandments as an oppressive God dictating what you are allowed to do. Think of them as coming from a loving God who truly knows what is best for you; what is best for his people.
But as so often happens, the Pharisees of Jesus’s time were “particularists” about the law. They were overly-strict, missing the big picture that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
And so in this text we find Jesus’s response to those Pharisees, giving us the proper understanding of the Sabbath and our relationship to that day TODAY.
This passage is, in a sense, a commentary — Jesus’s commentary — on the Old Testament, especially on the Sabbath law. Every verse, just about, relates to some Old Testament verse. And from JESUS’S commentary there is much that we can learn, for HE IS “LORD OF THE SABBATH.”
Starting at verse 1:
Verse 1. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
The is a reference to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy 23:25 which shows that they are allowed to pluck grain.
[Deuteronomy 23:25 ESV] 25 If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.
The Lord is a merciful God and instituted merciful practices. You are allowed to eat a little bit from another persons field, you just can’t harvest it with a sickle. Similarly, the Scriptures have them leave the corners of the field uncut so that others can “glean.” This is a poverty-alleviating system. But note, the hungry still have to work for it. “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” This is a better system than we have today, where people become dependent on the system and no longer work.
Picking heads of grain seems tedious, and it is hard to think that that is enough sustenance. But if the same applies to fruit trees that would be more notable. And I’ve known hikers to benefit greatly from fruit trees as they pass through a place.
Yes, a person “owns” the field or the trees, but this Biblical principle seems to keep in mind the fact that God owns everything, and the fruit of the earth is for the benefit of people.
Today we’d call this “trespassing” but in some Scandinavia countries there is a “right to roam.” You can pass through a persons property on foot, I think even camp there, just so long as you don’t cause any property damage. Biblical times were perhaps something more like that idea of the “right to roam.”
This reminds us that our present laws are not always right or the best laws; they are just the ones we know. We saw “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those whose trespass against us,” but a Biblical trespass is doing some harm to a person; not merely crossing an invisible boundary between properties.
Well, as to the main point of the verse, Jesus and his disciples are not trespassing — they are not even stealing — they are doing exactly what the law allows.
So the Pharisees are wrong in the next verse when they complain:
Verse 2. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”
The text the Pharisees are referring to is that of the fourth commandment, but they take it to the extreme.
That commandment in Exodus reads:
[Exodus 20:9-11 ESV] 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
The extreme of the Pharisees is to say “you shall not do ANY work!” and there are no exceptions, not even for charity or mercy or necessity.
They make this an absolute. These are the types of people who have specified the number of allowable steps you can take on a Sunday! Or decree, in more recent centuries, that it is a sin to ride a trolley on a Sunday.
Matthew Henry says of them: The Jewish teachers had corrupted many of the commandments, by interpreting them more loosely than they were intended; a mistake which Christ discovered and rectified (ch. 5) in his sermon on the mount: but concerning the fourth commandment, they had erred in the other extreme, and interpreted it too strictly.
So the Pharisees makes THEMSELVES the law; and naturally in some places they are short of God’s law and in other places they are way overboard.
This is the tendency from the beginning, when Satan told Adam and Eve that they could be like God’s, determining for themselves what is good and evil. And that is the same avenue our world goes along today – you can choose what is right and wrong. But we say, no, God makes the laws. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Well now the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of sinning! That is a bold move! (to say it lightly)
And they have set themselves up as the judge! With their own rules made up. The Jewish leader wrote additional laws in books called the Mishnah and the Talmud, but these weren’t around yet for a few more centuries. Yet, they had a lot of oral unwritten law that they required following.
But then we have the response of Jesus, which is just incredible. Hs knowledge of the Scriptures and application of them is unparalleled.
Verse 3 and 4. He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how 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?
What text is Jesus referring to?
This is when David is on the run from Saul and he stops as a place called Nob and speaks with the priest Ahimelech. And he needs food for him and his men for the journey ahead. And the priest gives him the holy bread, indicating that this was a Sabbath day, showing that even a holy thing can be used for common purpose when necessary.
[1 Samuel 21:6 ESV] 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
This is the bread which is “most holy to Aaron and his sons” (Exodus 29:33). It is for the high priests, and yet here it is given to David.
Jesus referencing this story to the Pharisees is brilliant.
Just as David and his men were (1) traveling and (2) hungry (3) on the Sabbath, so Jesus and his men are traveling and hungry on the Sabbath.
So if David can find exception, so can Jesus. This is the exception of mercy. The sabbath rule is not to strict as to prevent mercy. Feeding the hungering, sheltering those in needs, rescuing those in trouble, or healing those who are sick or injured.
Then there is another exception which Jesus references in verse 5. The exception of necessity.
He says to the Pharisees:
Verse 5. Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
“Have you not read?” They’ve read it, but it “didn’t stick.” They didn’t understand.
Now the text Jesus is referring to here is:
[Numbers 28:9-10 ESV] 9 “On the Sabbath day, two male lambs a year old without blemish, and two tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with oil, and its drink offering: 10 this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.
This is what is getting to: the Priests did NECESSARY work on the Sabbath. “ON THE SABBATH DAY.”
No verb is giving in those verse from Numbers; but it carries over from the context. The verb – the work they are to do even on the Sabbath – is “offer.” I don’t know all that entails, but it is work. The slaughtering of an animals, perhaps cleaning up the mess, as well as kindling a fire to burn the offering. All this work was NECESSARY in order to have an offering as God commanded. This is what is “profaning” the temple – the blood of the sacrifice.
So we have a good argument here for other necessary work on the Sabbath day. I tend to think of the need for power plants to keep going so we have lights on. But, closer to home, it might be that you need to do some cooking on a Sunday, or at least “firing up” the microwave. Others have jobs that cannot be shut down on Sunday – police, fire, emergency room doctors, etc.
So both acts of mercy and necessity are valid on the Sabbath. Pulling the ox out of the ditch, giving food to those in need, and doing the daily work of life may be necessary. Milking the cows, collecting the chicken eggs, etc. But I don’t recommended looking for extra work on the Sabbath day; we need rest.
Mathew Henry: This intimates, that those labours are lawful on the sabbath day which are necessary, not only to the support of life, but to the service of the day; as tolling a bell to call the congregation together, traveling to church, and the like. Sabbath rest is to promote, not to hinder, sabbath worship.
All of this then comes together in verse 7 of Jesus’s commentary. He has given some examples, now he gets to the principle of the matter:
Verse 7: And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
He is referring to a verse found in the Book of the prophet Hosea:
[Hosea 6:6 ESV] 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
So there are laws and there are exceptions, and then there is the heart.
Perhaps Mark is even more to the point with that wonderful phrase he records of Jesus: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
That is, IT IS NOT ABOUT RITUAL. We are to look to the REALITY. As Jesus says “something great than the temple is here.” JESUS HIMSELF is here.
We are to look to Christ, not to sacrifices, not to ritual, and then see a true understanding of the Sabbath: it is good for us. We are FREE to observe it; and when, by acts of mercy or necessity, we aren’t able to follow it precisely, that is OK. People are blessed in rest, but a break from rest to bring about other blessings is a good thing, not to be condemned.
So l like to connect verse 6 and 8.
Verse 6 and 8.
6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
That which is greater is the Sone of Man; it is Jesus.
This phrase, Son of man, is found in Daniel 7:13 where the son of man is the messiah who rules and reigns over an everlasting kingdom.
So Jesus is greater than the temple (and all its rituals), for while the temple is made of stones, Jesus is “a living stone.” (1 Peter 2:4) And he is the cornerstone of a holy temple. (Ephesians 2:20-22)
And so He “is Lord of the Sabbath.”
This means that he makes the law. He is in charge.
And therefore, Jesus cannot be in violation of the Law, for He is the law.
Matthew Henry says: The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day, v. 8. That law, as all the rest, is put into the hand of Christ, to be altered, enforced, or dispensed with, as he sees good.
Application 1: The freedom of Christ is superior to all of man’s rules.
And we see the freedom of the Sabbath. Jesus is rejoicing and delighting in the sabbath day, as we should as well.
So we ought to love the Sabbath day of rest.
We are not to be focused on rule keeping, but on Christ and being merciful as he is merciful, loving as he is loving.
Never do you see Christ “nit-picking” like the Pharisees do. Never.
Now finally, a second application. We are to rest in Christ.
Application 2: Rest in Christ
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
He is in charge.
And by his sacrifice – not the sacrifice of bulls and goats which cannot forgive sins – by his sacrifice we are forgiven.
So we have rest.
We then trust in him.
Frankly, it is no rest at all if we are trying all day to follow a bunch of man-made rules.
But now, we can welcomely rejoice in the Sabbath rest which God provided for us because we know that it is indeed for us.
Being saved of Christ, we now walk peacefully and restfully in his ways; not tormented by distractions of the world saying “go this way or that way,” but simply trusting in the Lord who gives us rest.
Praise the Lord that Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath.
We do not have, and do not want to have, someone making restrictions for us.
We want to have, and we do have, Jesus Christ, who frees us to love Him and to love one another, even as we rest.
Again I say, Praise the Lord that Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath.