The Gospel of Mark 2:23-28
23 And it happened that He was passing
through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their
way along while picking the 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 he
and his companions became hungry; 26 how he entered the house of God around the
time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not
lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who
were with him?”27 And Jesus was saying to them, “The Sabbath was made for man,
and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Consequently the Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath.”
Have you noticed? Have you seen the continued encounters with
the Pharisees and Jesus? Do you know why this is? It has to do with authority.
The leaders of the Judaic faith believed they had authority over the lives of
men because they knew the scriptures. But they also added to them to a point of
tyrannical oppression upon the people.
Here we see this again as Jesus is walking by the
grainfields and His disciples pick the heads of grain from the edge of the
fields. The Law of God in the Holiness Code of Leviticus 19:9-10 states, “Now
when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners
of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall
you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your
vineyard; you shall leave them for the afflicted and the sojourner. I am
Yahweh your God.” This is how God made sure that one, the Jews would love their
neighbors, and two, the afflicted and sojourners who had nothing would be able
to eat.
In the Ten Commandments, the Law states, “Remember the
sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a sabbath of Yahweh your God; in it, you shall
not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female
slave or your cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six
days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them,
and rested on the seventh day; therefore, Yahweh blessed the sabbath day and
made it holy.
The reason I mention this is to show you what the Jewish
leaders did. Since the command about the sabbath says you must do no work they
began breaking the Holiness by requiring that no work at all be done. Thus, they
considered the picking as reaping, the rolling of the grain in one’s palm as threshing,
and the blowing of the chaff from the hand as winnowing. This according to the
Jewish leaders was a violation of the 7th commandment.
Thus their tradition added to the commandment of God, but
Jesus, who is God, returned with an answer, “Have you never read what David
did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered
the house of God around the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the
consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests,
and he also gave it to those who were with him?”
He first challenges what they should have read when it comes
to Scripture. Many today do the same thing by challenging another with quips
and arrows of chosen understanding of scripture but have failed to read the
actual scriptures. Jesus knows the words He spoke to those authors of the Old
Testament for it was God who gave them the word. He also as a young man read
and studied the Law with all diligence. The same should have been said of the
Priests of that day and today, let alone the common man.
For he quotes to them from memory the very words of David,
and how when he was hungry ate the showbread of the priest which was only for
the priest by Law. Yet David ate because mercy trumps law. Matthew Henry
states, “Ritual observances must give way to moral obligations; and that may be
done in a case of necessity, which otherwise may not be done.” David’s hunger
was met with moral obligation by the priest Abiathar because it is how one
loves his neighbor according to the Holiness Code.
And what’s more, Jesus reconciles His disciples for they had
done no wrong by plucking and eating the grain, and more so, Jesus says “The
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.“ For Mankind was
made before the seventh day and it was made to be a sacred and divine
institution; that must be received and embraced as a privilege and a benefit,
not as a task and a drudgery. God designed it to be an advantage to us regarding
our bodies so that we may rest and not be too tired and exhausted, hence he
even made it so that the animals and servants may get rest.
It is also a time in which we can focus on fellowship and
worship of Jesus who according to Hebrews is our rest. “Therefore, let us
fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may
seem to have fallen short of it. “For indeed we have had good news proclaimed
to us, just as they also; but the word that was heard did not profit those who
were not united with faith among those who heard. For we who have believed
enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, They shall not
enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the
world.” This means those who believe have entered that rest, but those who
are under His condemnation shall not enter His rest. For in Him we no longer
work for our salvation through the Law, but through Him we have attained our
righteousness. And we glorify and give all of ourselves as a living sacrifice
as a slave to the one who atoned for us on the Cross, Jesus.
And “Consequently the Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath.” “Jesus is the Lord of the day, and to His honor, it must be observed;
by Jesus, God made the worlds, and so it was by Jesus that the Sabbath was
first instituted; by Jesus God gave the law at Mount Sinai, and so
the fourth commandment was Jesus’ law; and that little
alteration that was shortly to be made, by the shifting of it one day forward
to the first day of the week, was to be in remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection,
and therefore the Christian sabbath was to be called the Lord’s day (Rev.
1:10), the Lord Christ’s day; and the Son of man, Christ, as
Mediator, is always to be looked upon as Lord of the sabbath.” (Matthew Henry)
And upon the calling of Christ who seeks you this day, He
can forgive you of your sins and restore you whole again, for He has the
authority and the power of redemption. You who are lost in the ideologies of
this world, imprisoned by the doctrines of men, slaves to your sexual desires
and perversions, and pursuits of the flesh and mind, who rebel at the created
order of God and make yourselves the determiner of your death and destruction.
Jesus seeks you right now and brings life to all who repent
and believe. Jesus the Messiah has risen from the dead, conquering it, and
lives. He is in your midst with us, but you cannot see. You are blind and your
heart is darkened thus we bring the light that we proclaim.
Death will soon take you and when you die you will face
judgment for your sins. God is just and cannot by His nature abide by sin nor
dismiss it. Every act of rebellion and transgression against God is wrapped up
in sin, yet you have foolishly chosen to do it because you love your sin, rather
than follow Christ and His righteousness that would truly enrich you.
From the Ten Commandments, we have false worship,
idolatry, misusing God’s name and living vain lives, violating the Sabbath,
dishonoring parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying/false witness, and
coveting.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5–7), Jesus took some of these same sins to a new level. Regarding
murder, Jesus said, “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to
judgment.... But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of
hell” (Matthew
5:22).
Regarding adultery, Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at a
woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
This includes men lusting other men and women lusting other women.
In Galatians
5:19-21, we are told, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:
sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and
envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this
will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
In addition to the
various lists that can be found in Scripture, we are told in 1 John
5:17 that “all wrongdoing is sin.” Not only does the Bible tell
us the things not to do, but in James 4:17,
we are informed that anyone “who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do
it, sins.”
God is just and He must bring recompense to every sinner,
and you are that sinner, and you cannot comprehend your sins to root them
all out and make yourself right with God. Neither by obeying the Law nor by deciding
that you are right with God. Only God can make you right with Him and He sent
His son Jesus to live that perfect life without sin, die, and rise on the third
day alive to atone for your sins.
Jesus bore all our sins; He bore all the sins of all who
believe in Him. He suffered the totality
of God’s Wrath upon Himself that every sinner deserves, willingly, so that
those who believe in Jesus may have peace with God.
As it is written, “God, being rich in mercy because of
His great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our
transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace, you have been
saved—and raised us with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches
of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by grace you have been
saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;9 not of
works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:5-8
Turn away from your unrighteous sinful ways which lead to death and turn toward and follow Jesus which leads to life.
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