Rev Gav

Sabbath

Luke 6:1-5

6 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, his disciples broke off heads of grain, rubbed off the husks in their hands, and ate the grain. ² But some Pharisees said, “Why are you breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”

³ Jesus replied, “Haven’t you read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He went into the house of God and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests can eat. He also gave some to his companions.” ⁵ And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath.”

Reflect

The Sabbath (last day of the week) was a day of rest and set aside for spending time with God. To encourage and to enable this to happen, there were a whole heap of religious laws for the whole community to follow. These laws described the things you were and weren’t allowed to do on the Sabbath — and as it was a day of rest, anything to do with work was forbidden. In fact, you weren’t even allowed to prepare food on the Sabbath — that had to be done the day before! So, when Jesus’ disciples picked grain from the fields on the Sabbath, this would’ve been considered work, and they’d’ve been guilty of breaking the religious law.

Now, the Pharisees were like the unofficial religious law police. They went around trying to get everyone to obey the religious law, and they were keeping an eye on Jesus. So, when, on the Sabbath, Jesus’ followers picked some grain and ate it, the Pharisees were all over them like a rash.

Jesus replied with a strange story. He told of how David and his friends ate some bread in the temple — not just any bread, but bread that had been consecrated. This meant it had been specially put aside by the priests and marked as holy. David and his friends had broken the law but because of who David was, they didn’t get in trouble for it. You see, David was a character in the Hebrew Bible who had been anointed by God as King — even though a guy called Saul was on the throne. At the time, David was on the run from King Saul and waiting to be established as the rightful king.

Therefore, this story about Jesus wasn’t just about breaking the law, there was a deeper subtext in Jesus’ reply that pointed to who Jesus was. By making the comparison with David, Jesus was saying that he’d been anointed by God, and was waiting to be established as the rightful king! So legally, he was in the right. But Jesus in his last sentence went even further. He said he wasn’t just a king over the Sabbath but he said he was ‘Lord of the Sabbath’.

Today, like the Pharisees telling off the disciples for breaking the law, it’s easy to feel bad when preachers tell us that we’re not good enough — that we’re not reading our Bibles enough, not praying enough, not going to church enough, not giving enough, and so on. But the religious law wasn’t designed to shackle the Jewish people, but to help them get closer to God, and we shouldn’t be shackled by religious rules today either! We must be careful that Christianity doesn’t slide into legalism.

It’s the closeness to God — the relationship with God — that matters, not the method. And you can get close to God right now, wherever you are, by simply turning to God through Jesus and saying ‘yes please’.

Do

Today, choose to trust in Jesus. Trust in a God who is Lord over every rule and regulation. He has the authority to accept and forgive, no matter how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you think you are.

Pray

Holy God
I know that in my own strength
I will never be good enough for you.
I stuff up, mess up and fail.
I do my own thing, and go my own way,
but you are the God of unfailing love
who embraces me as your child.
You are the Sabbath Lord, the King of all creation.
and it is to you that I turn, and in you I place my trust.
This day and for ever.
Amen.

Think

In what way do you think Jesus’ God-given authority is different to the God-given authority given to King David?