Wednesday: The Lord of the Sabbath
Luke 6:1-11 provides two accounts of Jesus dealing with the Pharisees over the Sabbath.
Read the first story in Luke 6:1-5. How did Jesus face the accusation that He and His disciples did not care for the Law and the Sabbath?
While walking through a field, the disciples plucked the heads of grain, rubbed them in their palms, and ate them.
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But the Pharisees twisted the fact to charge the disciples with breaking the Sabbath commandment. Jesus sets the story straight and refers the Pharisees to David, who, when he was hungry, entered the House of God and he and his soldiers ate the shewbread, which only the priests were allowed to eat. By doing this, Jesus was pointing out how the Pharisees, through a long history of legalism, have heaped rule upon rule, tradition upon tradition, and turned the Sabbath from the joy it was supposed to be into a burden instead.
Read the second story in Luke 6:6-11. What lessons about the Sabbath are seen here, as well?
Although all the synoptic Gospels narrate this story, only Luke tells us that the hand that was withered was the man’s right hand. Dr. Luke’s additional detail helps us understand the serious impact this physical deficiency must have had on the man’s ability to carry on a normal life. The occasion stirred two responses: first, the Pharisees waited to charge Jesus with Sabbath breaking in the event He chose to heal the man. Second, Jesus read their hearts and proceeded to show that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, the One who created the Sabbath, and that He will not fail in His mission to deliver the broken man from the bondage of the sin-sick world. Thus, He placed Sabbath keeping in its divine perspective: it is lawful on the Sabbath day to do good and to save life (Luke 6:9-11).
Think how blinded these leaders were by their own rules and regulations, which they thought were God’s. How can we make sure that we don’t fall into the same trap of allowing traditions and human teachings to blind us to deeper divine truths?
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What is Jesus saying? David broke the rules so we can also break the rules? Or is he saying we must remember the reason behind the rule which in exceptional circumstance will override the rule.
I believe this is an important point to keep in mind in our discussion about the Sabbath.
We need to keep in mind the order of priority in the 3 P's.
Every Precept has a Principle behind it and every Principle has the Person behind it.
Precepts are there to guide us in our daily living but we must never forget the Principle and the Person behind it. Accordingly sometime these higher values will result in our applying the Principle rather than the Precept. But more importantly we should always keep in mind the character of the Person, our Lord and God who said I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.
Shirley, I like your 3 P's - Precept, Principle, Person. To be honest though I don't think those leaders of Israel were interested in any of them when it came to Christ. All they wanted to do was to get rid of what they thought was a big problem and they used their sticky micromanaging regulations to do it. That to me is highlighted further by Luke saying that "some of the Pharisees" (Lk. 6:2 NKJV) raised the question meaning that it was questionable even among themselves.
It's not that many of those regulations were necessarily bad in themselves but it was what enforcing them did to those who they originally intended to help. I mean we sometimes do similar things to help ourselves remember what we should. I think of the Catholic rosary and the Jewish tradition of wrapping a strip of cloth around the arm seven times and vocalized creeds - even the memorized Lord's Prayer can become this sort of thing. The point is that they usually get the person to focus on doing the thing rather than on what they were supposed to point to and often become something done very mechanically without any thought or in some cases they even become items of worship as though they were the thing that saves. Sometimes even communion becomes that kind of a meaningless ritual that we feel we must do. And why do we do it; because we feel that we have to as though our salvation depends on it?
So yes I agree if we forget the person or even the principle nothing else seems to matter much and usually whatever we do gets twisted up in an ugly knot that removes worship from Christ in some way (think Dan 8:11 and how that could happen).
Hi Tyler, yes, I agree the Pharisees were an example of what not to do.
Think about the traditions we have in relation to Sabbath observancy nowadays: would it be possible they are taking the joy and happiness we should experiment on this special day?
Thank you for providing an honest admission that David engaged in what would normally be a wrong act. But hunger with no immediate means for satisfying that hunger allowed for, as you indicate, mercy. MIRACLES & BLESSINGS-ISAIAH 53!!!
This week it struck me that the shewbread not only was exclusively reserved for Aaron and his sons and that it was to be eaten in the holy place only: it also was called most holy (qodesh qodashim) being: the highest term of holyness. According to the ritual regulation no one else was allowed to eat of that shewbread. This would be a sacrilegious act against that highest form of holyness (see Leviticus 24:8-9).
However, the core of the law, being a transcript of Gods character, is mercy and love (Matthew 23:23). That ceremonial regulation or any other regulation was not supposed to eliminate acts of mercy and love. Christ was trying to restore mercy and love as the heart and core of the law (Exodus 34:6;Deuteronomy 33:3).
Winfried Stolpmann
Sabbath is such a blessed day, and so many don't know just what to do on that day. It's used for fellowship at our church, which is a good thing. As lots of us are very hungry for being friended. And getting to know one another, it has opened the door for me, to befriend a lady whom I never knew before our fellowship dinners Sabbath afternoon. Pray that our friendship will grow into something God will be proud of.
My question is, how can we be sure, as SDAs that our standard normal Sabbath is NOT heaped in tradition as was the Pharisees? Jesus states that we are to go about doing good holy deeds on the Sabbath yet for most the Sabbath consists of church attendance in the morning followed by fellowship with our fellow Adventists the major portion of the afternoon sometimes with "lay activities" (nap because we overate). What good deeds have we accomplished? Is God as displeased with our way of Sabbath-keeping as He was with the Jews? These questions have bothered me for some time.
Hi Michelle, I have also being pondering your questions. Please share with us the texts where "Jesus states that we are to go about doing good holy deeds on the Sabbath" as I am not familiar with them.
One of the most powerful chapters I know of in the Bible on Sabbath-keeping is Isaiah 58. I remember early in my experience as a Seventh-day Adventist being introduced to Isaiah 58:13-14 as a guide to know what is appropriate on the Sabbath. More recently I've seen the connection with the context; if we are to avoid doing our own pleasures (vs 13), that, in context, implies doing God's pleasure which includes, not only coming close to Him in worship and study (verses 2 and 14), but acts of mercy such as those listed in Isaiah 58:6-7. I'm sure that many of us have not heard that preached, and too few know the blessing that comes with putting it into practice.
Lets always weighs our options on what to do and what not to do on sabbath.....it's not that the Pharisees didnt know what was right to don.....they were just dismissing the works of christ..