Mark 2:23-28 

²³ One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”²⁵ He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? ²⁶ In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”²⁷ Then 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.”

Lord of the Sabbath

One big pitfall in Christian life is the tendency to reduce the living relationship with God to a set of dos and don’ts. In many situations, I find having a checklist or a set of rules very useful. For example, as an engineer, when I work on a system in production, we have a set of dos and don’ts that we must follow to comply with security guidelines and to keep us from making mistakes that would impact customers. But if we follow them blindly, without understanding why they are in place, we might end up doing a lot of work and yet miss the bigger picture and forget to check something essential.

This is no different in our spiritual lives. In Genesis 2 we read that on the seventh day God rested from all his work and blessed the seventh day. In his fourth commandment, he also invites his people to join him in his rest, and over the centuries, the Israelites have come up with many dos and don’ts to ensure they comply with this divine requirement.

In today’s passage, the disciples violate these dos and don’ts, the same way that David violated the rules about consecrated bread. (1 Samuel 21, Leviticus 24:1-8) We cannot be sure about the Pharisees' original intention, whether it was a genuine concern or a futile attempt to discredit Jesus, nevertheless, it’s clear that by focusing on dos and don’ts, they forgot the reason behind the Sabbath. It almost feels unfair to point out that they also didn’t realize (what we now know) that the disciples were in the presence of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ first response, however, does not focus on that. Rather, he defeats them on home ground, citing the Scriptures, asking where they derived these dos and don’ts into which they have put their trust. 

We should not see God’s commands as a strict set of dos and don’ts. They are not fences to shut us in, instead they are more like fences at the edge of a cliff to keep us from falling. God is our creator, he knows us better than anyone else, and he gives us instructions because he knows what we need and what is harmful to us. We need to rather go beyond rules and to focus on our creator behind them. He is the Lord of the Sabbath, the same way he is the Lord of us. Having a personal relationship with God through his Holy Spirit should enable us to discern the practical application of his commands in our lives.

Prayer: Thank you Father, that you invite us into your presence to rest with you. Thank you that you know what we need before we even realize it. Help us not to reduce you to a set of requirements, but to seek a living relationship with you. We ask for your Holy Spirit to enable us to live here on Earth as your people. Amen.