Mark 2:23-27

Join me as we walk behind Jesus and His disciples on a Sabbath morning. We will be part of a large number of people on their way to the local synagogue for the weekly service. Once again we will see Jesus at odds with the rules and regulations of the scribes. On their way to the synagogue he and his disciples passed through a corn field. His disciples began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat them. On any ordinary day the disciples would only be doing what everybody else felt free to do. It was freely permitted in the law (Deut. 23:25 ). So long as the traveller did not start cutting the corn with a sickle he was free to pluck the corn. But this was done on the Sabbath and the Sabbath was hedged around with literally thousands of petty rules and regulations. All work was forbidden. Work had been classified under thirty-nine different heads and four of these heads were reaping, winnowing, threshing and preparing a meal. By doing this the disciples had technically broken all these four rules and were to be classified as law-breakers. It seems fantastic to us; but to the Jewish rabbis it was a matter of deadly sin and of life and death. By all the standards of religious society Jesus’ disciples were a motley crew. They were not your usual genteel religious people. Four of them were fishermen and two of those had a reputation as loud mouths. James and John were nicknamed “Sons of thunder”. Another was a tax collector. They were not used to observing the niceties of local religious observance.

  The Pharisees immediately accused them to Jesus and pointed out to Him that His disciples were breaking the law. It is quite amazing how other people’s standards of spirituality threaten us. If people don’t conform to our ideas of what a spiritual person does or doesn’t we assume they must be wrong. The Pharisees obviously expected Jesus to stop them on the spot but Jesus answered the Pharisees in their own language. He cited the story which is told in 1Sam.21:1-6. David was fleeing for his life from King Saul; he came to the tabernacle in Nob; he demanded food and there was none except the shewbread. Exo.25:23-30 tells of the shewbread. It consisted of twelve loaves placed on a golden table three feet long, one and a half feet wide, and one and a half feet high. The table stood in the tabernacle in front of the Holy of Holies and the bread was a kind of offering to God. It was changed once a week; when it was changed it became the property of the priests and of the priests alone and no one else might eat it (Lev.24:9.) Yet in his time of need David took and ate that bread. Jesus showed that scripture itself supplies a precedent in which human need took precedence of human and even divine law.

  “The Sabbath,” Jesus said, “was made for the sake of man and not man for the sake of the Sabbath.” That was self-evident. Man was created before ever the Sabbath law was instituted. Man was not created to be the victim and the slave of religious rules and regulations which were in the beginning created to make life fuller and better for man. Man is not to be enslaved by the law of the Sabbath; the Sabbath exists to make his life better.

  This passage confronts us with basic Christian truths which we forget at our peril.

Christianity as taught by Jesus does not consist of rules and regulations. To take the matter in question--Sunday observance is important but there is a great deal more to religion than Sunday observance. If simply by abstaining from work and pleasure on Sunday would make anyone a Christian or if attending church on that day, and saying prayers and reading the Bible on Sunday was what one did to become a Christian, then being a Christian would be a very easy thing. When we forget that love, forgiveness, service and mercy are at the heart of religion and replace them by the performance of rules and regulations, our Christianity is in a bad way. Christianity has always consisted far more in doing what is right than in not doing things that are wrong.

Christianity is about the need to get right with God. As the old confession has it, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” That we can only do through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins. When we are in a right relationship with God everything looks different. An old hymn says,

“Heaven above is softer blue, earth around is sweeter green;  

Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen;

Birds with gladder songs o'erflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine,

Since I know, as now I know, I am His and He is mine."

When Christ comes into our lives we look at the things we see things differently. We should also have a different attitude towards what others are doing and what they are not doing. Whatever our views on Sunday observance might be we must admit that works of necessity and mercy are quite legal on the Sabbath. If ever the performance of our religion stops us helping someone who is in need, there is something far wrong with our religion People matter far more than systems. People are far more important than rituals. One of the best ways to worship God is to help others.

Sacred things are only truly sacred when they are used for the benefit of others. The shewbread was never so sacred as when it was used to feed a starving man. The Sabbath was never so sacred as when it was used to help those who needed help. The final arbiter in the use of all that God has given us is love and not law.

The Sabbath was made for man.

It was instituted to ensure that man got a rest from his labours and a rest from the cares and anxieties of the world. It gives him an opportunity to escape from earthly concerns and to direct his thoughts to the affairs of eternity. It is a kind provision for man that he might refresh his body and that he might have undisturbed time to seek the Lord for answers to the problems   that confront each one of us. Where there is no day of rest and worship there is sickness and stress. The Sabbath was pre-eminently intended for man's welfare, and in the best interests of mankind it should be sacredly regarded as an appointment of a merciful God for our good.

Jesus justifies His disciples in plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath day. None of the Pharisees would dare to have done this because for it was contrary to a well known tradition of their elders. In this instance, as in what went before, they see this as a reflection on the spirituality of Jesus and of what He expected of His disciples. His rules were not as strict as theirs. It is common for those who would deny the power of godliness, to be jealous for the forms of religion rather than its substance.

God never designed the Sabbath to be an imposition upon us, and we should not make it one. Man was not made for the Sabbath, for he was made a day before the Sabbath was instituted. Man was made for God, and for his honour and service; he was not made for the Sabbath. God made the Sabbath for man.

He made it with regard for our bodies that they might rest, and not be tired out with the constant business of this world.  He also had regard for our souls. The Sabbath was made a day of rest, in order that it might be a day of communion with God, a day of praise and thanksgiving. A day of rest each week is necessary for our physical, mental and spiritual health.

If the Sabbath was made for man, we should ask ourselves at night, “How has this Sabbath benefited me?” This does not mean that we should make Sunday observance a burden to ourselves or others. God ordained it to be a blessing.

  “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath” and to his honour it must be observed. He will not see the kind intentions of the institution frustrated by our impositions but neither will He see it abused by our greed. In this, as in everything else, our rule should be, “Do all for the glory of God”.