Mark 2:23–28, Lord of the Sabbath

 

Mark 2:23–28, Lord of the Sabbath

We are stepping directly into a battlefield. If you have your Bibles, open them to Mark 2:23–28.

Since we opened the Gospel of Mark, we have watched a Powerful, yet pitiful pattern unfold. Every time Jesus does something magnificent, the religious elite throw a furious fit.

• He touches and cleanses a leper—they get offended.
• He tells a paralyzed man his sins are forgiven—they scream, "Blasphemy!"
• He invites Levi the tax collector to follow—they mock Him as a friend of sinners.

Every time Jesus reveals the Truth of His identity—Son of Man, Great Physician, Divine Bridegroom and today, as Lord of the Sabbath—the religious deep state responds with willful blindness. Like kids on a playground closing their eyes, covering their ears and shouting “La la la la...”

We live in a world of armchair pharisees.

·      Self-appointed hall monitors from hell

·      Obsessed with policing politically correct behavior

·      Eager to cancel and condemn anywho step outside their self-designed lines.

·      While ignoring moral rot and their own hearts of arrogance and lawless.

That is exactly what Jesus is dealing with here. The Pharisees didn't want Truth; they wanted control. They didn't want mercy; they wanted a monopoly.

And when they face off against the Son of God over a handful of grain, Jesus looks at their religious red tape and basically says: “Bull hockey” and pulls the rug out from under their armchair.

Mark 2:23
Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.

When we read the same story in Matthew 12:1-8 and Luke 6:1-5, we’re given a few more details. The disciples were hungry so they plucked the grain (wheat or barley), rubbed it between their hands, and ate.

Picture the scene. 

Jesus and His disciples are walking through standing fields of grain on a Saturday (Sabbath).

The disciples are perhaps weary from ministry. They’re hungry. So, as they walk, they pluck some heads of grain, rub them together in their hands to knock off the husks, and pop the grain into their mouths.

Can you see them? Smiling, as they are literally walking with the Creator of Life.

In the Presence of the Lord is fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11.

Can you see them? Freely gleaning, laughing, throwing grain husks at each other.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17.

Look at them walking with their Creator, enjoying unalienable rights He gave them; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Now, just to be clear, let's establish the facts straight out of the gate.

Were they stealing?

No.

According to God’s law in Deuteronomy 23:25, you were perfectly permitted to pluck (glean) grain with your hands from your neighbor's field to satisfy your hunger.

You just couldn't bring a sickle, or a John Deere Combine, to harvest the whole field.

God in His infinite wisdom makes provision for the hungry, while simultaneously addressing greed and need.

But the Pharisees turned a free, open field of amber waves of grain, into a religious minefield.

²⁴ “And the Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’”

Here come the religious hall monitors from hell, lurking in the bushes on a Saturday morning. Media-nites, without a life, following Jesus wherever He goes, just looking for something, anything, to accuse Him.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. They were the lawless ones, straining a gnat and swallowing a camel. Their hearts were full of pride, hypocrisy and hatred. (Matthew 23:24).

“Why do they do what is not lawful?”

What a joke! Do you know how ridiculous and legalistic the Pharisaic system had become?

God gave Israel the Sabbath as an emergency brake for human exhaustion. It was meant to be a beautiful gift of physical rest and spiritual restoration. But tradition took God's gift and turned it into a prison of pressure.

By your tradition you make of none effect the Word of God.
Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13.

The oral traditions of the elders, later written down in the Mishnah, took the command to “rest” and exploded it into 39 categories of forbidden work (melakhot). And within those categories, they created sub-rules that were utterly insane.

A controlling spirit is never satisfied

Look at how their Sabbath laws actually operated:

Pharisaic Restrictive Rule	The Legalistic "Logic"
The Dried Fig Weight Limit	You were strictly forbidden from carrying any object or burden on the Sabbath that weighed equal to or more than a single dried fig. If you carried a pocket handkerchief that weighed more than a fig, you were guilty of a Sabbath violation.
The Mirror Prohibition	You were forbidden from looking into a mirror on the Sabbath. Why? Because if you saw a gray hair, you might be tempted to pluck it out—and plucking a hair was classified as reaping, which is manual labor!
The Radish Rubdown Ban	You could not rub a radish into salt on the Sabbath because dissolving the salt through friction was considered cooking.
The Healing Limitation	Medical care was completely illegal on the Sabbath unless the person was actively dying. If a bone was broken, you could bandage it to keep it from getting worse, but you could not treat it to make it better until Sunday morning.

Church, think about the absolute, hypocritical absurdity of this religious system. If a Pharisee caught you carrying a cell phone on the Sabbath, you’d be guilty of breaking the Sabbath, because:  

·      The phone weighs more than a dried fig.

·      Activating an electrical screen is considered ‘kindling a fire,’

·      Typing a text message is classified as ‘manual labor.’

Under the strict letter of Biblical law, intentional Sabbath breaking carried a death penalty.  They turned a beautiful gift of life-giving rest into a weapon of legalistic execution.

If their ridiculous regulations reflected the heart of God, there wouldn't be a believer left alive today—we’d all be stoned to death before breakfast just for checking our text messages.

So, apply that ridiculous logic to our story in Mark 2.

·      When the disciples plucked the grain, the Pharisees called it reaping.

·      When they rubbed it in their hands, they called it threshing.

·      When they blew away the chaff, they called it winnowing.

·      And when they swallowed it, they called it preparing a meal.

According to the elite, the disciples had committed four federal crimes against religion before breakfast, all by just eating a handful of shredded wheat!

What a pitiful, legalistic circus.

We can laugh at these ridiculous laws from two thousand years ago, but don’t miss the spiritual disease behind them. The Pharisees were trapped in a tunnel vision of absolute hatred. They were so blinded by political and religious preservation that they would rather see a man stay paralyzed, rather see a neighbor starve, and rather watch their own nation decay under Roman occupation than to give a single 'win' to Jesus Christ.

Doesn't that sound exactly like the political climate of our nation right now in this midterm election season? We have people in our culture so blinded by hatred that they would rather see the erasure of our borders, perversion in women's sports, the corruption and mutilation of our children, complete lawlessness in our streets, rather than see the other side get a victory. Even if it means the utter desecration and desolation of our nation. Which for many, is actually, the goal.

Hate blinds minds. Hatred makes people condone absolute madness just to protect their positions and politics.

But worse than the hatred out there is the atrophy in here. In the Church. The tragic reality is that while the culture burns, a lukewarm, lazy complacency has muzzled the American church. Apathy has turned to atrophy. Far too many Christians have decided that sitting on the sidelines is a virtue. Of the 90 million Christians eligible to vote, 15 million won’t even register, 40 million won’t bother to vote. They muzzle God’s voice by refusing to allow His voice to be heard through their vote at the ballot box, or by abandoning the positions of leadership, education, and civic duty that God called them to occupy.

When the righteous retreat, darkness advances.

All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

We cannot claim to serve the Lord of the Sabbath while being too lazy to stand up for His Truth in the culture.

Jesus is our example and He did not stay silent. He showed up and spoke up.

²⁵“But He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: ²⁶ how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave to some who were with him?’”

Jesus does not cower, back down, or apologize. He punches them right in the middle of their theological pride.

“Have you never read?”  That hurt.

They prided themselves on being the most well read in the room. They were the supreme Bible experts of Israel—just ask them.

So, Jesus asks if they missed the most basic Sunday school lesson ever. It’d be like asking Billy Graham, “Haven’t you ever read John 3:16?”

Jesus takes them straight to 1 Samuel 21. King David, God's anointed, the man after God’s own heart. He was on the run for his life from Saul. He and his men were starving. David entered the tabernacle and asked the priest for food. The only bread available was the Holy Showbread—the Bread of the Presence. According to Leviticus 24, that bread belonged exclusively to the priests. It was ceremonially restricted.

But what did the high priest do? He gave the holy bread to the hungry. Why?

Mercy triumphs over judgement. James 2:13.

Relationship Trumps Religion

Never be too busy with ministry to minister.

Jesus uses a perfect argument: If King David had the authority to bypass a written Old Testament law to sustain life, how much more does the ultimate Son of David have the authority to bypass your fabricated, man-made traditions about dried figs and grain fields?

Then, once again, Jesus drives home the Truth of who He is.

²⁷“And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.’”

Here is the grand climax. Jesus flips their twisted worldview right side up.

Man was not created to be a slave to a day on the calendar. The day was created by God to be of service to man.

Legalism forces bondage to a cold, lifeless, unforgiving system.

JESUS BRINGS LIFE-GIVING FREEDOM.

The letter kills but the Spirit gives Life. 2 Cor. 3:6.

Then, even though Jesus knows they’ll reject it, He drops the Truth hammer once again:

“Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus invokes His Messianic title, Son of Man, from Daniel 7, and then doubles down on the Truth saying He is Lord of the Sabbath.

He looks those self-appointed, armchair, hall monitors from hell in the eyes and declares, "I AM the Boss, the Lord, of this day, and every day.

I AM Lord of the Sabbath.

Matthew 11:28.
Come to ME, all who are weary and heaven laden, and I WILL give you rest.

So, hearing that, and remembering He healed the leper, Peter’s mother-in-law, the paralytic, and many others; knowing exactly what He meant when He called Himself, Son of Man, Bridegroom, Lord of the Sabbath...

They fell on their knees and cried Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, and even of pharisees...

No?

They could’ve, they should’ve, today they wish they would’ve, but, alas, they didn’t.   

Dear Church, the heart wrenching tragedy of this story is that the Pharisees loved the rules, but they didn’t love The Ruler. 

So, they clung to their pride and political position and allowed their hearts to grow smaller and harder.

Lord willing, next week, in chapter 3, we’ll see just how hard; when their pitiful pattern hits a new demonic low.

Jesus walks into their gauntlet—the synagogue—on the Sabbath day. Sitting in the front row is a man with a withered hand, planted there by the small, cold, hard-hearted religious elite, as bait to trap the Son of God.

Just wait ‘til you see how our Jesus walks right into their den and springs the trap back on them!

The Good News is, that even though they continued their pitiful pattern, Jesus continued His Powerful pattern.

JESUS DIDN'T GIVE UP.

They keep rejecting, but Jesus keeps reaching, for them, for us, and for the one we think is too far gone.

So, we don't stop praying, we don't stop believing.

We do stop bowing to religious rules and bow only to the Ruler.

Let’s pray.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for setting us free from the law of sin and death. Thank You fore rescuing us to walk in Your freeness of Life. We look forward to the day we’ll see You face to face. Until then, please continue Your Powerful pattern in us and through us to all those You’ve given us, so none, are lost.

Thank You.

We love You, forever.

Amen.

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This was feed for you to read. Now it’s Seed for you to sow.