Luke 6:1-11 The Sabbath and its Lord
Good morning! We are returning to our study of the Gospel of Luke this morning so turn with me to Luke chapter six, verses 1-11, page 861 in the pew Bibles.
We are going to look at two separate accounts that Luke puts together because they both address the same principle of Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath. It’s important for us to remember that we are trying to get to the principle level of Scripture so that we can apply those principles to our own lives, moving beyond simply being rule followers to being true disciples of Jesus.
So let’s look at our text together.
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Let’s pray
So… Sabbath… I guess we ought to understand what that is before we go any further. This is a subject of some debate, not just between Jews and Christians but amongst the church as well. Just like any other theological controversy the best thing we can do is go to the Word of God for answers and ask, “What does the Bible really say about this topic?”
First of all, the word, “Sabbath,” is translated from the Hebrew word “sabbat,” a verb that means, “to rest from labor.”
If we start at the beginning, Genesis 2:1-3, we can see that God Himself provided a pattern of Sabbath for mankind to follow.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
God wasn’t worn out from creating everything, but instead had us in mind in establishing a pattern for us to follow for rest.
In Exodus 20:8 God made the Sabbath Law, you may recognize it as the Fourth Commandment.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In Deuteronomy 5:12-15 God reminds His people of His command concerning the Sabbath.
12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
In the book of Isaiah the Father reminds the people through the prophet of the rewards of keeping the Sabbath, in 58:13-14.
13 “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Since God established the Sabbath before Abraham, and before He wrote it with His own finger on tablets of stone for Moses to deliver to Israel, God established the Sabbath for all mankind.
Now with all that background we can go back to Jesus, His disciples, and the Pharisees on the Sabbath in Luke 6.
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?”
Let’s stop there. How were the disciples breaking the law?
First of all, they weren’t stealing grain. Deuteronomy 23:25 says, If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.
So as long as they were just plucking heads of grain to eat right there and then, not harvesting somebody else’s crops, they were ok to do so. The Pharisees knew that, everybody knew that.
So what was their problem?
The Pharisees were accusing them of not just picking heads of grain but harvesting, winnowing, and preparing a meal on the Sabbath day. Did you hear any of that in any of the Old Testament texts that I read earlier? No, it simply says to not work so you can rest. But the Pharisees added more rules to define what work is and how many steps you could take on the Sabbath in order to make sure nobody violated the Sabbath.
JJ VanOosterzee wrote, “The thirty-nine different activities [each with six sub categories] which they regarded as forbidden on the Sabbath, were an invention of trivial narrowness, not commanded by the letter of the Law, and in manifold ways at variance with its spirit. The Savior maintains the spirit of the Law precisely when He incurs in their eyes the guilt of a formal breach of the Sabbath.”
3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?”
The Pharisees would not dare accuse King David of breaking the Law because he was King David. You can read that story for homework from 1 Samuel 21. David took that bread with the blessing of the High Priest and gave it to his men because they were starving. Necessity came before ceremony for David and also for the disciples. True Sabbath breakers are those who would sacrifice men to save the Sabbath.
Alistair Begg said, “The Pharisees were burying the real Law of God under a mountain of man-made foolish traditions.”
And then Jesus goes on to make a statement that is still controversial today in verse five. 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus, the Son of Man, is Master of the Sabbath… Jesus is God who made the Sabbath and He is still Master of it, He is still Lord of the Sabbath.
Some have taken this statement to mean that Jesus has wiped out the Sabbath and anybody that observes the Sabbath is a legalist. I agree with Alistair Begg who said that “Jesus doesn’t cancel its use, but corrects its abuse.”
Luke gives us another example in verses 6-11.
6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. 8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
So here again, Jesus planned to do good and the Pharisees plotted to do harm. They were the true Sabbath breakers. Filled with hatred toward Jesus they had already made up their minds about Him and nothing was going to change that. They were so concerned about Jesus breaking the fourth Commandment that they ignored the sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder.” And that’s exactly what they would do through that Roman cross.
We are not always free from guilt in this regard ourselves.
John Calvin shared two lessons we can all take away from this passage.
“First, then, let us learn from this passage to keep our minds pure, and free from every wicked disposition, when we are about to form a decision on any question; for if hatred, or pride, or anything of that description, reign within us, we will not only do injury to men, but will insult God Himself, and turn light into darkness.
“We learn also, that we ought to beware lest by attaching undue importance to ceremonial observances, we allow other things to be neglected, which are of far higher value in the sight of God, and which Christ in another passage calls, ‘more important matters of the Law’”
That passage Calvin references is Matthew 23:23-28 and stands as a warning to us to make sure we are not like this:
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
So what do we do with the Sabbath? Is it legalistic to observe? Is it no longer applicable? Jesus said that He didn’t come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Jesus is our Sabbath rest, so take a day off to rest and celebrate Him.
Amen.
