Luke chapter 6 and verse 1. And it came to pass on the second
Sabbath after the first that he went through the cornfields
and his disciples plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing
them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees
said unto him, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on
the Sabbath days? And Jesus answering them said,
Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself
was unhungered, and they which were with him? How he went into
the house of God, and did take and eat the showbread, and gave
also to them that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat,
but for the priests alone. And he said unto them, that the
Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. Just a few verses today, but
I trust that the Lord will give us a little light on this passage
and a little blessing and encouragement from it. The Jews of Christ's
time had many rules and regulations about what was allowed under
the law and what was not. Rules about what you must do
to please God and what would displease him. And these rules
had become so prominent in their thinking, so elevated in their
estimations, that even human compassion had become subservient
in their pursuit of perfectionism. It didn't matter that a man was
hungry or thirsty or needy. mercy had given way to duty. What mattered was that nothing
be done that breached their rules or transgressed their interpretation
and their application of God's law. Throughout the Lord's ministry,
he and his disciples often ran foul of the Pharisees' holier-than-thou
attitude. And today's passage is another
example of this. Now, in this opening verse that
we read, it's not clear what is the meaning of the second
Sabbath after the first. It might refer to the order of
Sabbath days during the periods of principal Jewish feasts, but
no one's really sure exactly what Luke's meaning is here.
What's notable though, I think, is that as the Lord and his disciples
were walking through a field, There were Pharisees present,
carefully observing their every move. And this is a feature of
legalism and self-righteous living. People watch one another comparatively
and critically. Their motivation is not the good
of one another or the need of their fellow men and women, but
rather how precise they're adhering to the rigorous standard of conduct
that they've imposed and how obedient to the law, whatever
manifestation of the law that that might be. It's all about
measurement. It's all about assessment. It's all about comparison. And
a person's personal esteem, their mutual respect and their social
standing in this particular club is measured according to how
exact those people are about maintaining the rules. Now, of
course, what these Pharisees were doing was looking for an
opportunity, looking for an occasion to judge the Lord and to judge
his disciples. And just as they had condemned
them previously for feasting and not for fasting, now they
condemned them for breaking their Sabbath day laws. Everything
was about finding fault and laying blame on one side while stoking
pride on the other. Look what you're doing, we're
better than that. And we may be sure if a man tells
us the right way to live It's actually because he prides himself
in doing it and he more or less considers himself a fine example
to be copied and complied with. The fault of the disciples here
was that they plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing
them in their hand. That's what Luke tells us. So
the plucking of the ears of corn was, in the view of the Pharisees,
tantamount to reaping and gathering in one's crops. It was simply
a matter of scale. Neither was acceptable. It was
not acceptable to reap your grain and gather it to your barns on
the Sabbath day. Neither was it acceptable to
reap by simply picking a few grains off the heads of the stalks. It was physical labour. It was
a breach of the principle of Sabbath rest. Furthermore, the
disciples aggravated the situation by, believe it or not, rubbing
the grains of corn with their hands in order to remove the
chaff, the outer coating, in order to consume the grain. And that too was a breach of
the law. It was the same as if they'd
gone to the threshing floor and got to work winnowing and beating
the gathered grain. The questions that the Pharisees
asked, or the question that they asked, why do ye that which is
not lawful to do on the Sabbath days? It just drips with self-righteous
horror and outrage. But really, the value of these
verses is not in what the Pharisees said, but in the admirable answer
returned by the Lord. He gives them two instances from
their own reference books, the life of David and the rules of
the Levitical priesthood. Two examples to expose how little
they understood of their own traditions. And then, to top
it all off, he completely draws the carpet from under their feet
with a statement of his own authority and ultimately of his divinity. Now Luke, the passage that we've
read, the verses that we've read together today, Luke only mentions
David and the showbread, but Matthew in the parallel passage,
in Matthew chapter 12, speaks also of these priests. And I'm just going to wrap both
thoughts up together because they complement one another.
The priests profaned the Sabbath day and yet they were not charged
with any blame. The priests profaned the Sabbath
day by exerting considerable effort by working every Sabbath
day in their office in the temple, where they laboured busily, strenuously
in their role of preparing, cleaning, killing, and offering animal
sacrifices. Now the Pharisees accepted that
this activity was allowed. The reference Luke gives, the
single reference that Luke gives, was of David and his men who
entered the sanctuary in the days of Ahimelech the high priest
and Abiathar the priest. in 1 Samuel chapter 21, David
was fleeing from Saul. I'm sure you remember, those
of you who've heard the young people's addresses in recent
weeks, how David went to, he was escaping from Saul, he went
to see Ahimelech, and he was hungry, he was weak, and he ate
the showbread, which was for the priests alone to eat, to
consume. And yet David was not condemned
for taking the showbread and eating it. Now it doesn't appear
that that was done on a Sabbath day. It may have been, but it
doesn't appear to be that, at least is the point that the Lord
is making. The point the Lord is making
is that David ate because he was hungry. David's need, his
hunger, his weakness was recognised in kindness and sympathy by Ahimelech
who had mercy for David's condition. So David's hunger justified David
taking the showbread that had previously been dedicated to
the Lord. And if your memories are good,
you will remember how Ahimelech and the priests of Nob ended
up being slain by Doeg the Edomite at Saul's command for showing
this kindness to David. The whole city was slain. with
the exception of one or two, Abiathar escaped and joined David
and became his priest. These two examples, these two
inconvenient truths for the Pharisees demonstrated that exceptions
were allowed for despite their rigorous religious precisionism. Those exceptions were accepted
because David was loved of the Lord and because the priests
were serving in the temple in the service of the Lord. So that
evidently the Lord, whose friend and whose servants these were,
was more gracious and less censorious than these Pharisees were. If
the Lord did not condemn, Jesus is saying to them, if the Lord
did not condemn David and the Lord does not condemn the priests
in the temple, then why should you? And one can almost imagine the
Jews there in that field with Jesus and his disciples, these
Pharisees, puffing out their chests in indignation and readying
themselves to explain to the Lord that this was hardly comparable. His disciples were neither David
nor were they priests serving in the temple. But before they could get the
words out of their mouths, the Lord refuted their argument. Matthew tells us, but I say unto
you, it's Matthew 12, six and seven, but I say unto you that
in this place, that is in this field in which we are standing,
this farmer's field where this grain is growing, in this place
is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this
meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have
condemned the guiltless. Speaking of his disciples, let
me paraphrase that. The priests serve in the temple
of the Lord, but these disciples are my servants, whose temple
it is. It's my temple and these disciples
are my servants. David was beloved of God and
the Lord has more respect for mercy shown to his little ones
than all the sacrifices offered in the name of religion and in
the name of self-righteousness. In fact, it's even more than
that. Christ himself is the one who
is greater than the temple. The temple was a type, a symbol,
signifying the physical coming of the Messiah, the Saviour.
Mercy and grace were Christ's purposes in coming. If God did not condemn those
who served and laboured in the types, how would he condemn those
who served and laboured for the anti-type, for the fulfilment? The Lord's closing statement
wraps all of this up in a beautiful summary right at the end. Mark
tells us, Christ said, the Sabbath was made for man and not man
for the Sabbath. And Matthew, he repeats as here
in Luke, Matthew says in chapter 12, verse eight, what we have
in verse five, for the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath
day. The Sabbath day is Christ's day. It's the Lord's day. It belongs
to Him. It doesn't belong to your church.
It doesn't belong to your minister. It doesn't belong to your self-righteous
legalists who go around telling us what we should and shouldn't
do upon it. It's the Lord's day, it belongs to him. It isn't for
other men and women to tell us what we can do and what we cannot
do on Christ the Lord's day. It is his day and believers are
the priests who labour in his service. The old Sabbath day
of rest has run its course. It's served its purpose of foreshadowing
the Saviour's coming. and his sacrifice and points
rather to the rest that we have in Christ. We who have left off
our own works of righteousness and lean wholly and exclusively
upon Christ for all our righteousness and sanctification. Christ is
both the Lord of the Sabbath, it is his, and he is the Sabbath. He is the Sabbath itself because
it is in him that we rest. So that we rest not just on one
day of the week, but we rest constantly in Christ. Christ
is the rest that remains to the people of God, says the Holy
Spirit in Hebrews chapter four, verse nine. Christ is the showbread
that we eat. Therefore it is acceptable that
we eat him. Christ is the Sabbath in which
we rest. Christ is the temple. by which
we have access into the presence of God to worship Him. Christ
is the sacrifice by whom we approach the Father. Christ is our all
in all, the fulfilment of all of these types. And we who are
His servants, we who are His friends, need not fear the accusations
or the condemnations of the over-righteous Pharisees. of our own day. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.