Advent 2025: Sat 20 Dec
Mark 2.23-28 Niggling about nibbling
23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the cornfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some ears of corn. 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.’
The fourth Commandment of the ten handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai covered the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath (seventh) was the weekly day of rest:
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day. (Exodus 20)
The Pharisees are starting to get on Jesus’ tail. Were they following Jesus in the hope of catching him in the act of breaking the Sabbath? They were, of course, breaking it themselves by engaging in pursuit rather than rest.
They spotted the disciples picking ears of corn. Evidence enough! This was a blatant breaking of the Sabbath Day rules. “Why are your disciples breaking the Sabbath?”
To Jesus the accusation was petty. The disciples may have been picking corn, but the Pharisees were picking nits. Jesus knew their game.
He referred them to King David, a man of God the Pharisees couldn’t possibly criticise. Young David, before he became king, was on the run from king Saul. David came to the town where the Tabernacle (the Tent of Meeting created when the Jews were in the wilderness for forty years) had been erected. As part of the rituals for maintaining the Tabernacle twelve loaves of bread were laid out every Sabbath Day. They were consecrated and signified the presence of God. Only priests were allowed to eat this bread. David went to the priest on duty and tricked him to give him some of the bread, which David and his companions ate. If David could do something as shocking as that without punishment, how can the Pharisees attempt to accuse Jesus and his companions of breaking the Sabbath Day rules for picking a few ears of corn?
Should we observe Sabbath rest (typically Sunday for Christians), and to what extent?
Does the Church behave like Pharisees towards the world?
Fater God, one day in seven is what you have prescribed for us, both as a remembrance to honour your creative work and for our own physical and spiritual re-charging. Encourage me to make time for Sunday. Amen.
Looking back to the One who came from heaven, and forward to the glory his return.
Paul