Ep. 50: The Sabbath
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MATTHEW 12:1-21, MARK 2:23-3:6, LUKE 6:1-11
The Jerusalem Scribes, who had been relentlessly stalking Jesus, had been away celebrating the Passover during the recent healings. Now, after the two festive days, they were back, returning to their hateful task. Accordingly, we now find them once more confronting him.
The contest steps up and we notice a change in Jesus’ methodology. Before he had been chiefly preaching the Kingdom and healing body and soul. Now, through the hostility of the leaders of Israel. He enters a new stage. It is marked by the prophetic description, ‘they compassed him about like bees’ but ‘are quenched as the fire of thorns.’ The first skirmish concerns the observance of the Sabbath.
On no other subject is Rabbinic teaching more painfully complex and confusing. For them, the Sabbath was meant to be absolute rest from all labour and a delight. The Mishnah includes Sabbath desecration among those most heinous crimes for which a man was to be stoned. This, then, was their prime objective; to make a breach of the Sabbath rest impossible. How far this was carried out, we shall presently see. Their other objective was to make the Sabbath a delight. A special Sabbath dress and the choicest food are preferred, even if a man had to work for it all the week, or public charity was to supply it. The strangest stories are told how, by the purchase of the most expensive dishes, the pious poor had gained unspeakable merit and obtained, even on earth, ‘heaven’s manifest reward’.
And yet there is also that which is touching, beautiful and even spiritual. On the Sabbath there must be no mourning, for this saying applies to the Sabbath, ‘the blessing of the Lord, it makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.’ Quite alone was the Sabbath among the measures of time. Every other day had been paired with its fellow, not so the Sabbath. And so any festival, even the Day of Atonement, might be transferred to another day, not so the observance of the Sabbath.
According to legend, the Sabbath complained before God, that of all days it alone stood solitary. But God had wedded it to Israel and this holy union was forged when it stood before Mount Sinai and was never to be forgotten. Even the tortures of Gehenna were paused on that holy, happy day. The terribly exaggerated views on the Sabbath entertained by the Rabbis and the endless, burdensome rules are going to explain the controversies in which the Pharisees now engaged with Jesus.
Of these, the first was when, going through the cornfields on the Sabbath, his disciples began to pluck and eat the ears of corn. Although this was not the first Sabbath controversy forced upon him, it was the first time that Jesus defied the Pharisees and that he vindicated his position concerning the Sabbath. This also indicates that we have now reached a further stage in the history of his teaching.
This, however, is not the only reason for placing this event so late in his personal history. In Matthew, it is placed out of the historical order, with the view of grouping together what would exhibit Jesus’ relation to the Pharisees and their teaching. Accordingly, this first Sabbath controversy is immediately followed by that connected with the healing of the man with the withered hand.
The different ‘setting’ in which the three Gospels present the event about to be related illustrates that their aim was to present the events in the history of the Christ in their succession, not of time, but of relevance. This is because they do not attempt a biography of Jesus, but a history of the Kingdom which he brought.
It was on the Sabbath after the second day of Passover that Jesus and his disciples passed through cornfields. His disciples, being hungry, plucked ears of corn and ate them, having rubbed off the husks in their hands. On any ordinary day, this would have been lawful, but on the Sabbath it involved, according to Rabbinic statutes, at least two sins. For, according to the Talmud, each involved sin, punishment and a sin-offering, as it was an infringement of the Sabbath. Now in this case there were at least two such acts involved, that of plucking the ears of corn - the sin of reaping - and that of rubbing them, which might be included as any of the following; sifting in a sieve, threshing, sifting out fruit, grinding, or fanning. Nit-picking to the extreme!
The following Talmudic passage came into play, ‘in case a woman rolls wheat to remove the husks, it is considered as sifting; if she rubs the heads of wheat, it is regarded as threshing; if she cleans off the side-adherences, it is sifting out fruit; if she bruises the ears, it is grinding; if she throws them up in her hand, it is winnowing.’ They had broken Rabbinic Law, not Biblical Law. The purpose of Jesus’ reply to them was not only to show them their error but to lay down principles that would forever apply to this difficult question.
Unlike the other Nine Commandments, the Sabbath Law has in it two elements; the moral and the ceremonial; the eternal and that which is subject to time and place; the inward and spiritual and the outward. In its spiritual and eternal element, the Sabbath Law embodied the two thoughts of rest for worship and worship which pointed to rest. The keeping of the seventh day and the Jewish mode of its observance was the outward form in which these eternal principles were presented.
It was a principle that danger to life superseded the Sabbath Law and indeed all other obligations. Among the curious Scriptural and other arguments by which this principle was supported, the most relevant Scripture is Leviticus 18:5. It was argued that a man was to keep the commandments that he might live, certainly not that by so doing he might die!
Hence, the first argument of our Lord, as recorded by all three Gospels, was taken from Biblical history. When, on his flight from Saul, David had, ‘eaten of the shewbread, and given it to his followers’, although, by the letter of the Levitical Law, it was only to be eaten by the priests, Jewish tradition vindicated his conduct on the plea that ‘danger to life’ superseded the Sabbath Law, and hence, all laws connected with it. Then, to show David’s zeal for the Sabbath Law, the legend was added that he had reproved the priests of Nob, who had been baking the shewbread on the Sabbath.
In truth, the reason why David was blameless in eating the shewbread was the same as that which made the Sabbath labour of the priests lawful. The Sabbath Law was not one merely of rest, but of rest for worship. The service of the Lord was the object in view. The priests worked on the Sabbath because this service was the object of the Sabbath; and David was allowed to eat of the shewbread, not because there was a danger to life from starvation, but because he pleaded that he was on the service of the Lord and needed this provision. The disciples, when following the Lord, were similarly in the service of the Lord; ministering to him was more than ministering in the Temple, for he was greater than the Temple.
‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.’ It is remarkable, that a similar argument is used by the Rabbis. When insisting that the Sabbath Law should be set aside to avoid danger to life, it is urged: ‘the Sabbath is handed over to you; not, you are handed over to the Sabbath.’
Lastly, the three Evangelists record this as the final outcome of his teaching on this subject, that ‘the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also.’ The service of God and the service of the Temple, by universal consent, superseded the Sabbath Law. But Jesus was greater than the Temple and his service more truly that of God and higher than that of the outward Temple, and the Sabbath was intended for man, to serve God. Therefore, Jesus and his service were superior to the Sabbath Law. These Pharisees would understand this, although they would not receive it because they did not acknowledge who Jesus was.
Whether or not the Pharisees had brought ‘the man with the withered hand’ on purpose, their secret objective certainly was to tempt Jesus into breaking the ‘Sabbath law’. But in this, they judged rightly; that he would not witness disease without removing it. Disease could not continue in the presence of him, who was the Life. He read their inward thoughts of evil, and yet he proceeded to do the good which he intended.
Surely on the Sabbath it was lawful to do good? Yes, and to neglect it would have been to do evil. So, according to their own admission, should not a man on the Sabbath save life? Or should he, by omitting it, kill?
We can now imagine the scene in that synagogue. The place is crowded. Jesus probably occupies a prominent position as leading the prayers or teaching. Here, eagerly bending forward are the dark faces of the Pharisees, full of malice and cunning. They are looking around at a man whose right hand is withered, perhaps pushing him forward, drawing attention to him, loudly whispering, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?’ The Lord takes up the challenge. He tells the man to stand up where they might all see and hear.
He describes the case of a poor man who was in danger of losing his only sheep on the Sabbath. Would he not rescue it and was not a man better than a sheep? They were speechless. He told the man to stretch forth his hand. It was no longer withered when the Word had been spoken and fresh life had streamed into it as his hand was restored. The Saviour had broken their Sabbath Law and yet he had not broken it, for he healed him without touching him. He had broken the Sabbath rest, as God breaks it, when he sends, or sustains, or restores life, or does good.
You can sense the melancholy in Edersheim’s words here:
‘As he did it. He had been filled with sadness; as they saw it, ‘they were filled with madness.’ So their hearts were hardened. They went forth and took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.’
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)