Lord Of The Sabbath
LORD OF THE SABBATH
LUKE 6:1-11
If David could set aside God’s ceremonial restrictions in a case of need, Jesus could do the same.
The two incidents in this passage illustrate Christ’s clash with the legalists in their jealously guarded province of Sabbath regulation.
Christ’s point in both cases is that in the Old Testament the Sabbath was a beneficent institution. The scribes and Pharisees had turned it into a burden to be borne, and not infrequently a system of cruelty.
6:1-5. According to the humane provisions of the Law, as Moses laid it down (Deuteronomy 23:25), it was lawful thus to eat another’s corn. But the Pharisees, infinitely elaborating and embroidering the simple laws of Sabbath-keeping, had listed such manual stripping of an ear of wheat and removal of the husks, as both reaping and threshing. Such absurdities were manifold. A chair, which could be moved on a firm floor, could not be moved on soft earth on the Sabbath, lest the furrow left prove to be plowing and sowing should a chance seed fall in.
6:6-11. An ox or ass which fell into a pit on the Sabbath had to be fed and bedded for later rescue. If it was injured it could be drawn up and killed. The Pharisees, in their system of escape clauses, which made it possible for the initiated to avoid their own burdensome regulations, had decreed that one could lift the beast on the declared intention to destroy, and then, finding it uninjured, let it go free. The Lord’s point was that the critics of his men, and of his own compassionate healing, could twist their laws for a beast, but not for a man. They had laid it down that medical help could be given on the Sabbath only in a case of life or death.
Pharisaism still lives where a movement once beneficent degenerates into a set of rules, postures and attitudes; wherever self-seeking, pride, love of place, reward or advantage find a place in religion; wherever man-made rules, exclusivism and absurdity clash with the splendid sanity of Christ; wherever men are preoccupied with doctrine and tolerate sin, deny God’s good gifts to the needy, forget love or refuse mercy.
Notes 6:1-5: Luke takes his theme one stage further—the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. 6:6: Dr Luke notes that it was the right hand. 6:7: “watched”—the word implies close and continuous scrutiny.