Sermon: Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:18-3:6)

Lord of the Sabbath
Sunday, May 21^st, 2023
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA

Mark 2:18-3:6

¹⁸ And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? ¹⁹ And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. ²¹ No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. ²² And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.

²³ And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. ²⁴ And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? ²⁵ And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? ²⁶ How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? ²⁷ And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: ²⁸ Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

3 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. ² And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. ³ And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. ⁴ And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. ⁵ And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. ⁶ And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for giving us Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath. You are the God of eternal rest, of everlasting shalom, and we thank you for making us to lie down in green pastures and for leading us beside the still waters. We ask that you would now restore our souls, our bodies, and our minds, as we study Your Word, for we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.  

Introduction

Under the Old Covenant, God commanded Israel to feast and rejoice on a regular schedule. Every seventh day, every Sabbath, was a feast day in which the whole nation was to stop working, worship the Lord, and as Nehemiah said to the Jews, “Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

• God commanded that every seventh day be a day of rejoicing, a day of feasting.And as if once a week was not enough, he then added to that weekly feast three annual festivals that lasted a whole week. Three extra weeks of what we would call “holidays.” So in the ancient Hebrew calendar, at least one fifth of the year involved some kind of religious festival. The God of the Old Testament is clearly a God of feasting.
• Now if God commanded all these regular feasts, we might wonder if he also commanded any fasts, and if so how often?
• Does anyone know how many days of fasting are commanded in the Old Testament? The answer is one.
• There is only one day of fasting that was commanded in the Torah, and that was the Day of Atonement (Tishri the 10^th), the tenth day of the seventh month, 10 days after the new civil year began, God says, “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever” (Lev. 16:30-31).
  • The prophet Isaiah takes this “affliction of the soul” to refer to fasting in Isaiah 58, and this is the only regularly commanded day of fasting for Israel.
  • We see later in Israel’s history that the civil leaders had authority to proclaim a fast in times of national distress or emergency, and people were of course free to fast on non-feast days if they desired, but in terms of what God prescribed to the nation, He overwhelmingly commands feasting for over a fifth of the year, while fasting for only one day in the year, and that on the day of Atonement.
• Now in our text this morning we have the beginning of various controversies that are going to follow Jesus for the rest of his earthly ministry. By now it is clear that Jesus is someone to be reckoned with, He is gaining in popularity, and with that popularity comes envy, jealousy, and false accusations from the ruling class.
• Jesus is experiencing what any of us would experience if we were to say, run as a candidate for the presidency.If any of us were nominated to run for such a powerful office, prepare to have your political opponents going through everything you ever said or did to find dirt on you, and if they can’t find it, they will manufacture it.
  • This is exactly what happens to Jesus from the scribes and Pharisees, and those accusations begin around laws for the Sabbath. If the Pharisees can prove that Jesus has broken the Sabbath, then they win, they prove him to be a sinner and a fraud and therefore not the Messiah. And so in our text this morning we have three different scenes that revolve around what it means to observe the sabbath.

Outline

• Verses 18-22 the people ask, “Why don’t Jesus’ disciples fast?”
• Verses 23-28 there is a debate over “Whether Jesus’ disciples are breaking the sabbath?”
• Verses 1-6 of chapter 3 take up the question, “What is lawful to do on the Sabbath?

Verse 18

¹⁸ And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?

• Now remember the context here. Jesus has just feasted with his new disciple Levi the tax collector and is eating and drinking with publicans and sinners. And that table fellowship and ministry to the spiritually sick (to whom he has come as physician) provokes the religious elite to question his methods.
• And so they ask, “Why don’t your disciples fast like the rest of us?”
• In Jesus day it was the custom for Pharisees to fast “twice a week” (Luke 18:12) on Mondays and Thursdays. And throughout the history of Israel, fasting was something you did as a sign of repentance and mourning for sin. Fasting was a way of forsaking earthly things, dying to the flesh, so that God might have favor upon you. In that sense, fasting is a very good thing.
• The Pharisees knew rightly that the nation was under God’s judgment. It was the nation’s sins that had caused the exile and destruction of the first temple, and it was the nation’s sins that were presently keeping them from experiencing the blessings and prosperity of God’s covenant.
• So it is commendable and even right that the Pharisees should fast, but to fast from food without also fasting from sin was to defeat the purpose of fasting, and that is what the Pharisees were doing (as we shall see).
• So the question comes to Jesus “Why don’t your disciples fast like the rest of us?” and how does Jesus respond? Well, he responds cunningly with a question.

Verse 19

¹⁹ And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

• This is a bombshell of a response, because in the Old Testament who is the bridegroom? Who is the one who marries the nation? What is the Song of Solomon all about? It’s about the love between God and His people.
• In Scripture, God is the bridegroom.
  • Isaiah 54:2 says, “For thy Maker is thine husband; The Lord of hosts is his name; And thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.”
• God is the great king who marries the nation and gives them His name. Just as a husband gives his last name to his wife, so also God put his name YHWH upon His people, and they were commanded at Sinai to not take the Lord’s name in vain.
• So the covenant between God and Israel is spoken of as a marriage covenant, and Israel is frequently called an unfaithful bride, a spouse who whores after other gods and worships the idols of foreign nations.
• And so when the prophets foretell the arrival of a New Covenant, it is the promise of a future wedding, it is a kind of “save the date” for a wedding that will take place in the latter days. God is going to come as King and put away the sins of His people, and when they are married, then the wedding feast shall begin.
• So when Jesus poses this question back to his interlocutors, He is implicitly claiming to be God. He is calling himself the bridegroom, and his disciples are the wedding party (“children of the bridechamber”). And so because in Jesus the wedding feast has come, the king has arrived, it would be improper for the wedding party to fast. That is Jesus’ argument.
• Part of the good news of the gospel is that we feast with God. And Jesus reveals what God does when he comes to earth, he goes into people’s houses and eats with them. Jesus is the God of feasting.
• In verse 20 there is a foreshadowing of Jesus death, he says…

Verse 20

²⁰ But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

• So Jesus does not come to abolish fasting altogether, there is a time to feast and a time to fast (Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything), but that time of fasting will take place after his death.
• He then poses two riddles to further demonstrate why his disciples are not fasting.

Verses 21-22

²¹ No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. ²² And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.

• The bottles here refer to wineskins (probably from a goat). And in the ancient world everybody knew that both wineskins and garments would be destroyed if you tried to connect new with old.
• And so Jesus is saying here that the customs and rites or administration of the Old Covenant, would burst if the wine of the Kingdom was poured inside.
• New wine, new cloth needs a new form that can grow and expand with it. And the wineskins and cloths of the Old World are insufficient.
• So that’s why Jesus’ disciples don’t fast. They are new bottles, they are new cloth, and the old forms will not do. John came fasting, Jesus comes feasting, and the disciples are members of the wedding party.
• Moving now into the second scene in our text, first the disciples are disparaged for not fasting, and now in verses 23-28 they are charged with the crime of sabbath breaking.

Verse 23

²³ And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. ²⁴ And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?

• So here the charge from the Pharisees is that the disciples are working on the sabbath. As they pass through a field, they grab a head of grain, rub it in their hands and eat the kernels, the Pharisees see this and say “aha, harvesting crop, that’s work, that violates the sabbath.”
• Now before we see how Jesus answers this charge, it’s a good exercise to ask ourselves how would I respond if I was in this situation (if I was a disciple)? What is the best biblical counterargument to the Pharisees here. There are a few possible responses we could give.
• One possible argument is that Deuteronomy 23:24-25 made provision for what the disciples are doing. God says there, “When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container. When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.”
  • So it was permissible for someone to pass through your field and eat some grapes or eat some grain, but they weren’t allowed to collect it or put it in a basket, you had to just to use your hand. This was a provision for travelers and the poor before there were McDonalds at every exit.
  • Furthermore in Leviticus 23:22 it says, “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”
  • So this was the social safety net God provided for the poor. It wasn’t a government handout, it was food left at the edges of the fields. The whole story of Ruth revolves around these laws.
  • And so the disciples were well within the law of God to do this, and we might say this is especially appropriate on the Sabbath day which is supposed to be a day of feasting. If the Sabbath comes and you run out of food, it’s okay to go to the store and grab something. If your wife forgot an ingredient for the sabbath meal, it’s good and right to go and get it. Whether from the garden outside, or the grocery store, the sabbath is to be a day of feasting and rejoicing.
  • So that’s one possible defense, and perhaps you can think of others. But let us see how Jesus mounts his argument, because this is a fascinating text.

Verses 25-28

²⁵ And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? ²⁶ How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? ²⁷ And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: ²⁸ Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

• This is a profound and penetrating use of Scripture that Jesus deploys, and there are multiple arguments embedded here.
• We heard earlier in the service 1 Samuel 21 which is the proof text Jesus uses, and to understand Jesus’ argument, you really have to understand that Old Testament passage. So let me summarize that scene for us.
  • David has just fled for his life because King Saul is jealous and wants to kill him. Sound familiar?
  • He goes to Nob, where the tabernacle is situated and the priest there is Ahimelech. David is hungry, it is a sabbath day, and He asks Ahimelech for five loaves of bread for him and his men.
  • Ahimelech says, “There is no common bread on hand; but there is holy bread, if the young men have at least kept themselves from women.”
  • David says, “yes, the men and their vessels are holy,” and so Ahimelech gives him holy bread from the holy place to eat.
• We might wonder whether that was lawful or not because Jesus explicitly says, “it is not lawful to eat but for the priests.” So what is going on here?
• Well in the parallel passage of Matthew’s version of this same conversation, Jesus adds, “Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple” (Matt. 12:5-6).
• So I take Jesus here as adopting the Pharisees definition of what is “not lawful” and then refuting it by David’s example. He is saying, if that is your definition of sabbath breaking, then David and the priests “break the sabbath” too.
  • And then he tops it off by saying, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”
• Jesus’ argument has multiple levels:
  • For one, if taking some grain in your hands on the sabbath day was “breaking the sabbath” then David was an even worse sabbath breaker. For David is doing “work for the king” on a special assignment, together with his young men. That is the reason he gives to Ahimelech for his urgent need, “I’m doing the king’s business.”
  • And if you concede that point, then Jesus and his disciples are good.
  • But if you argue that point, Jesus has another argument for you, namely, that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. In other words, you could argue that even if David was not holy, it would have been right to give him the holy bread to keep from starving. The preservation of life takes precedent over ceremonial cleanliness.
  • And then if you still don’t buy that argument, Jesus has another trump card, which is that He is God. He is the Son of Man. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And so the one who created the world and gave man the sabbath, can give grain to his disciples when they are hungry.
• In addition to this defense of his disciples, Jesus by deploying 1 Samuel 21 is placing everyone within its narrative. If Jesus and his disciples are David and his men, then who is King Saul (Herod and the Pharisees)? Who is Doeg the Edomite who snitches on David to Saul, and then later kills Ahimelech? It’s these guys Jesus is talking to.
• And lastly, you might have wondered why does Jesus say this happened in the days of Abiathar the high priest, when in reality it was Ahimelech who was priest?
  • Abiathar was Ahimelech’s son, and for a time he served David, but later he conspired with Absalom against David and betrayed him. So when King Solomon comes to power, he deposes Abiathar and Zadok becomes high priest.
  • So Jesus has purposely called forth the memory of Abiathar because like Abiathar, the priestly class is going to conspire and betray the true king. And after they do, they will be deposed. The priesthood will be transferred to the Son of Man, the priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck.
• This is a devastating argument and in our final scene we see how the Pharisees respond.

Verses 1-6

3 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. ² And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. ³ And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. ⁴ And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. ⁵ And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. ⁶ And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

• This is the great irony and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They go to church to dig up dirt on God. They charge God with breaking the sabbath. And when God heals a man’s withered hand, they immediately conspire on the sabbath how to commit murder against God.
• Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” Well apparently they think its lawful to kill, because that’s what they conspire to do.
• Sin will make you stupid. Sin will make you irrational. And the Pharisees are dead in sin.
• And so we might ask, What is God’s heart towards such wicked men? What is God’s heart toward sinners?
• Jesus reveals to us that God is both angered and grieved. He is angered at their actual breaking of the sabbath, wanting to prevent a man from being healed, to stop his disciples from eating, and He is grieved at the hardness of their hearts.
• And this should teach us how to feel, when we look out at the world around us, with all of its evils and absurdities? Like Jesus, we should be outraged that God’s law is trampled upon, that the Sabbath is not a day of rest and worship and joyful feasting unto the Lord, but rather a day of selfish and carnal pleasure, of business as usual with no regard to the Lord who made us.

Conclusion

• If Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, then He is the Creator, He is the Lord of everything else. And God promises that if we observe this day of rest and worship as He commanded, then truly we shall be blessed. For as He declares in Isaiah 58:13-14,

¹³ If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,

From doing thy pleasure on my holy day;

And call the sabbath a delight,

The holy of the Lord, honourable;

And shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,

Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

¹⁴ Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;

And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,

And feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:

For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

• God wants to give us life and rest and joy in Him. Psalm 16:11 says, “At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”And that rest and those pleasures are offered to all in the gospel. To scribes and Pharisees, to hypocrites and sabbath breakers, and they are offered to you anew today.
• So repent and believe in the Lord of the Sabbath, and He will give eternal rest.