Lord of the Sabbath – Luke 6:1-11

I was staying in the King David hotel in Jerusalem with my tour group and we had supper in their dining room.  A number of orthodox Jews were also dining there and singing and eating.  It was lovely and fascinating.  But when we got on the elevators to go up to our rooms we noticed that every floor button was lit and we had to stop on every floor before we got to ours.  Sabbath had begun and it was “work” to push an elevator button so the hotel had it rigged to stop at every floor so the Sabbath would not be violated.

On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

   On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.  (Luke 6:1-11 ESV)

Luke shows us two vignettes of Jesus’ perspective on the sabbath law.  Exodus 20:8-10 says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work.”  Israel and her teachers had developed quite a body of interpretation concerning how to keep this law.  But according to Jesus they had failed to understand two things about the Sabbath.

1) Keeping the sabbath was not meant to do harm to people.  When David and his men were famished, the showbread in the sanctuary, normally off limits to all but the priests, could be used to meet a pressing need.  And so could the grain in the fields as the disciples of Jesus hungered.  And if a man needed healing, there was no better day than the sabbath. 

We can learn from this that Jesus recognized a hierarchy of absolutes.  Saving life superseded keeping Sabbath.  This is why, for example, the Jewish midwives are praised for lying to Pharaoh about why they couldn’t expose boy children to die as Pharaoh commanded (Exodus 1).  Saving life supersedes telling the truth in this case.

2) Jesus is lord of the sabbath.  He is the messiah and the messiah has the authority to interpret the intent of God’s law.  It is really this claim and the way Jesus incisively exposed the legalism and lack of love in the Pharisees and scribes that moved them to want to kill him.