Knowing The Word in Luke 6:1-5, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath

According to the Pharisees, the disciples committed four Sabbath violations in eating grain from a field: they reaped, threshed, winnowed, and prepared food. In Deuteronomy 23:25, wayfarers were permitted to help themselves when walking through a field growing food to satisfy their hunger. The Pharisees are missing the greater part of the law about loving one’s neighbor. Human need must not be subject to heartless legalism. Jesus’ claim to be “lord of the Sabbath” is staggering. The Sabbath is a divine institution. To be lord of it puts Jesus in a very high place, allowing him to explain what the Sabbath is. Jesus’ opponents had missed the whole point of the Sabbath. Mercy is not merely permitted on the Sabbath; it is obligatory.

1 On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” 3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 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?” 5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Prayer: Pour on us, Heavenly Father, the spirit of love and brotherly-kindness, granting us so truly to love one another, that we may display the sacrificial love of Christ in our lives, drawing misfits and outcasts into our fellowship, offering hope and refreshment to the hurting, and manifesting him who is the only true God in our midst. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.