Review

In our last passage (Mark 2:18-22) Jesus shocked the vigilant scribes and Pharisees by fraternizing with “unclean” publicans and sinners.  In so doing He made it clear that the Kingdom He comes to inaugurate has nothing to do with “performance” or “being good enough.”  The key to this Kingdom is absolute attachment to His Person. 

In this week’s section He takes His bold assertions to another level. 

Pushing the Envelope

23 And it came about that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.[i]  

In and of itself, there is nothing illicit about the behavior of Jesus’ disciples, though it is about to spark another controversy.  Deuteronomy 23:25 explicitly states, “When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.”  This, like the regulations governing gleaning (Leviticus 19:9, 10), was part of the Mosaic Law’s provision for the needs of the poor and the hungry.  It was a nod in the direction of humanity as over against the claims of personal property and heartless legalism. 

The problem, then, was not that the disciples were plucking grain.  The problem was that they were doing it on the Sabbath.  For according to the rabbis, picking grain was the same thing as “harvesting”.  And harvesting was work.       

We’ve seen Jesus violate the Sabbath before (Mark 1:21ff.).  We will certainly see Him do so again.  But there’s a difference here.  In almost every other instance recorded in the Gospels, Jesus oversteps the accepted bounds of Sabbath observance in order to meet some pressing human need.  He casts out demons, cures debilitating ailments, and liberates people from lifelong bondage.  Nothing of the sort is at stake in this scene.  The disciples don’t have to pluck grain on the Sabbath; they’re aren’t starving to death.  In the words of one commentator, they are simply “having a snack.”[ii]  There’s something almost glib, playful, and irresponsible about their Sabbath-breaking on this particular occasion.   

Why then does Jesus tolerate it?  Why does He permit them to act like this when He knows the self-appointed Guardians of Traditional Religiosity and Public Morality are watching?  In the case of the leper He went out of His way to avoid giving offense to the religious authorities (Mark 1:44).  Why now does He so brazenly push the envelope?

This question lies at the heart of Mark’s message.  We’ll attempt to answer it in what follows.             

“Not Allowed”

24 And the Pharisees were saying to Him, “See here, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”   

Since authority has been one of our key themes over the past few weeks, it’s worth noting that the Pharisees possessed no official jurisdiction over the lives of the common people.  No one had appointed them to act as the “Spiritual Police.”  They simply volunteered for the position.  Throughout the Gospel accounts the Pharisees appear in the role of Christ’s most dogged antagonists, but they weren’t all bad.  Most of them were zealous, well-meaning Jews who just wanted to make sure that God’s standards of righteousness were consistently upheld in both private life and the public square (sound familiar?).

Unfortunately, their zeal encouraged the development of a mindset all too common among upstanding religious people in all times and places.  This attitude is neatly summed up in the language they use:  “Why are they doing what is not allowed (Greek ho ouk exestin)?”  The Pharisees’ whole outlook was wrapped up in an almost neurotic obsession with correctness.  Their concern with propriety had completely overtaken that part of the brain which might have responded favorably to Jesus’ offer of Life – the effervescent Life that explodes wineskins.  Their entire world was hemmed in by anxieties about what is and what is not “permitted”.  And they didn’t even recognize their desperate need for redemption and release.                        

Royal Precedent

25 And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and became hungry, he and his companions; 26 how he entered into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he gave it also to those who were with him?”    

But Jesus doesn’t take this opportunity to comment on the repressive spirituality of the Pharisees.  That’s a subject for another time.  Instead, He responds by drawing attention to Himself.  And He does so by citing a scriptural precedent. 

“Don’t you remember what David did,” He asks, “when he and his men went into the tabernacle and ate the sacred showbread to satisfy their hunger?”  (See 1 Samuel 21:1-6.)

What’s noteworthy about this retort is that the details of the comparison don’t exactly line up.  David and his men – outlaws in hiding and on the run – were in desperate need of food and water at the time of the incident in question.  As we’ve already pointed out, this was not the case with Jesus and His disciples.  So what does the analogy mean?

The answer is that Jesus is using this situation to make another point about the nature of the Kingdom and His own Identity as King.  According to N.T. Wright, He’s equating Himself with David in David’s “Already-But-Not-Yet” period.[iii] 

At this moment in his career, David was “in between” things:  long since anointed as king by Samuel, he was nevertheless still on the lam from the persecution of Saul.  He was like Aragorn in his Strider phase; Richard I in Sherwood Forest; or young Wart in the time immediately following his surprisingly successful attempt at pulling the sword from the stone.

Jesus’ position is precisely parallel.  He is the True King, but few acknowledge Him as such.  He’s the Incognito Messiah – a theme we’ve encountered before in our study of Mark.  And as the unrecognized King and Messiah, He has the authority to by-pass the Sabbath regulations.  That’s the point of this little story. 

Wright concludes:  “This kind of Sabbath-breaking, so far from being an act of casual and wanton civil disobedience, is a deliberate sign, like the refusal to fast:  a sign that the King is here, that the kingdom is breaking in, that instead of waiting for the old creation to come to its point of rest, the new creation is already bursting upon the old world.”[iv]                   

The Sabbath and Its Lord

27 And He was saying to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  27 Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”      

Jesus states His own conclusion in the form of a sort of two-part syllogism.  First, He makes a definitive statement about the purpose and meaning of the Sabbath:  it exists to meet human need.  The Sabbath is supposed to serve man, not the other way around.  In other words, it’s an image of salvation.  Secondly, He asserts that He is the “Lord of the Sabbath,” inasmuch as He is also “the Son of Man.”

In these few words Jesus claims to be King both as God and as Man (remember Hebrews 1 and 2).  For while the Sabbath was made for Man, and is thus subordinated to the Son of Man, there is another sense in which only Yahweh – the Creator of the universe who rested from His labors on the Seventh Day – can rightfully be regarded as its author and Lord.              

Final Thoughts:  The Presence of the Kingdom

A “deliberate sign” indicating the Presence of the Kingdom in the Person of the King.  The fulfillment of the real Purpose and Meaning of Sabbath Rest, manifested in exclusive allegiance to His Power and Authority.  That’s what these six verses are all about.  And in their own way, they remind us once again that, like the King Himself and His forefather David, we, the subjects of this Kingdom, are living out our days in an “in between” time.  We, like our Master, are called to carry out our mission in the context of the “Already-But-Not-Yet”:  between longing and fulfillment, sorrow and joy, turmoil and peace.         

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[i] This week’s Scripture quotations are taken from The New American Standard Bible. 

[ii] Eckhard Schabel, The Tyndale Commentary on Mark, p. 77.

[iii] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 27.

[iv] Ibid.