Verse: Matthew 12:1-2
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
Devotion
Back in the Good Old Days™ of Genesis 2, God had just finished creating everything and took a break, calling it the Sabbath. The idea behind the Sabbath was to model taking breaks and allowing mind and body to rest. God wanted the Sabbath to be kept holy: no work, always a time of rest.
What’s the penalty for not keeping it holy? Death. And yes, at least one person is recorded as getting stoned to death, for gathering wood.
It’s easy to look at these passages and think the Pharisees are just trying to get the disciples in trouble, or discredit Jesus’s ministry, catch hypocrisies, and focus on the minutiae of the laws in the Bible. All of those things are probably true.
However, I think an often-overlooked part of what Jesus does is that he isn’t trying to discredit, downplay, or reduce the laws. Some become obsolete, and he does form new agreements with Israelites (and humanity as a whole), but instead of just saying the law doesn’t matter anymore, his consistent message is that he wants mercy.
Here’s the difference: instead of saying “nah, the laws don’t really matter it’s cool to break them”, he’s saying “yes you broke the law, but I’m merciful, and in fact I’m coming to build a relationship with you instead of punishing”.
I think this is critical. If Jesus just says the law doesn’t matter anymore, then he doesn’t need to do anything else. No death, no resurrection, no sin, no new agreements.
But if the law does matter, then Jesus can be the focus point for what happens after you break a law. He’s the final judge and interpreter of that law, and can choose to proclaim us innocent. That’s why he establishes himself as having authority over the law later in this passage, and it’s why immediately after this complaint from the Pharisees he can interpret the law with mercy and prioritize people over ritual, and love over pedantry.
Author: Jordan Ambra
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