Lord even of the sabbath day

In this meditation, we find the Pharisees in conflict with the Lord regarding what was permissible on the sabbath day. Under the Law, the sabbath was prescribed to be a day of rest in which no work could be done. The Pharisees had taken this commandment and had added their own traditions, and in doing so, introduced human strictures that violated the spirit of the law.

In the first instance, the Lord’s disciples were hungry, and had plucked ears of corn to eat them. The Pharisees designated this act as ‘work’ in the context of the commandment, and were quick to condemn. The Lord showed the error of their thinking by taking an illustration from the life of David when he was fleeing from Saul and was hungry. David had gone to Ahimelech the priest, and was given the hallowed bread that had been taken from the table of showbread, NKJV. By using this illustration, the Lord showed the Pharisees that the meeting of legitimate need was within the spirit of the law, v. 7.

In the second instance the Lord comes into the synagogue, and sees a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees then asked Him, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?’ v. 10. The Lord revealed their hypocrisy by showing that they would deliver one of their sheep if it fell into a pit on the sabbath day, then He reasoned, ‘How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days’, v. 12. He then healed the man.

The Pharisees could not resist the wisdom of the Lord’s responses, but rather than admit their wrong, they begin to plot how they might kill Him. Note that, as opposed to the hostility of the Pharisees against the Lord, Matthew chooses to tell about the infinite pleasure and delight that Jehovah had in Christ. Matthew quotes from the prophet Isaiah where Jehovah expresses His pleasure in His perfect Servant saying, ‘Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased’, v. 18. In the final analysis, man’s condemnation of the Lord was of no account, when He had the commendation of God. May we take comfort from this as we face an increasingly hostile world.