And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath.”
Mark 2:27 (ESV)

Sometimes a good thing can be taken too far and become burdensome. A parent tells their children to share their food equally. It begins with ripping the sandwich in half, but then progresses to cutting it, and then morphs into measuring it exactly before it is cut. If the cut is wrong, then smaller cuts are needed; a scale is finally introduced to weight both sides and what began as a blessing to both children ends up being a stress exercise.

The Pharisees pounced upon Jesus and His disciples for picking heads of grain one Sabbath day. The Sabbath had been given since the beginning and the rabbis spent much time drawing appropriate lines of keeping it. J. R. Edwards states, “The controversy [here] reflects the Pharisaic determination to uphold and honor the Sabbath….Their grievance is that in plucking ears of grain the disciples are “reaping” (Exod 31:13–17; 34:21).”¹ The Sabbath was to be a rest day and reaping was on a list of thirty nine specific acts the Mishna forbad.²

Jesus turns their attention to David who ate the forbidden consecrated bread in the house of God and gave some to those with him (1 Sam. 21:1–6). Two realities collided here—hungry people and bread consecrated for the priests. What was David to do? Mark Strauss says, “Jesus acknowledges that David technically broke the law, since ‘only the priests are allowed to eat’ the consecrated bread (v. 26). But he did not break the true spirit and purpose of the law, since human need supersedes mere ritual observance.”³ Human need is an important element being left out by the Pharisees good intentions. David’s example was meant to wake them up.

After awakening their minds to the important element of human need, Jesus now addresses the specific concern of Sabbath keeping. Jesus declares that the Sabbath was made for man; not the other way around. Simply, the Sabbath was a gift given to mankind where they may rest from their work and worship God. The additional laws mined by man turned what was good into a burden. They took a blessing for people and made it a burden on people; they missed the heart of the law.

Let us be careful not to turn God’s good graces into burdensome grinds. Worship, prayer, evangelism, serving the poor, hospitality, family devotions, and such are good gifts from God to us. Let’s be passionate about God’s truths without forgetting God’s intentions in them.

Sources

Cole, R. Alan. Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989.

Edwards, J. R. The Gospel according to Mark. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002.

Strauss, Mark L. Mark. C. E. Arnold, Ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.