Matthew 12:1-14 - Homiletics

Christ the Lord of the sabbath.

I. NECESSARY WORK MAY BE DONE ON THE SABBATH .

1 . The accusation of the Pharisees. The Lord's disciples were hungry; they gathered the ears of corn. This was allowed by the Law ( Deuteronomy 23:25 ). But it was the sabbath day, and there were Pharisees in attendance, some of them rulers of the neighbouring synagogue, some perhaps spies, sent from Jerusalem to watch our Lord. After the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, the leading Pharisees at Jerusalem had resolved to take an opportunity of compassing the death of Jesus; and from that time their emissaries appear to have dogged his steps wherever he went. They watched him everywhere—in the corn-fields and in the synagogues; in Galilee and in Persea. And now they accused the disciples. It was a profanation of the sabbath, they said; to gather the ears and rub them in the hands was equivalent to reaping and threshing; and that was forbidden on pain of death.

2 . The Lord ' s answer. They insisted on their traditions; he referred them to the Scriptures.

3 . The error of the Pharisees. It was the common error of formalists and hypocrites. They cared more for the letter of the Law than for the spirit, more for the outward ordinance than for the spiritual principle which is embodied in the ordinance. The Lord refers them again to that deep saying of the Prophet Hosea, which he had already quoted ( Matthew 9:13 ), when they blamed him for eating with publicans and sinners. Then he bade them go and learn its spiritual meaning. They had not done so; they were as ignorant as ever; well read in the letter of the Scriptures, but utterly ignorant of those great and holy truths which are often bidden from the wise and prudent, but by the grace of God revealed unto babes. They transposed the Divine order of things; they put the letter above the spirit, outward forms above the inner worship of the heart, sacrifice above mercy. They came to Christ, but it was to vex and persecute him, to mis-interpret his words, to find opportunity to kill him; not to learn those holy lessons which he teaches to his true disciples. Guilty themselves, they condemned the guiltless. Mercy is better than sacrifice. Sacrifice is good, but mercy is better. It is good to observe all the outward ordinances of religion; they are precious helps, ordained of God. But they cease to be good if we forget that they are only helps; if we trust in them while we break the higher law of charity. To condemn the guiltless is a grievous sin; to speak evil of our neighbours, especially of those who are following Christ in sincerity, though they may perhaps differ from us in many things, is a crime in the sight of God. To come to God's house with uncharitable intentions, to spy, to find fault, to misrepresent, is the sin of the Pharisees, for which the Lord rebuked them.

4 . The Lord ' s authority. The Son of man, he said, is Lord even of the sabbath day. The Pharisees exalted the sabbath in a way which destroyed its real meaning. The sabbath was made for man; for his spiritual necessities; for rest from worldly labour, that he might give himself to worship and to the care of his soul. The salvation of man was of infinitely greater importance than the outward observance of the sabbath. That was the great end; the sabbath was one of the appointed means; it was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The Son of man, the Representative of humanity, the Son of God, who had become the Son of man for man's peace and salvation, was, Lord of the sabbath. He might put aside the traditions of the Pharisees, their rigorous formalisms, for the sake of suffering humanity. He is Lord over the ordinances of the sabbath day. Those ordinances belonged to the ceremonial law; they were a shadow of things to come ( Colossians 2:16 , Colossians 2:17 ), a preparatory discipline. "In this," says Stier, "Christ has shown himself to be Lord of the sabbath for his Church, for the new humanity in him; that he has changed the day from the end of the old-world week, which passed away for ever with the still sabbath of his grave, to the beginning, with which an entirely new state of things commenced; and thus has made the day peculiarly his own, the Lord's day, and has united to the remembrance of the first creation, whose sabbath was broken and rendered servile by sin, the praise of the new creation, effected by him who became a Son of man for man's sake."

II. WORKS OF MERCY .

1 . The question of the Pharisees. Another sabbath had come ( Luke 6:6 ), and the Lord, as he was wont, attended the synagogue-worship. It was their synagogue; those very men who had been dogging his steps, who had so lately accused his disciples, were its rulers and eiders. The Lord was not like some men nowadays, who absent themselves from church because they have, or fancy they have, some quarrel with the minister. The church is the house of God; we go there to worship God. No earthly motives should be allowed to keep us from it, or to influence our thoughts when we are there. In the congregation on that day was a man with a withered hand; it hung useless by his side. The Pharisees pointed him out to Christ, not in sympathy for the poor man, but in hatred of the Lord. Their hearts were full of malice. In the very house of God, on the sabbath which they affected to vindicate, they sought to ensnare to his destruction One who had done nought but good. "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?" they asked him, seeking not instruction, but an opportunity of accusing the holy Saviour. Blinded as they were by their malice , they did not understand that no profanation of the sabbath is worse in the sight of God than evil thoughts, malicious designs; no crime could be darker than to try to compass the death of One most holy, most merciful, and the among sacred associations, on the day which God had hallowed.

2 . The answer. The Lord answers, as he did so often, one question by another. Would they not save a sheep from danger on the sabbath day? and if a sheep, how much more a man? He lifts the question at once into a higher sphere. He will not argue it on the basis of mere formalism; he will not dispute, as it seems the Jews did afterwards, whether the sheep might be lifted from the pit, or only helped to get out by means of planks. He goes at once to the principle, "It is lawful to do well on the sabbath days." Not to do good. when it lies in our power is to do evil ( Mark 3:4 ), therefore it is not only lawful, but sometimes it is our bounden duty to do works of mercy on the sabbath day.

3 . The miracle. The Lord was grieved, St. Mark tells us, with the hardness of their hearts. He looked round about on them with anger. It was anger against the sin, grief for the sinners. He would have saved those scribes and Pharisees; he would have won their hearts. But they were stiffened into hardness by their miserable formalism; they would not come to him that they might have life. He was grieved. He is grieved when we sin—grieved for us, for our folly, for our danger. He looked round about on them with anger. He does so now when men cherish evil thoughts in the house of God. He is present; he reads the secrets of the hearts. Oh, what a scene would there be if the hearts of a congregation were open to the eyes of men, as they are open to the searching eye of Christ! But there was a work of mercy to be done. "He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth." He believed the word of the Lord; he willed to stretch forth the withered hand. The muscles, helpless before, obeyed the mandate of the will; his hand was restored whole, like as the other. So if we, in trustful faith, will to come after Christ, he will give us strength to stretch forth the hand, to take up the daily cross of self denial, and to follow him. The strength is his, he giveth it; he asks us only for faith. "Only believe," he saith; "all things are possible to him that believeth."

4 . Its effect upon the Pharisees. "They were filled with madness," St. Luke says ( Luke 6:11 ); the Greek word means rather "wicked folly" (see Bishop Ellicott, on 2 Timothy 3:9 ); and they took counsel against him, how they might destroy him. He had shamed them, he had put them to silence; and yet he had done nothing which could be made a ground of accusation against him. There is no wrath fiercer than that of baffled malice. The Lord's anger was righteous, mingled with grief. Theirs was impious, Satanic; for the hatred of goodness is the very character of the evil one. They were blinded by this angry and wicked stupidity to such a degree that they joined with the Herodians, the party to which they were diametrically opposed, to compass the death of Christ. Worldly and wicked men hate goodness; it is a reproach to them. The contrast makes their character appear all the darker; they will combine against it, and lay aside for a time their jealousies and enmities to effect its downfall. But the Lord reigneth.

LESSONS .

1 . Remember that the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life; do not exalt the letter above the spirit.

2 . Fear to profane God's holy day by unholy thoughts and words; he seeth the heart.

3 . Believe in his Word; stretch forth the hand of faith; he giveth strength.