Our zeal to ensure adherence to the finer points in life should not make us rigid fault finders and lose sight of humanity. #Reflectonthis #Daily Reflection [ Ссылка ]
Scripture Reading: Mark 2:23-28
23 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26 He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” 27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” – The Gospel of the Lord.
Reflection:
It was God himself who created a day of rest and commanded us to put aside our daily tasks to honor him and to delight in his presence. The law of the Lord provides guidelines and boundaries for people to lead orderly, decent and holy lives. And the Lord promises to bless those who sincerely keep his laws. (See Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Isaiah 58:13-14) However, if we choose to emphasize only on the fine print and ignore the big picture, then it means that we focus only on ticking off checkboxes to make ourselves look and feel good, and neglect the underlying purpose and intention which is the spirit of the law.
On Saturday we saw the Pharisees question Jesus about the people he chose to eat with. Yesterday, they pointed out how his disciples did not observe a fast like the others. Today the disciples are questioned about picking heads of grain on the Sabbath which broke the law. Matthew in his version of this gospel mentions they did this since they were hungry. (Matthew 12:1) As we can see, the Pharisees always seemed to be following Jesus around, not with any noble intention though. They kept an eagle eye on him and his disciples watching their every move, even their eating habits, only to find fault and pass judgment.
As per the Jewish law, there is a list of tasks that are forbidden on the Sabbath; plucking heads of grains falls into the category of reaping, which is a part of that list. The Pharisees must have been delighted to find an area where Jesus seemed to have defaulted, so they promptly questioned him. As always, they were tripped over by their own query; he replied by drawing a parallel from Scripture and questioning their knowledge of the law when David and his men broke the rule to feed themselves (1 Samuel 21:6) – they obviously had no explanation to offer.
It’s actually quite amusing that they kept questioning the law maker himself about his compliance to the law! (Mark 2:28) In all he did or said, Jesus never disrespected or disregarded the law - all he wanted was people to stop being so uptight and rigid about it, especially when it was about basic human needs, which in this case was hunger. He was only reminding the nitpickers to look at the big picture, which is what truly mattered.
It is indeed important to abide by the rule book however we can’t let the rule book blind us to humanity (Mark 2:27) God bless you!
