Matthew 12 – I work on Sundays

Lord of the Sabbath

Ryan tells a story about a time when he was visiting another church and had a pleasant conversation with a lady that went there.  They talked about how he is a minister and many other things and after awhile she said, “You should come back more often.”  Ryan smiled and replied, “I wish I could, but I work on Sundays.”  She sadly shook her head and said, “I hate that jobs require people to work on Sundays.”

Well the necessity of clergy working on the holy day of the week isn’t new.  In fact, in ancient Israel there were always some priests who had to work on the Sabbath.  When you work for God, working on holy days is part of the job description.

So when the Pharisees question Jesus for doing his work and healing on the Sabbath, Jesus points out, “This isn’t new.”  David was King and was able to work on the Sabbath.  The priests work on the Sabbath.  Jesus is now both king and priest of Israel.  Surely he is Lord of the Sabbath.  The implication here is important and shouldn’t be missed.  Jesus implies that he can do what King David did.  He also insinuates that he is doing the work of the priest.  As king he has the authority.  As priest he is doing the holy work of God.  Then, just for extra measure, he points out that even these lousy judgmental Pharisees are willing to show mercy and compassion to a stranded piece of livestock.  The implication here is, “Pharisees care more about livestock than people.  Jesus has better priorities.”

It’s a pretty poignant contrast.  Don’t miss how intense this scene is.  It feels to us like a fairly basic argument about the Sabbath, but it’s clearly more than that.  It’s about Jesus the king.  It’s about Jesus the priest.  It’s about Jesus the compassionate.  The Pharisees are shown to be ignorant jerks.  How serious is all of this?  Matthew tells us that it’s such an important confrontation that the Pharisees leave to go plan how to kill Jesus.  This is about more than the Sabbath.

Other Matters in Matthew 12

Jesus heals out of compassion but gets bothered when they ask for a sign.  He wants to show love and mercy to people, but Jesus doesn’t want God’s power to be turned into a circus side show.  That’s not what he is all about.

Jesus talks about how a person who has a demon cast out must fill the void with something good or else the evil spirit will come back with seven more like it.  This is a very important principle for people looking to get sin out of their life as well.  So often people try to quit some major sin or evil in their life, but they just cut it out and change nothing else.  Unfortunately, this often results in relapse.  Jesus’ advice here is to cut out the evil but start putting good stuff in it’s place.  Fill the void with a relationship with God.  Fill it with God’s Spirit.  Fill it by serving others.  Whatever it takes, take out the bad and put in the good.

Jesus says something about his family being those who follow him and obey him.  But that’s not necessarily disowning his actual mother and brothers.  Certainly there were some odd dynamics with his family (See John 7 and his brothers’ doubt and his sneakily going to the festival), but Jesus is still a good son.  We see this when one of his last thoughts on the cross was for the beloved disciple to take care of his mother.  We see this when later his brothers become leaders in the early church.