Jesus is the Lord of Mercy

“But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.  For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.”  Matthew 12:7-8

It was the Sabbath day which indicated that according to the letter of the law, no one was to do any work of any sort.  God instituted the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath and ordained it blessed and hallowed.  However, the law did not forbid a person to gather corn or grain for his or her immediate consumption.  To harvest grain in order to make a profit was forbidden.  To do so was to dishonor the day that God set aside to rest from labor.  However, the Pharisees had developed their own “oral” law which consisted of their interpretations which became more and more detailed, adding a multitude of burdensome rules and regulations, in effect, turning God’s standard of godly living into rules for pleasing the Pharisees.  They were the kings of legalism.

On this particular Sabbath, Jesus and His disciples were walking through a corn field.  A limited amount of travel could be done on the Sabbath.  The disciples were hungry and began to pick the ears of corn and eat them.  However, as usual, they were being spied on by the Pharisees, who made a comment to Jesus pointing out that His disciples were breaking the law.  The sect of the Pharisees began, it is believed, about 200 years before Christ came in an effort to counter “Hellenization” of the Jews, that is, to stop them from adopting the Greek language, customs, and culture.  The Pharisees were very adamant about keeping Judaism as pure as possible.  That’s why they disliked Samaritans and Gentiles.  Even though it appears that Jesus was not plucking the ears of corn or eating, the Pharisees considered Him responsible for the actions of His disciples and, thus, saw an opportunity to accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath law.

Jesus always had an answer for them.  He brought up their revered King David.  To explain briefly, David was on a mission, and had come to Ahimelech the priest and asked for five loaves of bread for his soldiers.  The only bread the priest had was the “shewbread” which was placed on the table in the holy place of the tabernacle for one week, then eaten by the priests only (Leviticus 24:5-9).  The priest gave David the shewbread (I Samuel 21:1-6).  David was never criticized by the priests of his day nor the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.  Since the Pharisees were well aware that Jesus and His disciples had not broken the Sabbath law by eating when they were hungry, these self-righteous religious leaders tried to justify their accusation by focusing on the act of “rubbing them (the corn or wheat) in their hands”.  The Pharisees called this “harvesting”.  Jesus had another example for them.  The services of the temple didn’t stop because it was the Sabbath.  The work of the priests, using the Pharisee’s standard, would have been illegal on the Sabbath.

What could they say?  They couldn’t have it both ways.  It was OK if the religious leaders made exceptions, but not anyone else, especially Jesus.  The Jews, particularly the Pharisees, highly esteemed the temple.  It was almost as important as God Himself because it was the place of worship of God.  Jesus then made a comment which sent them into a frenzy.  He said, referring to Himself, “That in this place is One greater than the temple”.  For Jesus to assert that He was greater than the temple was to equate Himself with Jehovah God.  His statement was also a foretelling of the once-and-for-all sacrifice that He would make which would do away with the need to make sacrifices in the temple, but, of course, that was not on the radar of these Pharisees.

Jesus then repeated something that He had said earlier when the Pharisees criticized Him for eating with publicans and sinners (Matthew 9:10-13).  He said, “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” and then added, “ye would not have condemned the guiltless.”  The Pharisees were very knowledgeable about what the law said, but they were blind to its meaning.  Jesus wanted them to understand that to do good and have mercy upon others was what pleased God, not their works of self-righteousness.  Obeying God is not about following rules and regulations, traditions and rituals.  It’s about love and mercy, serving and giving.  The Pharisees had a long way to go before they could understand the difference between mercy and sacrifice.  They were extremely more concerned about ritualistic observances than they were about the basic needs of people.  If there was a choice between helping someone with a need or making a scheduled sacrificial offering, the Lord would rather have the needy ministered to and the sacrifice could be taken care of later.

God gave His laws to benefit people, not to keep folks under condemnation and fear.  He gave man the common sense to somewhat understand the spirit by which the law operates.  The Pharisees were so misguided in their attempt to have their own way of righteousness that they failed to understand the true righteousness of which Christ was demonstrating to them.  Jesus told them that if they could just understand what mercy was all about, then they would not have condemned Him and His disciples who were completely innocent of Sabbath breaking.  Those of us who know Christ are so blessed to have the Holy Spirit to teach us about love and mercy, two qualities that are sorely needed today.