Mark 2:23-28
The rigidity of the Pharisees’ uninspired traditions squeezed out all mercy and grace found in God’s Law. It was not unlawful for the disciples to pick the heads of grain. In fact, the Law permitted travelers passing through the fields of distant regions to do this very thing (Deuteronomy 23:25). But the Pharisees were fixated on their interpretive customs and a strict obedience to their uninspired traditions.
Like on so many other occasions, Jesus uses one the Pharisees’ heroes in order to expose their hypocrisy. When David and his companions were starving while running for their lives, they ate show bread that God had clearly instructed not be eaten except by the priests. This was no little thing and no small offense. Ordinarily such a violation was punishable by excommunication or death.
The hypocrisy of the Pharisees simply bloomed. They were willing to condemn Jesus for the sake of breaking one of their uninspired traditions, yet were willing to overlook what a lousy law keeper David turned out to be. They could not see that the Scriptures exalted David on account of his faith, not on account of his rule keeping. And it was easy for these religious professionals to revere and forgive the dead, while they were so quick to condemn the living.
The Pharisees elevated their traditions over the Law. They had made the Sabbath into a thing it was not. The Sabbath was made for man as a symbol of the holiness and rest God’s people would have in Jesus, not as a thing to be worshipped. The Sabbath was not God himself and yet the religious elite had made it a thing greater than the law and even God.
By their willingness to so quickly condemn Jesus on account of his disciple’s actions, they denied the mercy and grace of the Law. They were blind to the heart of God that was revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.
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