St. Luke 6:1-10

On a Sabbath, while [Jesus] was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored.

Dear Fellow Redeemed:

One of the hymns for this Epiphany Season says:                                                                (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #200)

2 But they who have always resisted His grace
And on their own virtue depended,
Shall then be condemned and cast out from His face,
Eternally lost and unfriended.
Have mercy upon us, O Jesus!

And then, in the next verse:

3 O may we all hear when our Shepherd doth call,
In accents persuasive and tender,
That while there is time we make haste one and all
And find Him, our mighty Defender.
Have mercy upon us, O Jesus!

These verses set out pretty nicely the main issue in this text. The first one talks about a person depending on his own virtue in order to be acceptable to God (the consequence is that he’s condemned and cast out from God’s face). He has tried to do what doesn’t work; he has depended upon the corrupted virtue he has rather than upon the grace God has offered. The second of the verses talks about what does work—hearing the persuasive and tender call of the Shepherd, our mighty Defender. Having the defense of that Shepherd is what God accepts as the righteousness for sinners.

The Pharisees were some of the peoples’ religious leaders in Jesus’ day, of course. Jesus had recently angered them by telling someone He was healing, that his sins were forgiven. Only God can do that, they’d said. Then, more recently, the Pharisees had demanded to know why theirs and John’s disciples fast, but Jesus’ disciples eat and drink. In response, He’d given them an answer that indicated there’s a new era afoot.

They were concerned about doing things God’s people had been told to do in preparation for the Messiah’s coming. Now that He was here, those things could be compared to taking a piece from a new garment and putting it on an old garment. The new has replaced the old; the two things don’t belong together.

In our text there’s this same conflict. In a changing time—that of God’s Messiah coming among the people, the Pharisees are still clinging to what was important before, but now has passed, and refusing to embrace the One Whose coming was always intended to replace those things. In addition, they are making the obeying of those former things what makes them righteous before God rather than the Savior He has provided for that purpose.

The conflict plays out this time on an occasion in which Jesus’ disciples are doing a very practical thing; they’re picking heads of grain as they walk through a field, and eating. The Pharisees’ issue is that it’s happening on the Sabbath (of course, no work was to be done on that day). To them, it gets even more outrageous on another Sabbath (also talked about in the text), when a man with a withered hand is in the Synagogue while Jesus is teaching. The Pharisees have made a habit of looking for things like that. They see that man there, and they say to themselves, I wonder whether Jesus, on this Sabbath will once again commit an act that is unlawful, whether He will once again, work on the Sabbath.

Let’s remind ourselves again of the issue in this text; it’s, How will a person be justified before God; how will a person be saved? Will it be in resisting grace and depending on his own virtue; or in hearing the Shepherd’s persuasive and tender call and finding Him the mighty Defender?

It would be the former as far as the Pharisees are concerned; it would be their own virtue. They would be saved by not preparing food for themselves on Sabbaths. They would be saved by trying to prevent Jesus from healing someone on the Sabbath. In their minds the law is the only priority. It is so absolute, that even if someone is suffering, one doesn’t find any exception in it. They have added to its burden things God didn’t even intend in it.

Look how Jesus says otherwise in this text. When He asks them the question, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?—He’s making an important point about the law’s purpose. The Sabbath law’s purpose isn’t to prevent someone from getting needed help. Ignoring suffering breaks the even more important law of love. God wouldn’t want that. The Sabbath law’s good purpose was to give rest to people and direct them to the spiritual rest that God intended for them to receive in the hearing of His Word. It was to give them in that weekly observance a foretaste of the eternal rest that comes in God’s kingdom. From God’s perspective, helping someone in need certainly shouldn’t have been considered working on the Sabbath (neither should a hungry person in unusual circumstances preparing something for himself to eat). And who would know that more than the Messiah Himself, anyway?

Look how in our lessons for today, this idea of anything we would do ourselves in order to be justified before God is absent in favor of what is truly important. In the OT lesson we are exulting the one who clothes me with the garments of salvation, who has covered me with the robe of righteousness [the isn’t myself; it’s God’s Messiah Who was perfect in my place who Who died for my sins]; in the epistle lesson, the celebrated prophetic Word is about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ [not anything in us]; He is the one who is transfigured in our Gospel Lesson, demonstrating that He is God’s anointed, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

What a good reminder for us to today about what’s really important—because we, like the Pharisees, have a strong sense of the way things should be, don’t we? The fact is, they didn’t like to see people getting away with things. There were laws, and they wanted them followed. Don’t you talk like that sometimes? I do. Laws are important. But laws don’t save anyone. To some degree and in some way you have broken every law you would accuse someone else of breaking. The Commandments aren’t given for other peoples’ benefit; they’re for you. They’re to demonstrate to you how you’ve fallen short of God’s requirements. In so far as you, like the Pharisees, have insisted on the keeping of laws at the expense of mercy and love, you have demonstrated your own breaking of what Jesus called the greatest commandment in the law. Laws don’t save anyone.

Glory be to God, that He has provided the Mighty Defender who calls [you] in accents persuasive and tender. Jesus—the Messiah is the only one of us Who has measured up to the law’s requirements. Since this is so, when He gave up His life for you on a cross, God accepted it as payment for your sins (we know it’s the case because He rose from death victorious). Jesus became for you, the hypocrite who imposed the law on others while not keeping it Himself. It was your sin; but He took it upon Himself so that being punished for it, you could be made innocent through Him.

How will you be justified before God; how will you be saved?

God’s grace will save you. He offers it to you in this moment as you hear the Shepherd’s persuasive and tender call. You hear it in this preaching of His Spirit-filled Word. You find in it the One Who defends you from the accusations of the evil one. Those accusations are real. They really reflect your unworthiness before God. But the charges are no longer yours; they belong now to the One Who took them from you and put them on Himself. Instead, the perfection that He is has been put on you, so that you stand before God on the Last Day without any spot or stain. No charge convicts you. No law points out any sin that still belongs to you. It is removed. And you are saved. Amen.

Other Lessons this week:

Isaiah 61:10-11

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
    my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to sprout up before all the nations.

2 Peter 1:16-21

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

St. Matthew 17:1-9

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”