Jesus and Sabbath

Many Christians are of the opinion that Jesus broke the Sabbath commandments regularly, and thus endorsed the ignoring of the Law. I used to think that myself. But a closer study of the relevent passages changed my mind.

In every case where Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath, he responds to his accusers. And his response in never along the lines of “The Sabbath is no longer operational.” He always comes back with something that implies, “I know the Sabbath laws better than you do.”

Let’s look at a couple of examples. In Luke 6 there are two instances of the Pharisees accusing Jesus of breaking Sabbath laws. In the first, some of his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat the kernels. It was not Jesus doing this, but his disciples. Nevertheless, it drew an accusation from the religious leaders.

Jesus responded with a story from I Samuel 21 about David and his hungry companions receiving permission to eat the consecrated bread that was supposed to go to the priests. (Lev. 24:5-9) The point Jesus was making here was that the Sabbath regulations are flexible enough to meet human need. The moral he draws is that, “The son of man is lord of the Sabbath.” I don’t think he is referring to himself by using that title, although he does elsewhere. He clarifies in the parallel passage in Mark 2 that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The term “son of man” is a Hebrew idiom that means the human one. He is saying that the Sabbath is not intended to cause hardship for humans, but to be a blessing.

Also in Luke 6 is the story of Jesus encountering a man with a shriveled hand while he was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He knew that the religious leaders were looking to accuse him. So he asks them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” His question is specifically about biblical Sabbath laws.

Here he is making the same point as in the previous instance, that the intention of the Sabbath is to help people, not to harm them. He knew the intent behind the laws better than they did.

There are several other examples in the gospels of the leaders being skeptical of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But Jesus points out that they feed their animals on the Sabbath, which he parallels to his healing work.

Lest we think that Jesus really did ignore the idea of the Sabbath, or taught his followers to do so, we should note what happens after his crucifixion. At the end of Luke 23 the women who had been following him “went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”

These were women who had been listening to Jesus teaching for months or years. If Jesus had even hinted that Sabbath commands need not be followed, they would have been the first to go to the tomb on the Sabbath, but the actions of his followers are a pretty reliable indicator of the content of his teaching.

Jesus taught his followers to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, although according to his understanding, not that of many of the religious leaders. Those who claim to follow him today should continue to follow his teaching and example in this area.