Jesus confronts the Pharisees with God’s own perspective on what is needed to receive grace and salvation. The people demanded a temple in which to perform their liturgies and sacrifices – this was not God’s demand. God had something else in mind, but in His Providence He made provision for what the people thought they needed to render God fitting worship. “Will you build me a house?”1 The Law was given for instruction – it was never intended to be used against man. It was given so that he might see clearly the burden he carries – his sin, his mortality, his essential solitude before the Judge of all. It was given to make clear to man the difference between the ways of eternal life and death. The Law was never intended to become a refuge for the perfect, the proud, the strong, as a weapon of subjugation to be used against the weak and broken.
What God wanted to finally reveal is a temple of mercy, not a temple of sacrifice. He didn’t want a place for His priests to offer sacrifice day and night: He wanted to walk – Himself – next to His priests through the fields of life, teaching them that all they need to satisfy their hunger would be given to them as a gracious gift. He wanted to pour mercy on His priests – the Apostles – to the point that it would overflow from them over every human heart. The heart of Christ is this fountain of Mercy within the temple of God. The high place of the new temple, the Body of Christ, is no longer an altar of sacrifice, but a fountain of mercy gushing from His eternal heart. This heart, this bread, this mercy, become the nourishment of those who humbly recognize their need for grace. Those who humble themselves under the yoke of Christ become His priests, His intermediaries of mercy.
CYRIL OF JERUSALEM:
He turned his face to the wall, and from his bed of pain his mind soared up to heaven (for no wall is so thick as to stifle fervent prayer). He said, “Lord, remember me.” … He whom the prophet’s sentence had forbidden to hope was granted fifteen further years of life, the sun turning back its course as a witness.2
CYRIL OF JERUSALEM:
For Hezekiah’s sake the sun turned back, but for Christ the sun was eclipsed. The sun did not simply retrace its path for Christ but was completely eclipsed. This shows the difference between Hezekiah and Jesus. The former’s prayer resulted in the canceling of God’s decree. But does not Jesus forgive sins? Repent, shut your door, and pray to be forgiven. Pray that Christ may remove you from the burning flames, for confession has power even to quench fire, power even to tame lions.2
HILARY:
Spiritually viewed, the land is the world, the sabbath is the day of rest, and the crop is the effect of future believers upon the harvest. Therefore, having gone out to a field on the sabbath, the day of rest under God’s law, he proceeded into this world, to visiting the crop, the sown field of the human race. And since hunger is the craving for human salvation, the disciples hasten to pluck off the ears of corn, namely, the holy people, to get their fill of salvation. But the grain is not yet ready for human consumption. Rather, the crop upholds faith in the events to come. The added power of words completes the sacrament that implies both hunger and fullness.3
CHRYSOSTOM:
He never broke the law without adequate cause, and always by giving a reasonable justification. His purpose in doing so was to bring the old law to an end, yet not in a defiant manner. There are indeed occasions in which he repeals the old law directly and without any fanfare, as when he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, and as when he said, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” He does this to glorify his own Father and to soothe the enmity of the Jews. His appeal is to the necessity of nature in this case, since his disciples were hungry.4
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA:
For where nothing great or noble happens, the Pharisees remain quiet. But where they see certain people being healed, they are more offended than anyone else. In this way they are the enemies of humanity’s salvation and without understanding of the sacred writings. If the new covenant announced of old by Jeremiah differs from the first covenant, it ought by all means to make use not of old laws but of new ones. But the Pharisees, not willing to comprehend this, lay snares for the holy apostles and say about them to Christ: “Look here, we see those you’ve schooled opposing themselves to the stipulations of the law. For where the law commands everyone to rest on the sabbath and to touch no manner of work, your disciples pluck ears of wheat with their hands.” But tell me, O Pharisee, when you have set the sabbath table for yourself, don’t even you break the bread? Why then do you blame others?5
HILARY:
Christ also reminded them of another prophecy so that they might learn that all things that were spoken of previously were accomplished in him through the law, that the priests in the temple broke the sabbath without offense, clearly revealing that Jesus himself was the temple. In him salvation was given to the Gentiles through the teaching of the apostles, while the people who were bound by the law wandered about faithlessly, so that he himself might be greater than the sabbath. Evangelical faith lived in Christ transcends the law.6
HILARY:
In order to show that this appearance of his work anticipated all the power of things to come, he added, “If you understood what the saying means: ‘I want mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would never have condemned the blameless.” The business of our salvation lies not in sacrifice but in mercy. When law is made void, we are saved by the goodness of God. If they had understood the grace of this statement, they would never have condemned the blameless. They would not have condemned the apostles whom they were going to accuse falsely, out of envy, of transgressing the law. When the ancient practice of sacrifices was stopped, the strangeness of mercy became more clearly known. Had this been known, they would not have thought that the Lord of the sabbath was confined by the law of the sabbath.7
CHRYSOSTOM:
Nevertheless, great as the sayings were which they heard, they made no reply, for they were inattentive to the coming salvation of humanity. Then, because it might otherwise seem harsh to his hearers, Jesus quickly drew a veil over his discourse, giving it a lenient turn, yet even then conveying a sharp admonition: “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” Do you see once again how his speech is inclined toward leniency, yet showing the priests themselves to be in need of leniency?8
CHRYSOSTOM:
Doubtless he speaks of himself when he mentions the “Lord of the sabbath.” Mark relates a complementary saying about our common human nature, that “the sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the sabbath.
Why then should someone who gathered sticks on the sabbath be censured? The law that was established earlier could not be scorned without jeopardizing the law to be given later.
The sabbath did confer many benefits, great blessings in the earlier dispensation. It made people more gentle toward those close to them. It guided them toward being more sympathetic. It located them temporally within God’s creation and providence, as Ezekiel knew. The sabbath trained Israel by degrees to abstain from evil and disposed them to listen to the things of the Spirit.
They would have stretched the law out of shape if, when he was giving the law of the sabbath, Jesus had said, “You can work on the sabbath, but just do good works, do nothing evil.” This would have brought out the worst in them. So he restrained them from doing any works at all on the sabbath. And even this stricter prohibition did not keep them in line. But he himself, in the very act of giving the law of the sabbath, gave them a veiled sign of things to come. For by saying, “You must do no work, except what shall be done for your life,” he indicated that the intent of the law was to have them refrain from evil works only, not all works. Even in the temple, much went on during the sabbath, and with great diligence and double toil. Thus even by this very shadowy saying Jesus was secretly opening the truth to them.
Did Christ then attempt to repeal a law so beneficial as the sabbath law? Far from it. Rather, he greatly magnified the sabbath. For with Christ came the time for everyone to be trained by a higher requirement.9
Footnotes
- Is 66:1.
- CATECHETICAL LECTURES 2.15. McKinion, S. A. (Ed.). (2004). Isaiah 1-39 (p. 262). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- ON MATTHEW 12.2. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 234). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 39.1. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 234). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- FRAGMENT 152. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (pp. 234–235). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- ON MATTHEW 12.4. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 236). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- ON MATTHEW 12.5. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 236). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 39.2. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 236). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 39.3. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (pp. 236–237). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.