INTRODUCTION

Isaiah 6 contains an amazing story. The prophet Isaiah is in the temple when he is given a vision of God. He sees a throne that dwarfs the interior of the temple and God is sitting on the throne. There is smoke and rumblings and the ground itself shakes. Then he sees two angelic beings called seraphim that each have six wings. With two they cover their face and with two they cover their feet and with two they fly. They cry out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory."

Then Isaiah cries out, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty." What Isaiah declares is that he is certain that he is going to be doomed forever in hell. When he sees the Lord in the majesty of his holiness he can only assume that he will be destroyed. Why does he feel this way about himself? Does he just have poor self-esteem? Maybe he’s not been told that God loves him and has a wonderful plan for his life? The reason he gives is because he is a man of unclean lips and he lives among people who have unclean lips and in seeing God he knows in an instant that no unclean thing will survive in the fire of his holiness.

So what is the solution? This is the part I don’t want you to miss. One of the seraphs flies to him with a live coal in his hand that he took from the altar with tongs. Then he placed it on Isaiah’s lips and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Let me ask you a question. Would you ever put a live coal on your lips? Can you imagine how painful that would be? What would ever motivate a person to willingly allow their lips to be touched with a live coal? The only thing that could motivate you to do such a thing is if not doing it would result in worse pain. Or to put it positively, the reason you would put a live coal on your lips would be if by doing so you would gain an infinitely greater pleasure. That is indeed what motivated Isaiah. He needed more than anything else for his sins to be taken away so that he would avoid ruin and gain God. Isaiah realized that being full of sin in the presence of a holy God is worse than having a live coal put on your lips.

We ended last week with Jesus’ command to make ourselves his slaves by taking his yoke upon us and learning from him (11:28-30). The command to be someone’s slave is not good news to the average person. Jesus, however, says it is good news to those who are weary and burdened. Weary and burdened people are those who are tired of sin and want to leave it behind and those who have sought to obey God’s law and failed. They are people like Isaiah who are miserable because they are slaves to their own sin, unable to escape their sin and certain they will be destroyed because of sin. It is to people like this that Jesus offers himself as master, as the solution to the misery of sin.

I know that everyone in here has days you feel miserable. But if your misery is not due to being tired of your own sin and your own inability to love and obey God with a whole heart, then Jesus really has nothing for you. If you are tired of sinning and tired of not being able to keep God’s laws, then our passage today is very good news.

MAIN POINT

Our passage today begins with an idyllic scene. It’s Saturday, the Jewish day of rest. Jesus and his disciples are out for a Saturday afternoon walk in the countryside of Galilee. It is close to harvest time and so they are walking along a path bordered by golden fields of ripe grain, wheat perhaps. We are told that the disciples are hungry and so they pick a few stalks of grain and then hit the tops in their hands to loosen the kernels out from the straw. Then they pop the kernels into their mouths like we would eat peanuts. You need to know that the OT law permits this behavior. They were not stealing. However, like the tabloid photographers who chase the British royal family around, trying to catch them doing "non-royal" things, the Pharisees who are walking along with Jesus and his men see them eating and they inform Jesus. "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."

Why are the Pharisees so bent out of shape by the disciples eating a little grain? They believe that the disciples are breaking the 4^th commandment which says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall do your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you will do no work." To accuse a person of doing what is unlawful is a very serious charge. Listen to what God says about doing work on the Sabbath in Exodus 31: 12-17. "Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, "You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people."’" The Pharisees are charging the disciples with breaking the Sabbath by doing the work of harvesting grain. They are declaring that they deserve death by their action. The Pharisees are claiming that God is angry with the disciples and will certainly punish them for their lawbreaking.

Jesus’ answer in vv. 3-8 is nothing short of amazing. It is amazing not only because of what he says but also because of what he does not say. We are not well equipped to hear the force of Jesus’ argument because we naturally side with the Pharisees. God’s law is being violated, the traditions of culture and religion are being trampled upon and the one who is supposed to be on God’s side is not rebuking his disciples. Let’s be honest. Aren’t we all excellent at noticing and pointing out the ways other people are doing what is unlawful? Just pay attention to how often you notice when others sin and how seldom you notice when you sin. Whether we say something about it or not, you and I are regularly evaluating the behavior of others and noticing when they don’t do the right thing.

I want you to notice first of all what Jesus doesn’t say. If I were in Jesus’ place my first response to these Pharisees would be, "Where in the Scriptures does it say that picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath is sin? Give me a break. What’s wrong with you guys? How in the world can you be so nit picky?" If you were to say such a thing to these Pharisees, what would their response be? They would say that the Scriptures forbid working on the Sabbath. The disciples are working by harvesting grain. Therefore they are breaking the Sabbath law and are worthy of death. Notice, Jesus does not ever say in his answer that the disciples are not breaking the Sabbath law. In fact, he says in his answer that David did something unlawful (v. 4) and the priests do what is unlawful, they work on the Sabbath (v. 5). He does not say that his disciples are not lawbreakers. He does not prove their innocence based on their keeping the law. In verse 7 he does say that his disciples, like the priests and David, are innocent. But they are not innocent because they are not guilty of breaking God’s law. Don’t miss what Jesus is saying here. He is not arguing with the Pharisees that the disciples are innocent because they did not break the law. They are innocent for another reason.

Why is it that the disciples cannot be condemned and punished as lawbreakers even though they are breaking the law? In answering the Pharisees he refers to two stories found in the OT. First, he reminds the Pharisees of a time when David ate bread that only priests were supposed to eat. This story is found in 1 Samuel 21. Let me summarize it for you. Saul is the reigning king of Israel at the time of the story. However, God has rejected Saul as king because of his disobedience. Saul knows that his days are numbered and he is going to be replaced. God sent his prophet Samuel to anoint David as king in a secret ceremony. But Saul has figured out that David is going to be the next king and has tried to kill David at least two times.

So David has finally fled from Jerusalem after discovering another plot by Saul. He left with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. He goes to the town of Nob, about 10 miles from Jerusalem, where the tabernacle is located and goes to see the chief priest, Ahimelech. David lies to him and then asks if he has any food because he has no provisions for he and his men. The priest offers him the loaves of bread that are called the Bread of the Presence. Every Sabbath, the priests are to bake 12 fresh loaves of bread and put them on the table in front of the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. They are to take the week old loaves and eat them in the tabernacle. This is consecrated, or holy bread that can only be eaten by the priests (Lev. 24: 5-9). Yet Ahimelech gives this bread to David for food. Even though David is doing what is unlawful he is not condemned for it. In fact, the priest himself, God’s representative, gives the bread to David. The point is that while David is breaking the law, yet he is not condemned for breaking the law. Look at v. 4, Jesus calls David’s action unlawful and yet he is innocent.

The question Jesus is posing to the Pharisees is why isn’t he condemned? Why is he not punished for doing what is unlawful? The very same law that commands only priests to eat this bread, records that David ate the bread and wasn’t condemned. How come? You’re not going to like the answer. The reason David is not condemned is because God plays favorites. The priest gives the bread that only priests are supposed to eat to David because of who he is. He knows that he is the one God has chosen as king. Does that mean that the king is above the law? No, it means that God chooses to favor to lawbreakers. God does not save people who do not break his law. He saves people who break his law through his own unmerited favor. This is a specific example of what we saw last week in 11:25-26. God takes pleasure in revealing himself to some people for no reason other than it pleases him. David is one of those people. David is not punished for breaking the law because God is gracious to him. How is this fair? Jesus explains that later and so I’ll get to it then.

Next he reminds the Pharisees that every Sabbath the priests desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent. Jesus does not use this word desecrate lightly. Exodus 31: 14, which I quoted before, says, "Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death." The priests are commanded in the OT law to offer two lambs (Num. 28:9-10) and to replace the bread of the Presence every Sabbath day. In other words, every Sabbath, the priests work and though they desecrate the Sabbath, they are not condemned. They are innocent not because they do not break the law but for some other reason. Do not ignore this. Jesus says that the priests are desecrating the Sabbath every week and Exodus says anyone who desecrates the Sabbath must be put to death. Why can the priests break the 4^th commandment every Sabbath and not be condemned and punished for doing so?

In vv. 6-8 Jesus gives us the reason for why the priests are not condemned and why his disciples are not condemned, even though all of them are breaking God’s law and ought to be punished in hell forever for doing so. In v. 6 he says that one greater than the temple is here. He doesn’t say one greater than the priests is here but one greater than the temple. What is going on in the temple? The main thing that the temple points to is God’s presence among the Israelites. The temple is the place where God says that he will dwell among the Israelites. It is the physical symbol of the fact that God chose the nation Israel out of all the nations of the world to be his people, his treasured possession. Over and over again in the OT God tells Israel that they are his people for no reason other than he chose them to be his people, because he chose to treat them graciously. The temple is the place where he dwells among his people. Listen to Exodus 29: 44-46, "So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God."

Jesus now quotes Hosea 6:6. It is this verse that tells us without a doubt that the reason God does not punish David and the priests is not because they are not lawbreakers. There is only one reason they are not condemned and punished and that is because God has freely, graciously forgiven them. He tells the Pharisees that the reason they are condemning men who are innocent is because they do not understand what Hosea 6:6 means. When Jesus calls the disciples innocent he is not saying they did not break the law, as we’ve already seen. He is saying that they are not going to be found guilty and punished for the sin of breaking the Sabbath because God desires mercy and not sacrifice. In other words what God likes to do is to pardon lawbreakers and treat them as if they never broke his law. He loves to have mercy on people who don’t deserve mercy. What he doesn’t like to do is relate to people on an employer—employee basis. The Pharisees look at God’s law like an employee looks at the work his boss assigns him. "God needs me to do these things, keep the Sabbath day holy, not murder, etc. If I do my work faithfully, then like a good employer, God will pay me the wages I am due, i.e. a happy life on earth and an eternal life in heaven after I die." This is how the Pharisees reason.

The Pharisees believe it is possible to keep God’s law. Jesus is showing that it is impossible to keep God’s law. God does not accept King David and the priests and Jesus’ disciples because they keep the law but because God has chosen to accept them according to his own gracious purposes. The purpose of God’s law isn’t to give us something to do in order to earn our way into heaven. Rather the purpose of God’s law is to show us that we can never earn our way into heaven. No one has ever kept God’s laws, except Jesus. This is where the Pharisees went wrong and this is where the vast majority of human beings have gone wrong. The Pharisees, by a selective reading of the OT have turned the Law of God into something it was never intended to be. They turned it into a book of rules to be kept so that God will be pleased with you. Rather, the OT is a record of how humans completely fail to keep God’s laws and yet God forgives and saves his people by grace.

Jesus ties up his argument with a statement that is freighted with meaning. There are at least three things that are true because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. That’s the meaning of that little word "for" at the beginning of the sentence. One greater than the temple is present because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. God desires mercy and not sacrifice because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. The disciples are innocent because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. This phrase "Lord of the Sabbath" is another way of saying what he said in 11: 28-29. He is the one who gives rest to his people. He is the creator of Sabbath, which means "rest". He is the God who spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai and gave the command, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." He is God’s agent of mercy in extending rest to all those who will come to him. By his obedience to God’s laws and by his death for lawbreakers he has done all the work so that all we have to do is rest in his finished work in order to experience God’s eternal Sabbath rest. It’s resting in Christ’s work, not working for God that frees us from the misery of our sin.

It’s one thing to quote obscure Bible verses to prove your point and then to claim you are Lord of the Sabbath. It is quite another to prove it. We are informed that Jesus leaves the countryside and goes into town to the synagogue. There was a man with a withered arm sitting at the front of the synagogue, right in front of him. The Pharisees are angry with Jesus’ previous answer. They are convinced that Jesus is a false teacher because he is teaching that people can violate God’s commands and still be accepted by God. They now try to trap him in the act of desecrating the Sabbath by healing a man on it. So they dare him to heal the man with the deformed arm that is sitting in front of him. They are trying to catch him in the act of breaking God’s Sabbath law but he turns the table on them and shows that they violate that law all the time themselves when they care for their livestock on the Sabbath. He is saying, "You guys think it’s OK to do good to sheep on the Sabbath. Human beings are way more valuable then sheep. So if it’s OK to be kind to sheep, and we both know it is, then how much more is it right to be kind to a man on the Sabbath."

Jesus commands the man to stretch out his hand and it is healed. Jesus shows that the Sabbath is more than just a day to not work. Rather it is a picture of that eternal rest that he provides as God’s Savior. The Sabbath is a picture of heaven where all those who come to him will one day experience that total rest from sin and all of its consequences, including illness and death. He is not simply giving a new rule for how to keep the Sabbath. He is showing what it means for him to be Lord of the Sabbath. The rest he offers is forgiveness and healing to those who are sick with sin and overcome by the effects of sin. Look at v. 14. See the hardness of human hearts? The Pharisees are blind to the grace of God because they are so intent on proving their worthiness. They are filled with self-righteousness and pride and so cannot see that salvation is a gift, granted by the Son of Man, not to those who keep the law but to those who will trust and obey him. They are angry and determined to kill Jesus.

Jesus does not stay and provoke more hostility but withdraws with his disciples to another place. The crowds of people still follow him and he heals all the sick who come to him. He commands those he heals not to reveal who he is. Here again, Jesus shows that he is not trying to set up some kind of earthly kingdom, but rather that he has come to free people from the slavery of sin and self-righteousness in order to bring people to God. Notice that v. 17 says, "This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah." Then he quotes most of Isaiah 42: 1-4. What does the "this" refer to? I believe that Matthew is referring to all of Jesus’ life, not just what he says in vv. 15 & 16, though they are a good summary of his life. Verse 18 is essentially what God said about Jesus at his baptism in Matthew 3. The rest of the verses describe what Jesus does and how he does it.

In verse 18 we are given another glimpse into the interaction between the members of the Trinity. The Father chooses the Son to accomplish the work of proclaiming and accomplishing his justice on the earth. The Father loves the Son and is delighted with him. The Son in turn serves the Father and accomplishes his work. The Father gives His Spirit to the Son for the accomplishing of that work. The Spirit enables the Son to do the Father’s work. Here is a verse to ponder and then to worship this great, Triune God who works for our good and his own glory. Notice the work that the Son does in obedience to the Father, enabled by His Spirit. The work is to proclaim justice to the nations until he leads justice to victory. See that at the end of v. 20? The work of Jesus is to proclaim God’s justice to the Gentiles until, through that proclamation, God’s justice triumphs over everything. What does that mean? What is this justice that Jesus is proclaiming and that he leads into victory?

God’s justice is his determination and action to save all the innocent and to destroy all the proud. God’s justice is that the wicked are punished and the righteous are saved. But as we have just seen, there are no truly innocent or righteous people. All of us have broken his laws and deserve to be punished as lawbreakers. So when Jesus proclaims God’s justice he is proclaiming how a just God with fairness pardons some guilty people while justly destroying other guilty people. The big question that human beings ask is how can a loving God send people to hell? Jesus and the rest of the biblical writers do not even ask that question because there is another question that looms like a menacing mountain over everything else. The question the Bible is forever trying to get us to think about is how does a just and holy God accept guilty sinners into heaven without being accused of being a corrupt and partial judge? How is it fair for God to forgive and love a man like David who committed adultery and murdered his lover’s wife but to send to hell a man like Saul who simply failed to obey God’s command to not take any captives in a battle?

The answer the NT gives and that Jesus is proclaiming is this. God takes the sins of those people of his choosing, like David, and puts them on Christ who has no sin. He then kills his own Son instead of killing all those guilty lawbreakers. Then he takes the perfect obedience of Jesus and credits it to the account of all those, like David, he has chosen. Finally, he gives to all of these freely chosen people his Holy Spirit so that they trust and love Jesus and desire to live obedient lives. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus thus enables the Father to accept guilty sinners without being charged with injustice because their sin penalty has been paid and they have been made righteous by Christ. So Jesus proclaims through every faithful teacher of this gospel that God can justly save guilty sinners by the work of Christ and will one day bring them to heaven forever while at the same time destroying all those sinners who refuse to trust in this great work of Christ.

Notice how verse 19 seems to be an exact contradiction of the end of verse 18. He proclaims justice to the nations but he doesn’t cry out and his voice is not heard in the streets. What does this mean? It means that this work of Jesus goes forward in quiet and unassuming ways. The most important work in the whole universe goes on in an unobtrusive, easily missed sort of way. Jesus is not now leading justice to victory through coercive force. He is not doing it through big parades or political campaigns or slick marketing. He is doing it through the faithful proclamation of his life and death and resurrection. The world does not even know it is going on and yet one day the entire universe will be made new because of this quiet work. This is what the Pharisees could not comprehend. They expected the Messiah to show up and reward all those who kept the law, like themselves, and to punish all those who did not keep the law. What they failed to see was that no one, not even they, kept the law. The Messiah had to obey the law and suffer and die and be raised to life in place of guilty lawbreakers. God’s saving work doesn’t take place among the great and the proud. It doesn’t attract popular attention. It is a quiet, personal work of renewal of individual lives through the proclamation of the suffering life of a crucified man.

I want us to finish this morning by considering the gracious picture of Jesus’ work in vv. 20-21. "A bruised reed he will not crush." The word crush in the OT is one used for God’s work of destroying or shattering the rebellious, the wicked, those who break his law. So we discover here that the sinners that he will not crush are the ones who are like bruised or broken reeds. Then we are told that he will not snuff out people who are like smoldering wicks. He is not saying that he saves people who have a spark of righteousness in them that just needs to be fanned into flame. Rather, when you put these two metaphors together we get a picture of the kind of people that God saves. They are first of all people who have been broken by God’s law. They are people who want to obey God but who discover that the harder they try to obey, the more they cannot obey. They are people who are in despair over their own sin and their inability to keep God’s laws. They are people who are overwhelmed with their own guilt and the certainty of God’s judgement upon them. But second they are people who have a spark of hope in them, like a smoldering candle. They have heard of Christ. They have heard that he is willing to save all who will come to him. They have a hope that this tender Savior who lived and died so that guilty sinners could come home to God might accept them. They are men and women who are turning from their sin and from their own self-righteousness and looking to Christ. Here is a great and precious promise for all who feel the weight of sin. Look to Christ, hope in Christ, he will not snuff out those who turn to him even with the smallest spark of faith and hope in his salvation. But note, in all of Jesus’ promises of salvation there are also embedded warnings of judgement because he proclaims God’s justice to the nations. So you also need to know that if you are a strong tree of self sufficiency and a flaming candle of righteousness you will be crushed and you will be snuffed out.

© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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