From: Mark 2:23-28
The Law of the Sabbath
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Commentary:
24. Cf. note on Matthew 12:2. [Note on Matthew 12:2 states: “The Sabbath”:
this was the day the Jews set aside for worshipping God. God Himself, the ori-
ginator of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:3), ordered the Jewish people to avoid certain
kinds of work on this day (Exodus 20:8-11; 21:13; Deuteronomy 5:14) to leave
them free to give more time to God. As time went by, the rabbis complicated
this Divine precept: by Jesus’ time they had extended to 39 the list of kinds of
forbidden work.
The Pharisees accuse Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath. In the casuis-
try of the scribes and the Pharisees, plucking ears of corn was the same as har-
vesting, and crushing them was the same as milling—types of agricultural work
forbidden on the Sabbath.]
26-27. The bread of the Presence consisted of twelve loaves or cakes placed
each morning on the table in the sanctuary, as homage to the Lord from the
twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Leviticus 24:5-9). The loaves withdrawn to make room
for the fresh ones were reserved to the priests.
Abiathar’s action anticipates what Christ teaches here. Already in the Old Tes-
tament God had established a hierarchy in the precepts of the Law so that the
lesser ones yielded to the main ones.
This explains why a ceremonial precept (such as the one we are discussing)
should yield before a precept of the natural law. Similarly, the commandment
to keep the Sabbath does not come before the duty to seek basic subsistence.
Vatican II uses this passage of the Gospel to underline the value of the human
person over and above economic and social development: “The social order and
its development must constantly yield to the good of the person, since the order
of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way
around, as the Lord suggested when He said that the Sabbath was made for
man and not man for the Sabbath. The social order requires constant improve-
ment: it must be founded on truth, built on justice, and enlivened by love”
(”Gaudium Et Spes”, 26).
Finally in this passage Christ teaches God’s purpose in instituting the Sabbath:
God established it for man’s good, to help him rest and devote himself to Divine
worship in joy and peace. The Pharisees, through their interpretation of the Law,
had turned this day into a source of anguish and scruple due to all the various
prescriptions and prohibitions they introduced.
By proclaiming Himself ‘Lord of the Sabbath’, Jesus affirms His divinity and His
universal authority. Because He is Lord He has the power to establish other
laws, as Yahweh had in the Old Testament.
28. The Sabbath had been established not only for man’s rest but also to give
glory to God: that is the correct meaning of the expression “the Sabbath was
made for man.” Jesus has every right to say He is Lord of the Sabbath, be-
cause He is God. Christ restores to the weekly day of rest its full, religious
meaning: it is not just a matter of fulfilling a number of legal precepts or of con-
cern for physical well-being: the Sabbath belongs to God; it is one way, suited
to human nature, of rendering glory and honor to the Almighty. The Church,
from the time of the Apostles onwards, transferred the observance of this pre-
cept to the following day, Sunday—the Lord’s Day—in celebration of the resur-
rection of Christ.
“Son of Man”: the origin of the messianic meaning of this expression is to be
found particularly in the prophecy of Daniel 7:13ff, where Daniel, in a prophetic
vision, contemplates ‘one like the Son of Man’ coming down on the clouds of
Heaven, who even goes right up to God’s throne and is given dominion and glo-
ry and royal power over all peoples and nations. This expression appears 69
times in the Synoptic Gospels; Jesus prefers it to other ways of describing the
Messiah — such as Son of David, Messiah, et cetera — thereby avoiding the na-
tionalistic overtones those expressions had in Jewish minds at the time (cf. “In-
troduction to the Gospel according to St. Mark”, p. 62 above).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
| First reading | Hebrews 6:10-20 © |
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| Psalm | Psalm 110:1-2,4-5,9,10 © |
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| Gospel Acclamation | Ps118:18 |
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| Or | cf.Ep1:17,18 |
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| Gospel | Mark 2:23-28 © |
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