He went into the House of God, when Abiathar was High Priest, and ate the bread of offering, which only the priests are allowed to eat,
and he also gave some to the men who were with him.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath.”

REFLECTION:

In time, customs and traditions that are meant to facilitate our deeper love to the faith became
rigid and unyielding. They become the be all and end all of spirituality rather than
the means. The Pharisees are scandalized that the disciples of Jesus disregard
the prohibition of not working during the Sabbath day. It is a prohibition borne
out of the interpretation of the Law by religious authorities. What they missed is the fact that the
original intention is for man and woman to have space to contemplate the wonderful
love of God. So instead of making Sabbath a joyful encounter with a loving God,
it became an exercise of selfrestraint with corresponding sense of guilt if one cannot
fulfill the prohibition. Thus Jesus has to remind them of the original purpose of
the Sabbath. It is to make believers fully human, fully alive.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2021