Everything to follow Jesus

Mark 2:23-28

²³ One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

²⁵ He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? ²⁶ In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

²⁷ Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

When I have read this passage in the past, I had pictured a group of middle-aged men, wandering through the countryside on foot, whimsically pulling off a head of grain as they followed their leader wherever he may go. 

But today I thought about this passage. 

I asked some questions I had never asked myself before – why would they pull off heads of grain on a Sabbath? Why are they not accused of stealing? What does their action have to do with David eating the bread of the Presence in verse 26?

When I looked at all this, I realised that the answer to all these questions is because they were starving hungry! In Jewish law, people who were poor and hungry were allowed to glean from the corners of a field to ensure they didn’t starve. David’s men were forced into the situation where they had to eat the forbidden bread because they were in dire need of food.

In the gospel of Mark, it also appears that Jesus may not have even finished calling all his 12 disciples together at the time that this happened. I realised today afresh that Jesus’ followers have literally left EVERYTHING behind to follow him. Now they are dirt poor and hungry and the religious administration is criticising them!

Lord, help me be more like the disciples and truly, really, lay everything down as I follow you.

Also, God, help me to be less like the religious administration of Christ’s day. Don’t let me enforce the wrong rules for people to the point where I am contrary to your heart.

Written by Ps Justin Ware