Jesus engaged with the Pharisees on a further matter of great importance to them – the external observance of the Sabbath. Jesus defended the disciples’ thoughtlessness by indicating from the Hebrew Scriptures that there were precedents for not always meticulously observing laws. Greater values overrode them. The disciples were hardly eating because of hunger (as was the case with David and his men); but the point was made.
Jesus’ claim that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath was not intended to lessen the meaning of the Sabbath but to reclaim its meaning. Originally the Sabbath celebrated God’s providential care for his people and his concern to free them from the slavery of ceaseless labour. Jesus was concerned that over-emphasis on regulations was turning a celebration of freedom into an experience of burden.
Unlike Mark, Luke did not mention Jesus’ reaction of anger at the closed minds of the scribes present. But his action was just as provocative. Luke was generally concerned to indicate Jesus’ deliberate response to situations, rather than his spontaneous emotional reaction.
The incident served to tease out further Jesus’ concern for life and for freedom, as well as to highlight the inability of the scribes to think creatively.
The mindset of the Pharisees was not of historical interest to Luke. Their attitudes were significant because they reflected the tendency of people generally, including the members of his own community,
The God of Jesus was a liberating, inclusive and merciful God. Disciples had to discover the consequences of believing in such a God.
An apostle was one especially commissioned and sent out. Luke retained the special selection of the twelve apostles, even though they were not sent out immediately. It was important, however, that, before he began to teach at greater depth, they be clearly commissioned so that they might better be prepared to take on their later mission. Jesus was reshaping the very basis of the socio-religious world of his time. In order to survive, his disciples needed a strong support network.
Though Mark had not mentioned Jesus’ spending the night in prayer, Luke found it valuable to emphasise once again Jesus’ habit of praying, particularly before significant moments in his ministry.
(Thaddaeus in Mark’s Gospel had become Judas son of James in Luke’s; and Simon, identified by Mark as a Cananean, was more clearly called a Zealot by Luke. Most of the apostles seemed to merge into the background in the early years of the Church’s life.)
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