Main Idea/Truth: Jesus defends the weak.

Key Verse: Matthew 12:20

Two examples of Jesus defending the weak:

1. Disciples

2. Sick man

Prayer Suggestions

1. Thank You for defending Your disciples.

2. Your laws are for our good.

3. You are compassionate.

Transcript

Let's pray. Our Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You for revealing Yourself to us in the life of Jesus. Thank You for what He is like, so full of compassion and deep with care for His own. His life shows us just how much You care for us. Thank You that every day we can live with this assurance in our hearts. We pray that You will teach us and guide us now. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The next reading assignment is Matthew 12:1-21, and the main idea and the central truth—which are one and the same here—is this: Jesus defends the weak. The key verse is found in verse 20 where Matthew quotes a passage from the Old Testament to show us that this is the attitude of the Messiah predicted in the book of Isaiah. The verse says this, “A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out.” When the Messiah comes, He’ll be the kind of person who will defend the weak. The battered reed is something a person may just break off and say, what a shame for such a weak stalk to exist. Or with a smoldering wick, some may say there's no light there. Let's just put it out of its misery. But Jesus wouldn't be cruel like that. Instead, He will stick up for those who are weak. In this passage, we find 2 examples of Jesus defending the weak. First, His disciples, then second, a sick man.

The first example is regarding His disciples. This story is found in verses 1-8. There was a situation where Jesus and the disciples were walking through a grain field. It happened to be a Sabbath day. And on this day, the disciples were hungry, and so they were picking the heads of grain and eating them. By the way, this was not stealing. According to the Old Testament law, people without means were allowed to glean the edges of someone else's field. It wasn't stealing. It was provision in this society for the less fortunate. And so, there was provision for what the disciples were doing in the law. And so they were picking the heads of grain and eating them as they were walking along this grain field. Well, the Pharisees noticed this, and they accused the disciples of violating the Sabbath law. They weren't accusing them of stealing. They were accusing them of their Sabbath law violation. Well, their Sabbath law was not the biblical one. The Pharisees made up their own rules to specify what the Sabbath meant. The Sabbath law in the Old Testament was a very simple law. It just meant that whatever was your work for livelihood, you should put a stop to it on the Sabbath day to rest and to worship of God, to remember that He created the heavens and the earth in six days and then rested on the seventh. That was the Sabbath law. So then, if your occupation was to raise crops, then you do your work for six days, cultivate land, irrigate water for your land, fertilize the soil, etc., but on the Sabbath, you would stop those activities to rest and worship God. If you were a merchant, then during the six days of the week, you would sell, but on the seventh you don’t. That's the idea. Six days you shall work and on the seventh day you shall rest. But the Pharisees came up with all sorts of other rules to control human behavior. They made up some really ridiculous rules. One of them was that you could not harvest. This meant that anything remotely like harvesting was disallowed on the Sabbath. This means you cannot pick a fruit off a tree or do what the disciples did, pick the heads of grain. All in the name of not working on the Sabbath. But of course, there is a difference between harvesting because you’re a farmer and that’s your livelihood and your occupation for the first six days of the week, and relaxing in your yard and eating a fig freshly plucked from a tree in your backyard. They had another silly rule that spitting on the ground was also a violation of the Sabbath. The idea was that your saliva would disturb the soil and cultivate the soil. So they said that you cannot spit on the ground. There were other things like, if your house catches on fire, you can't carry anything out of the house, because that’s lifting, and lifting is considered labor and thus work. So you couldn't pull anything out of a burning house. By the way, Jews today still maintain many of these rules that go back to the 1st century world. There is a 200 AD document called the Mishnah that's still available today that records all these rules. Our knowledge of the Pharisees depend largely on that document. The Jews still have them and study them, and many Jews today still keep these laws. In any case, the Pharisees were taking issue with what the disciples were doing because to them, this was a violation of the Sabbath law, though it was really a violation of their own Sabbath laws. That was the situation.

It’s at this juncture that Jesus finds out what’s going on, and He wasn't going to just idly stand by and let His disciples be mistreated like this. So He speaks up for His disciples. He stood up for them. And He dispels the false idea of the Pharisees by showing them that even in the Old Testament certain laws were seen as general guidelines, not laws to be slavishly carried out. And of course, the Sabbath law was a general guideline. People weren't supposed to come up with overly detailed definition of what the law should be, and people were free to apply these laws as they were guided by their own conscience. And so Jesus demonstrates this with two examples. The first example is found in the story of David and his men when they were fleeing from king Saul. They were allowed to eat the consecrated bread in the temple, which they were in general circumstances not allowed to eat. But given the circumstances, there was the greater need for these men to be strengthened with food, they were permitted to eat this. What Jesus shows is that the law of God gave provision for these kinds of things. He gave another example in which the priests actually worked on the Sabbath day because on the Sabbath day they were required to (by God’s law) perform sacrifices on behalf of the people. And so with these two examples, Jesus shows that these laws were given as a guideline. With these words Jesus defended those who could not defend themselves. You see, the disciples weren't experts of the law. They were fishermen, tax collectors, other collar workers, and one was even a revolutionary, a member of a group called the Zealots. In any case, they weren't scholars or academics of the day. But Jesus, being an expert of the law, He rebutted the Pharisees in their place. He stuck up for His disciples and defended them when they could not defend themselves. Jesus defended the weak.

There's one more lesson here. Jesus also shows that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. This is to say, Jesus possesses the authority to give the full meaning of the law. And when it came to the Sabbath, He, the Son of God, knows exactly what the Sabbath is about and He gave its full meaning. Furthermore, Jesus also says in another account of the same story, in Mark 2:27, He just says that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. What this means is that God didn’t create man to keep the Sabbath, as if the Sabbath law was the most important thing. No. Jesus explained that God made the Sabbath law to benefit man. The law of God was made for man’s good. And so man's existence is not defined by the Sabbath. The Sabbath law was given to help man, to enable him to find rest and to have an opportunity to give proper attention to the worship of God.

The second story is about a sick man. This is found in verses 9-14. This is another situation with the Pharisees. On a particular Sabbath, the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by fabricating a very sticky situation. They stationed a sick man in the synagogue, a man with a withered hand. They did this on the Sabbath to see whether Jesus would heal him or not. They wanted to force Jesus into a dilemma where He would have to choose between compassion for a sick man and honoring their Sabbath law. According to their Sabbath law, Jesus wasn’t allowed to heal on the Sabbath. Of course, Jesus didn’t care about people's expectations. He always lived as a man accountable to God, not to man. And so what the Pharisees thought would be a real sticky dilemma, turned out to create no issues for Jesus. They thought they had Him cornered, but they were actually the ones cornered. Jesus turned the tables around and trapped them in a bad situation. He showed just how ruthless and cruel they were to use a sick person to their benefit and to have no compassion for this man’s poor condition. Jesus showed just how hard hearted they were. According to Mark's account, Jesus was actually angry with them. He was righteously indignant with them because of their hard heart. Then, of course, Jesus healed this man. But the point is this, just like in the earlier scene, Jesus here also stood up for this sick man.

This was the Lord. He was a hero for the weak. When the Son of God came to Earth, He showed great compassion for the weak. We see the two examples of His disciples and this sick man, but of course His compassion is far broader than this. But these are wonderful examples in Matthew. In the final section, Matthew tells us that this approach to the weak was the signature mark of the Messiah as prophesied in Scripture. Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that the Messiah would not break off a battered reed, and He would not put out a smoldering wick. While others may think that a smoldering wick is useless and a battered reed equally useless, Jesus would defend them and take care of them. The Messiah would stick up for the weak. And this was Jesus the Messiah in these two scenes. He defended the weak.

There's a lot that we can pray about from this passage. First, thank Jesus for defending the weak, and that I, as His disciple, gladly come under His care. So we can pray this. “Jesus, thank You for these wonderful stories. You came to earth and You defended the weak. Even for Your disciples, who didn't have the understanding to defend themselves, You stuck Your neck out for them. All of this shows me how You look upon me, how when I am too, too ignorant or powerless to watch over myself, You are there to guard me. Thank You, Lord. I depend on You in my times of weakness. I can be confident because I have You by my side.”

Second matter to pray about is that the law of God is given for our good. That idea comes from Mark, but the context is here. The Sabbath law wasn't there to oppress man, but to help him. And it's like that with all the laws of God. And so we can pray about this also. “Jesus. Thank You that Your laws are not cruel, they are not oppressive. They're meant to bless me and help me. I trust in You and You are looking out for my best interest. Help me to see Your great wisdom and care in all Your laws. Help me to faithfully carry out Your word out of humble dependence on Your great care for me.”

Finally, we can pray to the Lord about His compassion. We can ask Him to enable us to become a person full of compassion like Him. You'll notice, by the way, that Jesus's compassion is not one-dimensional. He isn’t compassionate indiscriminately. On the one hand, He is deeply compassionate toward the weak; but on the other hand, with the hard hearted Pharisees, He rebuked them. He really let them have it. He was even angry with them for their ruthlessness and cruelty. Jesus’ compassion is a nuanced compassion. This isn't compassion in every situation to every person. It is a measured compassion, a righteous compassion. And we can thank the Lord for that and we can also ask Him to help us to have the wisdom to be more like Him. We can pray, “Lord. You are full of compassion and You always had the wisdom to know when to show compassion and when to put Your foot down. Make me to be like You. I need wisdom like that, so that I can navigate every sticky situation with the grace that You always displayed. Help me to have the insight to show compassion to those who are truly weak and in need. At the same time, help me to have the shrewdness to confront those who are manipulative and hard hearted. Mature me to be more like You.”

Well, that's the passage for today. And I pray that the Lord's grace and compassion will jump out of the pages, as it were, for you; and that Jesus Himself will minister to you and guide you to become more and more like Him. That's it for today. Lord bless you and we are done.