Setting the Table (Luke 6, 1 Sam. 21-22, Lev. 24:1-9)

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In my study time this morning, I’ve been examining the introduction to Luke chapter six, which immediately follows the beginning of the Pharisees’ intent scrutiny of Jesus. 

Chapter five ends with Jesus’ words directed to the Pharisees about putting old wine in new wineskins. Either God’s regeneration of us is complete, absolute, with nothing left unchanged, or it will not survive. Becoming a Christian is not simple addition to my old way of life, involving adding in some church and hanging out with Christians and Bible reading and singing hymns. It is not an adding on of anything—rather, it is the replacement of Christ for me that covers my sins and makes me acceptable to God; it is Christ in me that fills my life with new desires to serve him (not a polished up version of me), and it is Christ with me that helps me walk a new path daily in discipline and love and gratitude that overflows (not one path during the week and another on Sundays). 

Chapter six finds the Pharisees still following Jesus about questioning why he does what he does and why he allows his disciples to do what they do, here involving food (once again). This time, however, it is the Sabbath, and the Pharisees point out the "unlawfulness" of Jesus’ disciples going through a field picking and rubbing the heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath as they walked along hungry. They accused them of breaking the Sabbath rest.

Leviticus 24:1-9 gives the background for the Pharisees’ accusations and shows the setting of the table that sat outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting: first, light from a pure source in a golden lamp was always to be kept burning, and the golden table was always to be kept spread with the twelve loaves of bread representing the twelve tribes (made using the same amount of flour as the amount of manna the children of Israel had gathered in the wilderness before each Sabbath). Each sabbath, the priests would replace the bread and then eat the old consecrated bread in a holy place. In addition to the light and bread, there was also pure frankincense, which would be burned as a memorial portion in place of the bread. 

Jesus answers the Pharisees pointedly and says out that they should know even David, out of necessity, broke the law when he was hungry and on the run from Saul and ate the priests’ consecrated bread and gave it to his companions. Jesus, having just pointed out to the Pharisees in chapter five that he was the Son of Man (with authority given by God to heal and forgive sins), this week likens himself to David, the anointed-but-not-yet-crowned king who took the bread from Ahimelech, the priest.

The Pharisees, concerned with the outward traditions of men and whether men kept them, particularly this Jesus who had just claimed to be the Son of God, relentlessly pursue him, just as Saul relentlessly pursued the one God had proclaimed would be king in his place. 

As a result of David’s violation of the law out of necessity and Doeg’s accusation of him before Saul, 85 priests and an entire city full of women and children (minus one son who escaped) were put to death by the sword in one day at the hands of the one who witnessed him take the bread from the priests (I Sam. 21-22). This same spirit of the accuser is in the Pharisees. Just as Ahimelech and his priestly family die for David’s transgression of the law, so too will Christ, the true high priest and king of kings, eventually die for the transgressions of all mankind, and his disciples will suffer and die at the hands of his persecutors.

In this short section of scripture (Luke 6:1-5), Jesus shows that he is not only the Son of Man, but also the Lord of the Sabbath—it is he who created the same law and then came to fulfill it because we could not. Jesus is the willing sacrifice taking on the sins of the world. He is the light always shining into a dark world (Jn. 8:12). He is bread of life (Jn. 6:35), the God-man who will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 17:4) because of his willing sacrifice. 

But the blinded, evil, hardened hearts of the Pharisees still couldn’t see Jesus’ pointed claims to be the Messiah they all claimed to be looking for. Just as our blinded, evil, hardened hearts cannot see Jesus is who he says he is unless he opens our eyes and softens our hardened hearts to the truth. May he do so today!

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