Heb 6:10-20; Ps 111:1,2,4,5,9,10; Mk 2:23-28

In the great assembly King David gave thanks to the LORD with his whole heart.  Indeed everyone in every generation after David, who has at heart the LORD’s own desire, continues to delight in all the great works of the LORD.  Indeed the LORD’s saving actions are beyond all praise; they are exquisite.  The LORD has won and continues to win renown for his wondrous deeds.  He is ever gracious and constantly merciful.  The LORD continues to give food to those who fear him, and he is mindful of his covenant forever.  The LORD has send deliverance to his people through the faithful Son of David; through this son and servant the LORD has ratified his covenant forever.  Holy and awesome is the Name of the LORD.  His praise endures forever in the hearts of those who seek him, who seek his face.  This True Son of David is also the faithful high priest after the order of Melchizedek.  The Lord of the Sabbath is the descendant of King David and the inheritor of the new priesthood in which all the disciples share.

God makes a promise to Abraham, and through our ancestor in faith, God makes promises to us.  In his faithful love the Lord God never ignores our loving service to the saints—the holy ones who with us make up the very body of Christ in this world.  Saint Paul and all who have served the church from the beginning have given us an example of the eagerness necessary to keep hope alive until the end of the world as we know it.  We must not become sluggish, slothful, or hopeless in the midst of our struggles to uproot vice and plant virtue in our souls.  The Lord God swears by himself because there is no one greater.  Since it is impossible for God to lie then we have every reason to hope and to hole fast to the hope that lies before us.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus has taken the anchor of hope into the heavenly interior that lies beyond our vision and behind the veil of the future glory.  Like the acceptable sacrifice offered by the priest Melchizedek we, too, are offered by our Great High Priest, Christ Our God.  Indeed, our self-sacrifice of loving service has become acceptable in the sight of the Father because it is bathed in the Blood of the Lamb and animated by the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus did not hesitate to stand up to those who condemned his disciples for “doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”  The Lord made reference to King David and his being at home in the Lord’s House to the point of using the bread of offering to feed his hungry soldiers.  After this historical reference, the Lord Jesus, the true Son of David, made a claim that would follow him to his crucifixion.  A claim that none of his enemies could forget.  The Lord Jesus repudiated the attack against his disciples for seemingly breaking the Sabbath Law.  He did not hesitate to stand up for those who were hungry on the journey.  He does not hesitate even now to stand up for us who are on the same discipleship journey, in our own spiritual and physical hunger.  He feeds us with wisdom and bread.   Without any effort to be politically correct, the Lord Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”