46. Plucking Grain on the Sabbath and Its Justification. Mt. 12:1–8; Mk. 2:23–28; Lk. 6:1–5

On the Sabbath, the first after the second day of Passover, it came to pass that the Lord Jesus went through grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began as they went to pluck heads of grain and eat them, rubbing them with their hands. The Pharisees, seeing this, said to Him: Behold, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. See, why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful to do? But some of the Pharisees also said to the disciples themselves: Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?

The Lord Jesus said to them in answer: Have you never read what David did when he was hungry and wanted bread, he and those with him? How he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and took the loaves of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but only for the priests, and ate them and gave them also to those with him? Or have you not read also in the Law that on the Sabbaths the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, yet are guiltless? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless (Hos. 6:6). And He said to them: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath. And He departed from there.