This is not a long post, but I've just seen something I've never seen before.
Matthew 12:1-14 illustrates and adds colour to Matthew 11:28-30.
Matthew 11:28-30 are some of the most beautiful words in the New Testament:
‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
Jesus calls us to follow him. Jesus calls us to take his yoke. We don't serve our comfort. We serve his purposes. Where he sends we will go. What he says we will do. But that yoke is not a heavy one. We disscover that to follow him is to take lightness itself on our shoulders. Jesus does not way down those who give up all to follow him; he lifts them up. Service of Jesus is perfect freedom.
So it is that he gives those who come to him "rest".
This is followed by Matthew 12:1-14. Partly because we pay far too much attention to chapter divisions and editorial headings in our Bibles. Partly because we atomise the gospels and treat each little story separately without attention to context and flow through the gospel accounts. For both those reasons, I've never held those two stories together.
Matthew 12:1-14 concerns two actions, first from his disciples (they eat corn) then from Jesus (he heals a man with a shrivelled hand). Both take place on the Sabbath, the old covenant day of rest. Both attract criticism from the Pharisees (verse 2), "they" (verse 10). Jesus replies to stress the true purpose of the Sabbath - to facilitate the worship of God's people, to feed the king and his people, to give and restore life. What Jesus is doing is fulfilling everything the Sabbath stood for, as great David's greater son and as Lord of the Sabbath.
So having had teaching that Jesus came to give rest for our souls, we have two stories in which Jesus brings true Sabbath rest to those who follow him.
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