Jesus is above the law. Discover the true meaning of the law, which is supposed to lead us to God.

What did we think about yesterday? About fasting! 
Following the question of fasting from yesterday’s Gospel, which was controversial between the Pharisees and Christ’s apostles, today’s question directs us to the question of plucking ears of corn on Saturday. Some Pharisees said: “Why do you do what is not allowed to be done on the Sabbath” (Lk 6:2)? Jesus and the apostles are passing through a cornfield, and the disciples are plucking and crushing the ears of corn. The Pharisees point out that this activity is forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus refers to an event from the Old Testament (1 Sam 21, 1-7) where David and his company violated the prohibition known from the book of Leviticus and ate from the bread presented to God as a sacrifice, which could only be consumed by the priests. Jesus himself is more like David and stands as Lord over the Sabbath commandment and the Torah. Every law and commandment builds on some solid value and protects it.

However, the meaning of the commandment does not lie in the literal implementation of the letter but in the spirit of the law. Therefore, the commandment is not binding if its fulfillment goes against the meaning of the Law or would prevent achieving a higher goal or values. Rules are necessary in every society but are only meant to help maintain order. A fence cannot be more important than the land it protects. Man is the master of the law because man is not for the law, but the law is for man. That’s why we live according to a particular order or statutes, to serve us or the community and not satisfy the legislator or the law. Thus, we subordinate the lower to the higher in terms of meaning. Whoever looks deeper into the meaning of Jesus’ words will sooner or later realize that God’s law was not given to us to limit us. It is given to us to free people, develop them fully, and help them live a whole life. After all, Christ himself says in Mark’s Gospel (cf. Mk 2:27) that the holiday is for man and not man for the holiday.

A simple example from life will also help us to understand better. When someone falls ill with kidney failure, the insufficient activity of which causes infection and death of the patient, he is immediately ready to sacrifice this organ to save his life. Likewise, every reasonable person submits the lower to the higher, even in everyday little things. But our prioritization of higher values ​​in the spiritual realm is no longer so one hundred percent.

Christ commands us to be as prudent and clever as the sons of the world. If God allowed us the kidney disease, I mentioned, how quickly we could decide to save our lives, and even at the cost of the risk, we would sacrifice a body organ! Let us be like the sons of the world, not only in saving our earthly life but, above all, in saving eternal life. Let’s discover the true meaning of the law, which brings us to God and brings an ordered life here on earth.