Came between us

 

Matthew 12

¹At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. ² And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

³ But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: ⁴ how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? ⁵ Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? ⁶ Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. ⁷ But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

 

There’s something amazing about what happened in the Sabbath described in Matthew 12. I believe this encounter among the disciples, Jesus and the Pharisees were ordained by God so that it would serve as a clear picture of His grace and how it works. Here, the Pharisees represent the law—the law which condemns, the law which makes us feel unworthy when we sin or when we mess up. The Pharisees sought to make the disciples pay for their seeming disobedience of the law. Clearly, they are calling for some type of punishment. But Jesus, the grace of God, came to the rescue and intercepted the onslaught of the condemnation brought by the law. Notice that the disciples were silent all throughout the exchange. This is grace. He justified us through we are unworthy. He always comes to our rescue.

How He loves us.