Ah, yes, the Pharisees!  The guys we love to hate in the Scriptures.  They’re so easy to make fun of and to judge, being the little legalistic pietists that they are.  They always have this “holier than thou” attitude, they’re always trying to show off their righteousness, and they’re always trying to prove that Jesus is a law-breaker in what He says and does.  It’s easy to point our fingers at the Pharisees and label them the “bad guys” in the Gospel accounts.  And yet, there’s a little Pharisee in each one of us.
   To give you an example, how many of you always drive the speed limit?  Most of us speed all the time, even if it’s no more than a few miles over the limit.  Some of us justify it as keeping up with traffic.  But what happens when you’re going 70 mph on the freeway and somebody passes you going 80?  ”Well, that’s not fair!  Who does he think he is?  He’s speeding!  Somebody ought to give him a ticket!”  But now what if an emergency vehicle passes you going 80?  He’s breaking the speed limit, too, but you don’t think he deserves a ticket, do you?  Normally, the speed limit is to be kept.  But an emergency situation trumps the law for the sake of the people in need.
   And this is what Jesus teaches the Pharisees with regard to God’s Law - the 10 commandments, and that is that the Law serves love and not the other way around.  Again, going back to the speed limit example, why are speed limits imposed in the first place? Why is the speed limit in a school zone only 25 when out on the open highway it’s 65?  It’s to protect lives.  It’s out of love for people’s lives (both your life as well as the lives of those you could hurt or kill by driving too fast) that speed limits are set.  But if we obey the speed limit at all, most of us only do it because we don’t want to get a ticket, not because we love the other drivers or pedestrians around us.  If we truly did love them, we’d drive the speed limit all the time, and not just when a police officer happens to be around.  You notice, don’t you, how we all slow down when a cop is in sight.  That’s not because we care how fast we’re going, but because we don’t want to get caught and get a ticket.  We’re little Pharisees, who are angry when people get away with things we’d otherwise do, if not for the fact that we’re afraid of getting caught.  So, since we have to obey the Law, so does everybody else, or at least they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with anything we can’t.
   And that’s the way it is when it comes to God’s Law, too.  We either try to obey it, because we’re afraid of getting in trouble if we don’t, or we try to obey it, because we want some kind of reward, whether it’s recognition by others, by God, or both.  But neither reasons for obeying the Law take into account why God’s Law was given in the first place.  It wasn’t given to help us prove how righteous we could be while God’s looking.  It wasn’t given so that we could try to use it to work our way into God’s favor.  And it wasn’t given to keep people under control.  It was given to protect God’s gifts to us.  It was given to ensure that nothing would halt or hinder us or our neighbors from receiving the gifts that God gives us out of His love for us.  The Law is not an end in and of itself; God doesn’t give commandments just because He likes to give commandments and wants to keep us under His control.  Nor is the Law to be kept simply for the Law’s sake, but for the sake of love.  It’s because God loves us and wants nothing to keep His love and His gifts from us, that He gives us His Law.  The Law is meant to protect God’s gifts to us.
   Take, for example, the first commandment:  You shall have no other gods.  This commandment is meant to protect the gift of God Himself.  God gave this commandment to His people because He had made Himself their God and they His people.  He was the One who redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt.  He was the One who brought them through the wilderness and took care of them.  He was the One who drove out their enemies and planted them in the promised land, because He loved them.  And so He would tolerate no other gods.  His people were to fear, love, and trust in Him alone who loved them and gave Himself completely to them.
   Then, He gave them a commandment that protected the gift of His Name:  You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.  God gave His Name to His people.  They were not to misuse it or blaspheme it, but use it to call upon Him in every trouble and with His Name pray, praise, and give thanks to Him.  
   And then the third commandment was given in order to protect God’s gift of rest:  Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.  Here the rest God wanted to give His people was rest both from their physical work and the rest which He worked for them through His Word and Sacraments.  It was the rest He wanted to deliver to them through His service to them in worship.  And so they were to set apart this one day a week for the hearing of God’s Word preached to them.  They were not to despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.  And the rest of the commandments were all given to protect God’s gifts of authorities, life, sex and marriage, possessions, reputations, and contentment.
   But here in the Gospel text for today we see what the Pharisees had done with God’s Law, in particular the 3rd commandment.  Instead of seeing the command concerning the Sabbath day as a means of protecting God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament, they were using this commandment as a means of showing off their righteousness.  Instead of using the commandment as a means of serving people by freeing them from sin and death through God’s service to them through the Word, they were using the commandment as a means of enslaving people under the Law.  The Law, then, became an end in and of itself.  It was to be obeyed simply because it was to be obeyed.  The Law had trumped love.  It was no longer used to serve to protect God’s gifts, but was being used to control people, and people got the impression that the more they kept the Law, the more righteous they would be, the more God would accept them.  Instead of going the speed limit out of love for others around them, they were going the speed limit because they had to or because they were trying to get something from God.
   The result of this kind of obedience is legalism, which has no place for love and leaves no room for exceptions for the sake of love.  The Law must be obeyed regardless of the needs of the neighbor.  And so when the Pharisees saw Jesus’ disciples picking heads of grain on the Sabbath day, there was no consideration for their need for food.  The disciples were working on the Sabbath, according to the Pharisees, and the Law strictly forbade work on the Sabbath.  And that’s true:  God had forbidden work on the Sabbath.  But again, that was because He loved His people and wanted them to take time out to hear His Word proclaimed to them.  If the choice had to be made between going without food and going to hear God’s Word, for the sake of love God would have suspended His law about working on the Sabbath and allowed His people to gather food on that day.  But then that’s why He provided twice as much manna on Friday, so that the people would gather what they would need for the Sabbath, because God was not going to send them manna on that day.  
   Now here stands Jesus, the giver of the Law Himself in the flesh, and what does He do?  He allows the Sabbath to be broken for the sake of the disciples’ need for food.  They don’t have food with them; they’re hungry.  And so Jesus suspends the Law for the sake of love.  Jesus’ love for His disciples trumps His Law.  The Pharisees cry “foul,” but He points them to an O.T. example of another case in which love trumped the Law, and that was the case in which David and his men were fleeing from King Saul, who wanted to kill David.  As he was running away to escape Saul, David came to the place were the tabernacle was set up at that time, a town called Nob.  And David and his men were hungry, but the only thing on hand at that time were twelve loaves of bread used in worship at the tabernacle.  God had commanded these loaves to be baked daily and set out on a golden table within the holy place of the tabernacle.  This bread was called the Bread of the Presence, and only the priests could eat of it.  That was God’s Law.  But when Abiathar the priest saw that David and his men were in need of food, he gave them this holy bread, even though it was against the Law for them to eat it.  But love trumped the Law, and David and his men didn’t perish for lack of food.
   Now the disciples here with Jesus are in the same situation.  They had no food on hand, and yet they didn’t have to fear of starving; they had the Bread of the Presence there in the flesh with them.  Jesus, the true Bread from heaven, was with them.  With a word He could have caused a whole banquet to appear, but instead He suspended His Sabbath Law and allowed His disciples to pick grain as they walked, in order to teach Pharisees a lesson.  And He ended His little lesson to the Pharisees with the words, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
   The Sabbath was made for man.  In fact, the whole Law was made for man.  That is, the Law was given to serve us, to protect God’s gifts to us.  God loves us and wants nothing to hinder His gifts of love from getting to us.  And yet, even the Law itself can hinder God’s gifts from getting to us when it becomes our task-master, and we are made to serve it.  And that’s what has happened on account of our sin.  Instead of being the protector of God’s gifts that God intended it to be, the Law turned into an accuser and slave-driver.  It promised life, but only if its commands were perfectly kept.  Otherwise, it threatened punishment and death.  And instead of being the savior everyone hoped it would be if they could just obey it, it condemns us all for breaking it.  The Law itself acts like these Pharisees, pointing out our every infraction of its demands.
   But Jesus will not have anything hinder His love from getting to you, not even His own Law.  Jesus is the gift of all gifts, the gift to which even the Law itself points and to whom it must bow.  Because Jesus wants nothing to keep Him from you, He does for you what He did for His disciples and trumps His own Law with His love.  Seeing you in your need, seeing that you could not keep His Law and that you were under the sentence of judgment for breaking His Law, He kept that Law for you in your place and took upon Himself on the cross the judgment the Law required.  He, the Lord of the Sabbath, put Himself under the Sabbath, making Himself a slave of the Law, so that you might be set free.  And now, by way of your Baptism you are no longer under Law but under God’s grace.  
   Jesus by His own righteousness and sacrifice on the cross has ensured all of God’s gifts to you, which the Law, powerless as it is because of our sinfulness, cannot do for us.  And now like the disciples, you too are on the recipient end of those gifts.  Here you eat with Him and upon Him who is the Bread from heaven as you’re gathered in His Name around His Word and at His Table.  It turns out that the disciples were doing just what God had intended His people to do on the Sabbath:  they were eating with Jesus and listening to His words, receiving His gifts freely given to them.  And that is where you are now, enjoying an eternal Sabbath rest in Jesus, whose love for you trumps all.  Amen.