James thunders and rages

It’s pathetic, isn’t it?  Absolutely pathetic!  

What a small thing to pick up on and make a fuss about!  I mean, all we were doing was picking a few grains as we walked by.   Suddenly the ‘thought police’ pounced on us.  “Got you!” they cried triumphantly, “Working on the Sabbath; boy are you in trouble!”  (You should have seen the supercilious grins on their ever so pedantic faces!)

Why, why, why don’t they see what they are doing?  All our life we have had to guard against their petty intrusions.  They take the rules to a ridiculous degree.  They follow every letter of the law, not its heart, and so religion has become a great chain around our neck.  I could do without it!  (Sorry if that offends you, but we fishermen tend to approach life in a far simpler way than that.  I tend to think that life can be a joy, not just a chore.)

Jesus wasn’t in the mood for giving way to their view either.  But he took them on in their own terms, rather than with the bluster I would have given them.  (That’s why he is the rabbi and I am not!)  

Anyway, he asked them if they had never heard of how King David’s men were hungry, so he took them into the temple and helped himself to some of the holy bread?  Only the priests were supposed to eat this bread, so at first David’s men were cautious.  But when they saw that he had eaten some and not been struck down by lightening, they took the rest as he offered it them.  “That was King David breaking your law”, said Jesus.  “Why? Because his men were hungry!  Are you saying you’re greatest King was wrong?  Are you going to argue with him as well?”

Jesus went on to underline that human need is the most important thing, not religious law and ritual.  Love, he told them, might actually demand that certain sensibilities are sacrificed in order to save life, quash hunger, to bring healing and hope.  “So, get your priorities right!” he demanded.  “The Sabbath was made for the sake of people; not people for the sake of the Sabbath.”

“The day of rest is a gift, meant to refresh and enrich life rather than dampen it.  So, don’t make the Sabbath the most miserable day of the week, but the best!  Don’t make the law a chain around your neck, but a delight that brings light and life!  And you can do this,” Jesus finished, “because the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath.”

Well, I am not sure what they made of that.  I know I loved it!  I found it so liberating.  But am I alone in having an awful feeling that if he pushes this Sabbath thing much further, there’s going to be a terrible backlash?

Oh, and by the way, am I imagining it or did Jesus say something special here?   I have been pondering his phrase all night: ‘The Son of Man…’   What did Jesus mean by that? 

Did he use it, as some do, simply to represent human beings?  That would make sense in the context. 

Or what about how the other rabbis sometimes use it: to mean ‘I’?  Then he would have been saying ‘I am the Lord of the Sabbath.’  That’s quite a claim!  But he was taking charge, wasn’t he?  

Yet, at the back of mind, I am beginning to wonder something else.  Was he actually hinting at something even more profound?  Was he referring to the ‘Son of Man’ Daniel wrote about; The Messiah?   Was he (God forbid!) actually claiming to be that Son of Man, the Messiah himself? 

No, he can’t have been!   I must be reading too much into it.   Must be… Might be…  But he did put himself on a par with King David, didn’t he?  That’s a pretty big claim, too!