On the second sabbath after the first, Jesus and His friends were found walking through fields of grain, perhaps on their way to the synagogue worship.  The disciples, being hungry, plucked the ears of grain, rubbing off the husks and eating the kernel.  This was in accord with the law of God, which allowed a traveler to take enough for his present necessity if he was going through a field, but he was not allowed to put any in a basket to store it up.

There were Pharisees accompanying Him, but only to criticize and find fault.  They demanded of the disciples why they were doing that which was not lawful on the sabbath days.  There was no provision in the law of God against it, but it contradicted their traditions, in which they had made up countless rules about what could and could not be done on the sabbath.

The disciples needed not answer for themselves, for their Lord was there to defend them.  His answer involves an important principle: the superiority of holy scripture to tradition.  More than once in His dealings with the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus operates plainly upon the principle that scripture is not to be interpreted by tradition, but rather that all traditions are to be weighed on the balances of scripture.  Were this principle faithfully adhered to, Roman Catholicism and many other heretical denominations would go out of business immediately.

Christ reminded them of the incident in the life of David, when he was fleeing from Saul and came to the tabernacle, where he begged leave of the priest for he and his men to eat the showbread.  Under ordinary circumstances, none but the priests were allowed to eat of this bread, which was sanctified for holy uses.  But because David and his band were in the extremes of hunger, the priest allowed it.

A more important principle is this: “The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”  This is a claim that must have rang as blasphemy in the ears of our Lord’s antagonists.  There was nothing they treasured more highly than the sabbath, no tradition to which they devoted more attention and devotion.  None could claim to be lord over the sabbath, which God had instituted from the very beginning of creation, save the Creator Himself.  It never occurred to them that the One they were dealing with is the One by Whom all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.