16th January 2026

Psalms 52-60 are often referred to as the ‘Fugitive Psalms’, written when David was fleeing from Saul’s unremitting efforts to kill him. No wonder so many of them include desperate pleas for enemies to be destroyed. They are a window into how terrifying those years were for the young man catapulted into leadership – songs oscillating between real fear, then outpourings of thanks. Understandably, in his flight, David first found Samuel in Ramah. Saul, informed of his whereabouts, pursued him and he ended up in Nob, described as ‘the city of the priests’(1 Sam 22:19) where the Tabernacle, the centre of worship, was. There he asked the High Priest Ahimelech for food for the men who were with him.

Jesus visits this event when he and his disciples are challenged by the Pharisees for plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath. He reminds them of the story they would have known: how Ahimelech gave David the showbread from the altar even though it was only for priests to eat. (Mark 2:23-26) Both events could be seen as transgressions of the law but the plucking of grain is bookended by two separate comments from Christ: he who instituted the Sabbath ritual through Moses; who was worshipped in the Tabernacle according to very specific instructions; who was the messenger of the New Covenant; who was picking grain on the Sabbath.  

In Mark 2:22 he spoke to the disciples of John the Baptist: “…no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins…new wine must be put into new wineskins…” And at the end of the same chapter, after the grain plucking incident, he explains to the Pharisees, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28).

How do these three accounts from Jesus all hang together? When Christ burst upon the world – or at least in that relatively small corner of the Middle East – everything changed. First and foremost the covenant every Jew in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee had been brought up obeying, was already growing old and was ready to ‘vanish away’ (Hebrews 8:13 NKJV). Jesus declared he had not come to abolish the law built on that covenant, but to bring the whole function and purpose of the law to fulfillment (Matthew 5:17).    

It was a new approach to everything including the Sabbath. It could not be contained or constrained by the old Levitical structure. It was too vibrant, too exciting, too bubbly. It needed a new structure, a new covenant. Jesus declares he is the bread of life: the New Covenant bread (John 6:35). Back with David, we can see whispers of the New Covenant  as Jesus is substituting himself for the bread offered on the altar. The disciples could not be condemned for a new approach that began with the reason for all of creation – that the creation that God declared as good was made as a home for the final part of that creation:  ‘For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.’ (Romans 8:19 NIV).         

Local congregation:
GCI Market Harborough
9 The Point
Rockingham Road
Market Harborough 
LE16 7QU

Meeting time:
Sunday 4.00 pm

Local congregational contact:
Sinead Henderson 
Email: sinead.henderson@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church