The sabbath, the Holy day in the week where no work is to be done, a day of rest. There are so many laws concearning the sabbath in jewish culture sometimes I'm surprised how these people survived for so long(just kidding). You could only eat certain things, only travel a certain distance, could not cook, or prepare your food...it all had to be done the day before.

Jesus and his crew are walkin around on the sabbath, and when they get hungry the pull up some wheat and eat it. This is apparently breaking the sabbath because when the pharisees saw this they freaked out. I imagine them just like a 5 year old tattle tail, oooohooooh, Jesus is preparing food on the sabbath and thats against the rules! Im gonna tell! Jesus is like, chill out, its ok. Then he says in matthew 12:7 "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent." Thats an intersting statement. God desires mercy not sacrafice. What does that mean?

Lets take a look at Hosea 6:6, the verse that Jesus quotes
in the NIV it says
6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
In an asv bible it says
6For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice,
And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
In the ESV bible it says
6For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
another translation reads
6For kindness I desired, and not sacrifice, And a knowledge of God above burnt-offerings.
Look past what each of these says into what each one means. They all mean the same thing. God wants us to know him, hes not concearned with sacrafice and burnt offerings. God is not concearned about the sabbath, the law. He would rather be in a relationship with you and break all the laws, then follow all the laws and never know him.

This is a point that the pharisees missed. Frankly, its also is a bit of an embarasment on their behalf. Jesus is saying, If you understand the book that you claim you know so well, you would've seen this. What Jesus does next is awsome. They ask him is it lawful to heal on the sabbath. Ok, picture this. If you have kids, and i dont...but my neice means more to me than anything in this world...this will be easy. Imagine that your 18 son or daughter just got deployed from the airforce. You are a 3 star general, been in battle and won. Your son is flying a mission behind enemy lines and his plane gets shot down. You know hes alive, but suffering. Would you go and get him? Jesus says the same thing here. These are my children, who i love, i will absolutly heal them. So the pharisees dont take that to well and decide to plan his execution.

Jesus knows they're gonna try and kill him so he leaves, shakes the dust off his feet as he goes. On his way out he heals a demon possessed man who couldnt speak or see. The man now speaks and sees and when the crowd starts to ask if he is the messiah, the pharisees lose it and say hes satan and he casts out demons because he commands them all. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Jesus says every kingdom divided cant stand.
"26And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 28But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. 30Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."

waoh.
talk about commitment.
If your with me, your with me. If your not with me, your against me. Get serious, get off the fence. poo or get off the pot. Jesus goes on to say, This is not something you can half-ass. A tree that bears good fruit, is a good tree. No good tree bears bad fruit. Think about it like this, in the human body, there are certain acids that are good, they help digest food. And there are certain acids that are bad, they will eat through your flesh. No bad acid can be used for the same purpose as these good acids, they will kill you.
Then Jesus freaks out at the pharisees, "You brood of vipers" How can you call yourselves good, when you are evil?

lets recap real quick.
God cares more about getting to know us than following the law.
God loves us so much, He breaks the sabbath to help us.
God wants us to be commited, whole heartedly.
Its easy to see how Jesus can refer to us as children. God loves us soo much, all of us, everything is his creation. We love our children so much, we would do anything for them.
We would go behind enemy lines and get our son back.
We would get in trouble and break the law.
We would go to prison.
We would.....die.