Luke 14:1-6

A literal cow in a literal well
possibly not the Sabbath

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.

Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they could make no reply to this.


After a morning of synagogue worship, one of the prominent Pharisees invites Jesus to dinner. This is interesting, because if the Pharisees thought Jesus was from Satan, this would make Jesus ultimately unclean - thereby defiling the Pharisee's house. Even more suspicious is the placement of a man with dropsy right in front of Jesus. Dropsy is what we call today edema - swelling of bodily tissues. It can indicate failure of the liver, kidney, or heart as the body is unable to detoxify and more fluid correctly from the body. In this time period, illness was seen as judgment for sin, and dropsy was believed to be the result of sexual sin. I doubt this man was invited over because he was a close family friend. No, the Pharisees invite the "unclean" Jesus and the "unclean" man in order to set Jesus up.

They keep fighting with Jesus over the Sabbath. Jesus goes around straightening backs, healing the blind, restoring withered hands, allowing his disciples to pick heads of grain on the Sabbath... the list goes on and on, and everything Jesus did is not even recorded. This is proof enough for the Pharisees. "He broke the Sabbath again! See, he is NOT from God!"

Jesus asks the Pharisees and law experts if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Actually this is a trick question. Nowhere in the Old Testament was healing on the Sabbath prohibited. But in order to avoid breaking one of the Old Testament laws, over time the Pharisees had added additional laws to each law to ensure they did not sin. One of their added rules was that you could only be cured on the Sabbath if you would definitely die otherwise. If this was not the case, you should wait until the next day for treatment.

When no one answers Jesus, he grabs the man and heals him. Instantly the swelling disappears, skin tightens, organs begin functioning, and his joints freely move as he rushes home to show his family. You would think people would respond with, "WOW!!" Instead they glare and seethe at Jesus' behavior and lack of cultural sensitivity.

Calling attention to their hypocrisy, Jesus asks them, "If your animal or child fell into a well on the Sabbath, would you not pull it out? I doubt you would say, 'Sorry Joshua Jr., you'll have to try to tread water until tomorrow. Try to stay warm.'" They cannot reply. Of course they would deal with that situation. They used their man-made lists and regulations to pick and choose what was work and what was not. They walked closely along the lines drawn by their leaders rather than following Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

In the presence of the light of the world, most of the religious people chose to walk in darkness. It was a darkness of their own choosing, bound tightly by their religion and cultural upbringing. The chains of their religion kept them from reaching the kingdom of God. Many today bind themselves with the same chains. They keep certain rules or try to be "good people" believing that if one's good deeds outweigh the bad, heaven is waiting. One common thought is that it does not matter what you believe, as long as you believe it passionately. But Jesus taught, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." There are many paths, but most lead to destruction. No matter how well you run a race, if you are on the wrong trail you will not win the prize.

Even those of us who are truly Christians must guard ourselves from religiosity. There are some tenets that we must all believe: "There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Eph. 4:4-6). But often much of what we consider Christianity is likely just part of our culture and upbringing. Guard yourself against placing tradition on the same level as God's Word.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" The man answered, "'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'""You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."  Luke 10:25-28

Luke 13:10-17

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately her back straightened, and she began glorifying God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him.


We can imagine that if Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, the large crowd that followed him was there. Scholars debate whether or not women were separated from men and sitting in a separate gallery in synagogues at this time. It is probable that most synagogues were more like the house churches of the early Christians. Whether this was a separate building or part of a large house, the crowd following Jesus likely pushed the capacity to its limits, spilling over to listeners outside. The synagogue official either had enough respect for Jesus' teaching to let him teach or was influenced by the desires of the crowd. This is the last recorded time Jesus will speak in a synagogue and occurs only months before his death.

In the midst of the congregation, Jesus calls over a woman crippled and bent over for eighteen years. Perhaps it was age related, perhaps it had another cause, but Luke mentions a "spirit of infirmity". In whatever way, evil forces have been at play in her life. For eighteen years she has slowly walked to the synagogue to stand unnoticed in the shadows. For eighteen years the eyes of the community have watched her, certain that some sin in her life caused the malady. But at the moment Jesus calls her forward, she slowly shuffles into the center of a battle between good and evil, true worship and religious trappings.

With the words and a touch from Jesus, she immediately straightens. Vertebrae snap back in place along a perfectly curved spine. Damaged nerve endings begin firing orders - no need for months of therapy. No more pain. No more suffering. No more shuffling through the shadows of life. She throws her hands in the air and praises God for all to hear. What other response could there be?

Well, one at least. The leader of the synagogue, the most highly respected layman in the community, looks at the crowd and reprimands them, "There are six other days in the week for this circus. Come and be healed on those days! This is completely out of hand. Today is not a day for work, but for rest. It is the Lord's day! We have a system, and this man is not following the rules." He may have been annoyed by the huge crowd ruining his normally solemn day of worship. Perhaps he was already among those who believed Jesus was working for Satan. It is possible that he was so tied to the regulations surrounding keeping the Sabbath that he could not handle any deviation. We will never know what sets him off.

Jesus is intentional. He is on the offensive at this point in his ministry. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and any other branch of Judaism in the community would have been at this synagogue, watching Jesus closely. He chose to heal for a purpose, and he chose this woman for a reason as well. There is no indication she sought healing from Jesus. He heals her to unmask their hypocrisy. Of course everyone listening gave water to their animals on the Sabbath. They all ate food themselves. There was certain work that was forbidden and certain work that were not. Jesus exposes their reliance on the letter of their Sabbath laws rather than enjoying the Sabbath as a time of worship, rest, and focus on God. In a society that placed women in a lower status, just above animals, Jesus calls the woman a "daughter of Abraham", as much an heir of God's promises as the esteemed synagogue officials and religious leaders. His opponents were humiliated, all the more reason for them to plot against him. But the crowd rejoiced at another miracle.

We so easily fall into the trappings of false religion. Certain things will satisfy God. Certain things will make him love us more. Certain sins are greater than others. We mingle grace with works. We choose which regulations from Scripture to follow and which to ignore. Then we argue with other branches of Christianity who deviate from our interpretation.

Of course some scriptures are cultural. I rarely pray with my head covered (1 Cor. 3:5) and do wear clothing made of two materials (Lev. 19:19). But Jesus exposes our hearts with his words. We focus on the wrong things. We cling to lists of right and wrong, because this seems easier than relying on grace and the Spirit as well as allowing us to feel superior to others. Caring for mankind and seeing each person as created in the image of God is far more important than following any list of prohibitions. It may and should take us out of our comfort zone as we venture further into the kingdom of God.

 

 

This woman then is a picture of the sovereign work of the Lord in salvation, a picture of the enslaved, oppressed sinner under the burden and bondage of Satan, hiding in the shadows aware every moment of suffering the wait and the burden of sin - hopeless, robbed of dignity, bent over like an animal. The image of God defaced. So is the picture of the sinner shuffling one day into the presence of God to hear the word of God. She is met by the Lord and He out of His sovereign love delivers her, straightens her up and makes her a true worshiper. This is the picture of the work of God in salvation. God offers salvation to the outcast, the humbled, those bent over by the weight of sin, who will come and hear Him and He will turn them into true worshipers and He bypasses the curious and the self-righteous. 

- John MacArthur

Luke 6:1-11

On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. 


Our common response to these stories is to shake our head at those silly Pharisees and their silly rules. But I have to respect their willingness to sacrifice and their fervor to follow the laws of God. Yes, by this point in history law upon law had been added to keep people from breaking a commandment, and many attributed the same weight to the man-made laws as to God's Law. But I am sure many of the Pharisees and other Jews did this in an attempt to truly please God, not simply to retain power or to catch this new prophet in a sin.

Ever on the move from the large crowds, the disciples were walking through a field one Sabbath. Possibly unconsciously they pick off a few heads of grain to munch. (Let's be honest; we all know what that's like!) The Pharisees left no room for such an action. Clearly Jesus' disciples were in violation of the law for harvesting and threshing grain! They were completely serious - one didn't even spit on the ground on the Sabbath in case it would make a furrow for something to grow! Jesus takes responsibility for the actions of the disciples by citing the time when King David fed his hungry troops with consecrated bread meant only for consecrated priests from the tribe of Levi. As King David put the physical needs of his soldiers above ritual law, so Jesus put the needs of his disciple over the man-made laws protecting the Sabbath. Jesus' last statement would have filled them with anger as he claimed to be Messianic and the Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus did follow many of the religious customs, continuing to worship in the local synagogue each Sabbath. As usual, he was chosen to speak. Seeing a man with a withered hand close to Jesus, his opposition watched closely to see if he would follow Sabbath rules of rest or continue his mission to "release the oppressed". Jesus not only healed the man he first provided one of his potent quotables, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” Of course they have no good way to answer this, which likely adds to their fury.

So what can we take from this? How should we honor the Sabbath without becoming legalistic? Commandment number four still applies to believers today. When my parents were growing up there were "blue laws" that kept businesses closed on Sundays. Most people attended church and spent time with families on Sundays. The only work done was related to getting Sunday dinner on the table. Today Sundays are as busy as any other day, and sometimes even church activities can shove rest and worship out of our spiritual lives. Football and other sports on Sundays can crowd out our focus on God as well.

Jesus' example was to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship in the synagogues without the minute restrictions placed on the observance of the law by the Pharisees. The focus of the Sabbath should be first on honoring and worshiping God as we follow his example of rest on the seventh day. The second should be on loving our neighbor as ourselves. Taking one day out of the week to focus on these two concepts and allow ourselves time to physically and mentally rest would affect our entire week in a positive manner. It is up to each of us to pray for discernment about how our Sabbath should be spent. This should be done on a regular basis to avoid keeping the letter of the law and completely missing the true spirit of it as the Pharisees in this story.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 

- Matthew 22:36-40