Tag Archives: Sabbath

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – STUMPED!

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

STUMPED!

“One time, when Jesus went for a Sabbath meal with one of the top leaders of the Pharisees, all the guests had their eyes on Him, watching His every move. Right before Him there was a man hugely swollen in his joints. So Jesus asked the religion scholars, ‘Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath? Yes or no?’

They were silent. So He took the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then He said, ‘Is there anyone here who, if a child or animal fell down a well, wouldn’t rush to pull him out immediately, not asking whether or not it was the Sabbath.’ They were stumped. There was nothing they could say to that.” Luke 14:1-6.

How often did this scene not repeat itself and how often did Jesus not have to say the same thing and yet the same criticism was levelled against Him time after time. ‘Sabbath-breaker!’ What was wrong with the people that it was so difficult for them to understand the simple message of Jesus? He spoke it and lived it for three years and they still didn’t get it.

So what is this message that we have failed to grasp for the past two thousand years and are still not getting in spite of Jesus’ glaring example? It’s about mercy and compassion, not religion! Every time I encounter the ritualistic mumbo-jumbo that is done in the name of Jesus, I ask myself the question, “Is this why Jesus came?”

We have even managed to turn the work of the gentle Holy Spirit into a ritual. We lay hands on people and they have to babble or fall down, otherwise the Holy Spirit has not touched them! Is that really what we glean from God’s Word? How it must grieve the heart of Jesus that His church has wandered so far from His example and mandate.

The Pharisees were so stuck in their notion of God that not even the Son of God Himself could shift them from the beliefs and traditions that overruled their own Scriptures. They were so blinded by their arrogant pride and self-centred performance that they were unmoved in the presence of God Himself.

Strange that the ones who claimed to know God, never experienced Him right there and yet, people like Matthew and Zaccheus, greedy and wicked men, were transformed after one encounter with Him. And what of adulteresses, prostitutes, thieves, irreligious and thoroughly bad people?  They melted in the presence of His holiness and were drawn to Him like moths to a candle.

When we meet in His name, what is the purpose of our gathering together? Is it to perpetuate our beliefs, traditions and practices or is it to have an encounter with Him that heals our ‘swollen joints’ and releases us from our pain and imprisonment? Jesus did not come to start another useless religion. There are enough of those already. He came to show us the compassionate heart of the Father and to release us from the bondage of Satan’s deception into the freedom of the sons of God.

Jesus is about taking us to the Father and introducing us to Him as “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). He is about reconnecting us to the Father and to one another so that we can experience our true humanity in unity with our Creator and His creation.

How does our futile religious gobbledegook contribute to His purpose? What does eating this and not eating that, or doing this and not doing that, do to help us do life together with one another and with God? Does keeping laws do anything to rescue a child or an animal that has fallen down the well on the Sabbath?

You decide…

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – FURIOUS

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FURIOUS

“The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.'” Luke 13:14,

Strange, isn’t it, how reason, logic and even basic human kindness, leave the brain when a good deed is done that violates a religious scruple! According to this synagogue ruler, Jesus had done work on the Sabbath. First it was the Pharisees and now the synagogue ruler who was infected with the same ‘brain-damaged’ thinking.

On a previous occasion, when Jesus was attacked for healing on the Sabbath, (when in fact He had only spoken a word, and the man with a withered hand had been healed), He challenged their twisted logic by asking, “Which is right, to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath?” To Jesus, doing evil meant doing nothing, when someone was in need, because it was the Sabbath.  He hated it when rules cancelled out mercy.

But there was something far deeper than a religious rule that aroused this man’s anger. There was a fundamental flaw in his character which reflects the whole human race. It rears its ugly head more vehemently in those who are driven by religion rather than a restored relationship with God as Father.

Because God’s essential nature is love, He is lavishly generous to everyone, even to those who refuse to acknowledge Him. “…The Most High…is kind to the ungrateful and wicked…” Luke 6:35 (NIV). This kind of treatment to undeserving people sticks in the throat of those who hate God because it is so contrary to their own nature.

Jesus told a story about a farmer who went to the market place early in the morning to hire labourers. He negotiated their wages with them to which they agreed. During the day he hired more men and finally engaged the last few stragglers an hour before knock-off time. Those who had worked from early morning were furious with him when he paid the latecomers the same wage as they had agreed to received for a day’s labour.

The farmer’s response was, “Are you envious because I am generous?” The farmer’s generosity towards the men who had only worked for one hour brought out the true nature of the other labourers – envy. What is envy? Envy is not interchangeable with jealousy. It is the attitude that wants to destroy the one who, by acting contrary to their nature, shows them up for who they really are. It murders the one who does not bow to their command. It is the worst form of control. “Do what I tell you or die.”

Surprisingly, it was Pilate who accurately diagnosed the true motive of the religious leaders who delivered Jesus to him to be condemned and crucified. “‘Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?’ asked Pilate, knowing that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to them.” Mark 15:10 (NIV).

Envy is a powerfully destructive force that drives religious people to what is contrary to the image of God. It cancels out sane thinking, defies logic and motivates to murder rather than to submit to the truth.

Jesus chose to remain true to His own nature rather than bow to the scruples of religious people because He had come to put His Father’s glory on display. Being true to oneself is a risky business because it incurs a cost when it crosses the demands of religion.

We have to decide what will direct our lives – rigid adherence to rules because that’s what controls our lives, or the flexibility that comes with a heart of mercy. Living God’s way is not about trying to gain His approval but about living out of who we are, sons of God who have the nature of God and are free to live according to His love, mercy and compassion.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

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WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

“On another Sabbath He went to the meeting place and taught. There was a man there with a crippled right hand. The religion scholars and Pharisees had their eye on Jesus to see if He would heal the man, hoping to catch Him in a Sabbath infraction. He knew what they were up to and spoke to the man with the crippled hand, ‘Get up and stand here before us.’

“Then Jesus addressed them, ‘Let me ask you something: What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?’ He looked around, looked each one in the eye. He said to the man, ‘Hold out your hand.’ He held it out — it was as good as new! They were beside themselves with anger, and started plotting how they might get even with Him.” Luke 6:6-11.

Another nail in His coffin! The religious types were becoming more and more enraged with Jesus. What raised their wrath against Him?

Wherever He went, He bumped into need after need after need – people who were enslaved by all kinds of things; demons, deformities, diseases and, worst of all, the burdens that their own so-called spiritual leaders put on them which God never intended for them to carry. These things enraged Jesus as much as His compassion angered them.

Here was another stand-off – on the Sabbath – another set-up in the synagogue and they waited to see what He would do. He had already cut them down to size by defending His disciples against their accusation of “working” on the Sabbath by rubbing grain in their hands. Now it was His turn. Jesus would never turn away from need, and they knew it.

Jesus didn’t need to read their minds. He only needed to look at their faces and read their body language to know what they were thinking. I think He was having fun. ‘What should I do?’ He shot at them, ‘Leave the man in his suffering just because it is a day called “Sabbath” or heal him because the Sabbath is as good a day as any to be kind?’

The hyper-religious ones didn’t even answer. They couldn’t without exposing their wicked hearts. Then, to crown it all, Jesus did nothing! He spoke! Was it wrong to speak on the Sabbath? They hadn’t tied that one up with a rule yet! Jesus didn’t even use the word “heal” or any equivalent. What’s wrong with, ‘Get up and stand here before us,’ and ‘Hold out your hand’?

The scribes and Pharisees were floored. Without doing a thing, Jesus healed the man just like that! They had no answer for that one but they were angry anyway; angry because He had got the better of them again, making them look like fools in the eyes of the people; angry because He had shown up their selfish indifference to the suffering of others; angry because He had ignored their rules and they were always right, so they thought; probably angry most of all because they could not understand how He did what He did and they were not willing to admit that God was working through Him.

The Pharisees aside, what was Jesus teaching by His actions, to us as well as to those who were with Him? Sabbath is much less about going to church as it is about reaching out to people in need. Sabbath is about resting from our own work to do the work of God. Sabbath is not about a day. It’s about a lifestyle, resting in the work of Jesus that frees us from slavery to our own selfish ways so that we look beyond ourselves to lift the burden off other people’s shoulders.

Jesus was insisting that righteousness is not about not doing wrong but doing right; not abstaining but taking action for those who had no power to act for themselves. He defined wickedness, not as doing wrong, but as not doing right. The rich men in His stories were charged with greed and indifference, one for hoarding his bounty instead of sharing, and the other for ignoring the poor man at his gate.

What about you? Are you a stickler for laws, or are your eyes and ears open to the poor?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – NOT RULES BUT REST

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CHAPTER SIX

NOT RULES BUT REST

“On a certain Sabbath Jesus was walking through a field of ripe grain. His disciples were pulling off heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands to get rid of the chaff, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing that, breaking a Sabbath rule?’

“But Jesus stood up for them. ‘Have you never read what David and those with him did when they were hungry? How he entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? He also handed it out to his companions.’

“Then He said, ‘The Son of Man is no slave to the Sabbath; He’s in charge.'” Luke 6:1-5.

The Sabbath! Always a contentious issue. This time it was the disciples, not Jesus, who were in trouble with the Pharisees,

The Sabbath was God’s gracious gift to His people and a reminder that He also rested after completing His work of creation.

When He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, He reminded them of the Sabbath and built it into their marriage contract at Sinai, firstly as sign of His covenant with them, and secondly to provide the weekly cycle of six days of work to one day of rest to remind them that they were not machines but humans, and that rest was as necessary for them as their work.

So over-zealous had their rabbis become over the years that they had turned the people into slaves of the Sabbath, hedging it up with so many petty rules that they had forgotten its real purpose. Instead of a day of rest, it had become a day of “don’t do this; you are not allowed to do that,” until they could hardly move for rules. And the Pharisees were the self-appointed “policemen” of their yoke!

Jesus was never a slave to their prescriptions or their opinions. His yoke was one of kindness and mercy as a mirror of the disposition of His Father. He had not come to reinforce their petty religious nonsensical traditions which had no value in either honouring the Father or helping the people to love and care for one another. He had come to show them what God is like and to teach them how God runs His realm.

They said, ‘It’s better to starve than break our rules, and our rules say that picking grain and rubbing it in your hands is reaping, and reaping is work.’ Jesus said, ‘My disciples are hungry and God is more concerned about that than about rules.’ To illustrate, He drew their attention to what their own great king, David, did when he was hungry. He did what was even more glaringly wrong in their estimation. He actually broke a law of God, not even one of theirs, and nothing happened to him.

So then, what is the Sabbath and how does it apply to us now? Sabbath has significance in two ways – a creation ordinance of God to provide us with a regular day of rest once a week, and a prophetic picture of the rest from our religious “labour” that God has provided. Jesus invites us into a permanent rest from trying to gain access to God by our own futile efforts.

No amount of trying or “doing” will ever be enough, but Jesus did it for us by getting rid of our sin and giving us access to the Father as His sons and daughters. Sabbath is no longer a rigid, religious, one-day-a-week rest, but a permanent and perpetual rest of faith in Christ that sets us free from observing laws in order to gain God’s favour.

We are now God’s sons and daughters, no longer lost and in a far country. We have come home to Father’s house and can live freely with Him as His children, not as slaves.

Have you come home to His rest?

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – POPULAR!

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POPULAR!

“Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. News that He was back spread through the countryside. He taught in their meeting places to everyone’s acclaim and pleasure.

“He came to Nazareth where He had been reared. As He always did on the Sabbath, He went to the meeting place. When He stood up to read, He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.” Luke 4:14-17a.

They knew Him. He was already a well-known and well-loved figure in the region. After all, an unusual person like Jesus could not escape notice. He was talked about outside Nazareth. When He disappeared for six weeks, people wondered where He was. ‘Have you seen Jesus?’ they asked one another. ‘Strange! No one knows where He has gone.’

Then, out of the blue He was back, chatting to groups of people here and there; telling them stories and teaching them about the kingdom of God. They were excited. The news spread. ‘Jesus is back. He’s a rabbi. He tells wonderful stories. Come and listen to Him.’

He fascinated them because He wasn’t like the other rabbis. He seemed to know what He was talking about. He wasn’t forever quoting this rabbi or that rabbi, and His yoke – so different from the others! He spoke about God as though He knew Him; and His God didn’t sound like the God the other rabbis spoke of – always demanding and expecting them to keep this law and that rule to please Him. He actually called His God ‘Father’ and Father was generous and full of mercy and compassion.

Back in Nazareth, on the Sabbath, everyone crowded into the synagogue. Jesus was there and they wanted to hear Him. It was expected that He would have something to say. And He did. When the time came for the reading of the Scriptures, everyone looked at Him expectantly, so He stood up and was given the scroll for that day.

“Unrolling the scroll, He found the place where it was written,

“God’s Spirit is on me; He’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!'”

“He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant and sat down. Every eye in the place was on Him, intent. Then he started in, ‘You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.'” Luke 4:17b-21.

What? Did they hear right? Did He say that prophecy was being fulfilled right in front of them? That was something difficult to swallow. There’s a difference between having a strong expectation about something and accepting someone’s claim that he or she is the fulfilment. Many have made audacious claims about themselves, only to disappear like everyone else, leaving life to go on unchanged as usual.

What was different about Jesus’ claim? What was He saying? ‘I am the one on whom all your hopes and dreams are pinned. I have arrived to carry out everything your beloved prophet Isaiah spoke about. You can relax now. I am here!’

Can you imagine a well-known figure, someone who grew up in your neighbourhood, who went to school down the road, who played with your kids in the street, who climbed trees and rode bicycle and scraped his knees under your nose, standing up in church and saying, ‘I’m the one God sent to tell you that it’s going to be okay. I’m going to fix everything for you.’

How would you react?