Tag Archives: Sabbath

Two Kind Men

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TWO KIND MEN

It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate was surprised to hear that He was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph.

So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. (Mark 15: 42-47)

Again we have Mark’s terse and unembellished account of Jesus’ burial. He included none of the paranoid instructions of the chief priests to try to secure the tomb. No Roman guard, no official seal on the stone. It was not his focus. His was the simple story of Jesus’ death and burial. Not that Matthew’s version of the events was exaggerated or even untrue. It was just a detail Mark did not include for his own reasons.

Who was the man who had the courage to ask for Jesus’ body which was destined for the city rubbish dump where His body would have been cremated in the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem if it were not for his bold intervention. He was a member of the ruling council, Joseph of Arimathea. He would have been present at Jesus’ trial, a lone voice protesting Jesus’ innocence, but not even heard against the howling mob.

According to the Apostle John (John 19:38-39), he was not alone in this final deed of love. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the Pharisee who visited Jesus one night. Although these two men were members of the upper class, unlike their peers they were honest enough to evaluate Jesus without prejudice. When the crunch came, they boldly and openly took their stand with Him. One wonders what the rest of their associates thought of them, but they didn’t care.

It was evident that Pilate was still sympathetic towards Jesus otherwise, would he have released His body to Joseph? He was amazed that Jesus had succumbed to the torture so quickly. It was often a long drawn-out affair. Some of the victims of crucifixion lingered on the cross for days, hence the request of the Sanhedrin to hasten His death by breaking His legs (John 19: 31). Since Jesus was already dead, His bones were not broken but His side was pierced with a spear (John 19: 34). Amazing how accurately the Old Testament prophets predicted the exact details of His death!

Since Joseph was a wealthy man, he owned a yet-unused tomb which had been prepared for him and his family. He gladly gave it over to the body of the one he had come to recognise as his Master. He had to act in haste in order to be faithful to the requirements of the Sabbath, and he and Nicodemus moved quickly to have the body in the tomb before sunset. There was no time to give the body its proper treatment with ointments and spices but just to wrap it in cloth and place it in the tomb.

Again it was the Apostle John who noted that the next day was a special Sabbath. Traditionally, Jesus died on the day before the normal Sabbath, Friday but, according to John, this Sabbath was not on the seventh day of the week but the day before the Sabbath. Hence in that year, there were two Sabbaths, Friday and Saturday. Jesus would have been crucified on the Thursday and His body would have been in the tomb from Thursday before sunset to early Sunday morning, three days according to Jewish reckoning.

How accurately God arranged all the details to fulfil the imagery of Passover. Like the Passover lamb which had to be selected on the tenth day of the month and slaughtered on the fourteenth day after careful inspection for defects, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the first day of the week preceding Passover, put on public display and crucified on the Thursday, the fourth day of that week. He died at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, at the exact time when the high priest slaughtered the first Passover lamb.

When Joseph and Nicodemus walked away from the tomb at sunset that afternoon, did they ever dream that the empty cave would become the symbol of a mighty victory for the one whose body they had so tenderly placed there? Did they ever visit the empty tomb to see for themselves that the bloodied corpse they had left there had vanished? Was their faith forever confirmed by this silent witness to His resurrection?

This simple act of kindness would change the lives of these two men forever. They have the assurance in their hearts of the words of the writer to the letter to the Hebrews:

God is not unjust; He will not forget your labour of love. (Heb. 6: 10)

Their names will always be remembered for their kindness to Jesus.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Watch this space. My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master, will soon be on the bookshelves.

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Doing Nothing Is Doing Evil

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DOING NOTHING IS DOING EVIL

Another time He went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched Him closely to see if He would heal Him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’ Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful, on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, so save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent. He looked around them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out and his had was completely healed (Mark 3: 1-5).

What if the religious leaders had understood the heart of Jesus and completely agreed with what He was doing? Would His life have made the impact that it did through conflict? Every time the Pharisees attacked Him for healing in the Sabbath or violating one of their rules, His way of mercy showed up their legalistic and callous hearts.

On this occasion He did not even touch the man. A word was enough to release the power of God in response to the man’s obedience. When he stretched out his hand at Jesus’ command, something happened in his body and in his heart. Regardless of what the Pharisees had to say, his faith connected with God and the miracle happened.

Jesus’ action had a twofold purpose. Firstly, it was an act of mercy. The man had suffered paralysis in his hand and heeded healing. Jesus did not miss an opportunity like this to step in with a miracle. Secondly, the people in the synagogue needed to know that the Sabbath was as good a day as any to do good to another. The religious leaders had made the Sabbath into a prison rather than a day of rest. Rest for them had become a straight jacked for rules, instead of a time of refreshment.

By declaring Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus was redefining the seventh day according to God’s original purpose. As Creator, Jesus had rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but because His work of creation was done. He invited His people to share His rest by setting apart that day from the normal labour of the other six days. It was not so much about what they could not do. It was about what they could do – take a day off to do something different from the rest of the week.

Doing something different also included acts of mercy. They knew that, because it was legitimate to save the life of a stranded animal on the Sabbath. “So why not a suffering human being? insisted Jesus and He did something; He spoke a word!

His opponents were not interested in what was right. They were only concerned with who was right. Jesus was both angry and distressed; angry because of their stubbornness and distressed because of their example. What were the people seeing in them? Was this the kind of God they represented? One who was so rigid about His rules that He cared nothing for suffering people?

Did you notice how Jesus classified doing nothing as doing evil? Every time we miss an opportunity, either because we are insensitive or selfish, to make the life of someone else better by an act of kindness or generosity, it is as though we have done something evil. Not to do is to do.

We need to heed the lesson of this story. I need to heed the lesson of this story. God’s mercy takes precedence over all other considerations. Like David eating forbidden bread. Like hungry men picking grain on the Sabbath. Like whatever need arises when I have something else to do. Like being interrupted to help someone when I am irritated by their demand. Jesus was never interrupted because He was led by the Spirit.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

Take That, Pharisees!

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TAKE THAT, PHARISEES!

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields and, as His disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’ He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for the priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.’ Then He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ (Mark 2: 23-26).

What were the Pharisees doing? Trailing after Jesus to spy on Him? It seems like it.

Matthew added a cryptic comment to Mark’s version of this incident. On a previous occasion, when the Pharisees criticised Jesus for eating with the riff-raff of society, Jesus retorted, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matt. 9: 13).

Now the Pharisees were at it again. They had obviously not bothered to heed Jesus’ words. The disciples offended them because they were breaking their petty rules. Jesus had no time for nit-picking. He smartly put them in their place with the Word.

‘If you had known what these words meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ (Matt 12: 7-8).

Would they never learn? No one takes Jesus on and wins!

What was the issue here? That the disciples were hungry was of no consequence to the Pharisees. Far more important to them was the fact that it was the Sabbath and they had rules about the Sabbath that had to be adhered to, no matter what. So what if these men were hungry? Sabbath was Sabbath and the day took precedence over their need, so the Pharisees insisted.

But Jesus thought otherwise. Who made the rules anyway? That was Adam’s problem, at the beginning. He swept God’s rule aside, at the devil’s insistence, and made his own rules, only to discover that his ways did not work. And the whole of history is testimony to that. Funny, isn’t it that in spite of the mess humanity has made, we still insist that our way is better? Now that’s the height of folly, doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Will we never learn?

What is the basis of God’s government – the one Jesus came to restore by His coming? He summarised it in one sentence: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Mercy is what He applies in all His dealings with human beings – otherwise we would not even be here. He would have obliterated the whole earth long ago if it were not for His mercy. David celebrated God’s mercy in his magnificent song of praise – Psalm 103.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbour His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (Psa. 103: 8-10).

That’s how God runs His government and He expects the citizens of His kingdom to do what He does. James took up David’s refrain in his letter.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2: 12-13).

The mercy that God shows extends beyond those who belong to Him. Unlike the so-called “mercy” of the god of more than a billion people, who call him “Merciful” but mercilessly kill those who do not espouse their beliefs, the one true God is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus instructed (Luke 6: 35b-36)

To the Pharisees, rules were more important than people. To Jesus, people took precedence over rules, especially man-made rules that did not reflect the heart of God. So let us not follow the example of the Pharisees who rigidly insisted on doing instead of being. Let’s take a leaf out of Jesus’ book. After all, He is the mirror image of the Father, and we can trust Him to show mercy. Why shouldn’t we? We have His Spirit, don’t we?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

And Now I See

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AND NOW I SEE 

“How, then, were your eyes opened?’ they asked. He replied, ‘The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.’

“‘Where is the man?’ they asked him. ‘I don’t know,” he said.” John 9:10-12 NIV.

This sounds like a far-fetched story! “A man put mud on my eyes, told me to go and wash it off, and then I could see.” That is not only unbelievable; it’s also un-believable. Whoever heard of that! It could have been a fabricated story except for one thing — the blind man was no longer blind and there was no explanation for the miracle.

The poor guy was in for a grilling and he didn’t even know who the man was who had healed him except that His name was Jesus.

“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.  Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ he replied, ‘and I washed, and now I see.’

“Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.’

But others asked, ‘How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?’ So they were divided.” John 9:13-16 NIV.

At least there were some people who had the good sense to look at the evidence! The Pharisees were at it again — Jesus was an evil-doer because He did not adhere to their Sabbath rules. But they missed the spirit of the Sabbath — for them it was about not doing the wrong things. It was not about doing the right things.

This is exactly where Jesus and the religious Jews parted company. They were sticklers for keeping the rules. Jesus focussed on meeting people’s needs. They accused Him of being a rule-breaker because He “worked” on the Sabbath according to their definition of “work”. For Him is was the right thing to do to set a blind man free from his prison on the Sabbath.

How tragic that so much of the church’s understanding of “righteousness” has become like the Pharisees’ rule-keeping ritual! We have our evangelical Ten Commandments or the equivalent. We are righteous as long as we do certain things and avoid doing other things. Unfortunately we also tend to judge other believers according to our standards of right and wrong.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus had much more to say to people who failed to meet the needs of others than He did to the “sinners” He hobnobbed with to the disgust of the religious ones.  He had no word of condemnation for the Samaritan woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery. Quite the opposite! He was gentle and merciful towards them, but He had a lot to say to the religious hypocrites who covered up their greedy and wicked hearts with religious performance.

“‘The multitude of your sacrifices — what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have had more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats…

“‘When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if your offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.'” Isaiah 1:11; 15-17 NIV.

Perhaps the church would once again make an impact on the world as it did in the first century if it set aside its religious performances and went back to the simplicity of Jesus’ invitation, ‘Follow me.’

Religion Or Righteousness?

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RELIGION OR RIGHTEOUSNESS?

“Whoever speaks on his own does so to gain personal glory, but He who seeks the glory of the one who sent Him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about Him.

“‘Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?’

“‘You are demon-possessed,’ the crowd answered.’who is trying to kill you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy in the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you so angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.'” John 7:18-24 (NIV).

Jesus had them! He saw right into their hearts and put His finger on the real issue. These people had their own agenda for “keeping” the law of Moses. In other words, the law of Moses was their excuse for following a religion that was to their own advantage.

Let’s look at it carefully. The first thing He exposed was their motive. It was definitely not to do God’s will. Had that been their intention, they would have recognized Him as God’s Son and representative and His teaching as the truth from God. What was their motive, then? They enjoyed the limelight and the accolades they received from their admiring followers. They loved being put on a pedestal to be honoured for their “holy” lives!

They were not interested in the real reason why God gave them His teaching — to replicate Him on earth so that the surrounding nations would have a picture of their God.  They hated Jesus for exposing the falseness of their claims to be followers of Moses. If they were true followers of Moses, they would not have hatred and murder in their hearts.

They vehemently denied His accusation that they were out to kill Him, even accusing Him of being demon-possessed. They resorted to character-assassination to cover up their own evil intentions.

Jesus went right to the core of their wicked hearts. They circumcised a baby boy on the Sabbath because it was what the law required and they did no count it as “work”. However, when Jesus rescued a paralysed man from the misery of his imprisonment and gave him back his life, they pounced on Him for breaking the Sabbath. What was the difference?

They saw circumcision as a requirement of the law but they ignored the equally important requirement of showing mercy to those in need. Circumcision was not as powerful a revelation of God’s character or as demanding of themselves as was kindness to a fellow human being. It was the goodness of God revealed by Jesus through His compassion for people that they could not stomach.

There are two things that offend people — goodness and wickedness. Goodness offends evil people and wickedness offends good people! Behind the rage that was stirred in the hearts of these Jewish religious leaders was the real reason why they were so offended by Jesus’ action; He was good and they hated Him for it and they were self-deceived.

Self-deception is the worst form of deception because people believe their own lies and live according to what they believe. The Jews  believed that it was more important not to do what they classified as “work” on the Sabbath, which took on ridiculous and petty proportions, than to show mercy to someone in need. This was a complete reversal of the law and the heart of God.

Herein lies the difference between religion and the kingdom of God. Religion focuses on performance even to the point of killing others if they do not comply. Jesus showed us that the kingdom of God is about living in unity with God in loving and caring for all of creation, including all people, even our enemies. True righteousness is doing the right thing to everyone in need regardless of colour or culture.

Jesus did! And so should we!