Breaking the Rules: Jesus Heals on The Sabbath

00:00:00 Speaker 1: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, Mark two twenty seven. Dear Lord Jesus, you are our ultimate source of rest and comfort. The rest you offer isn't bound by rules or ordinances, but freely given through grace. Thank you, Lord for designing rest as a gift, a divine invitation to lay down our burdens and find peace in your presence in a world that often values busyness over well being. Remind us that our true rest is found not in the observance of rituals, but in the embrace of your grace and love. Thank you for offering us relief from our striving and a place of refuge for our weary souls. Help us to enter into your rest daily, trusting in your provision, didn't care. In the name of Jesus, our peace and rest, We pray Amen. The Sun's gentle rays scattered over the road. Jesus and his disciples walked beside the barley fields, dragging their feet through the dirt. They had been walking for a long time, and hunger pains were beginning to set in. 00:01:29 Speaker 2: How much further to the synagogue? 00:01:32 Speaker 1: John asked with a low whine and WinCE of pain in his voice. He held his stomach and breathed. 00:01:38 Speaker 3: I'm not sure how long I can go without a meal. 00:01:41 Speaker 1: Peter slid his hand through the grain as they sauntered beside it. Taking an ear of grain in his hand, he plucked it and tossed it to John. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: Eat. 00:01:53 Speaker 4: I don't want to drag you the rest of the way. 00:01:55 Speaker 1: John removed the seeds quickly and scarfed them down. Peter laughed often plucked one for himself. The men were hungry, and the outer layers of the grain fields was okay for eating. The Law of Moses made provisions for travelers. Everything on the outskirts of a field was available to pluck and eat. The twelve continued to pluck, eat, walk, and laugh. Jesus enjoyed their laughter. He enjoyed the camaraderie developing between his disciples. They would need it for the struggles that awaited them. However, their joy was swiftly interrupted by the presence of Pharisees. 00:02:40 Speaker 4: What are you doing with that bali. 00:02:42 Speaker 1: One of them shouted. Peter quickly tossed his grain away, and John stuffed the rest in his mouth. Jesus chuckled, seeing how they became flustered. Children. When the Pharisees arrived Shabbat shalom, friends. 00:02:57 Speaker 4: Eat shabbat for some of us. 00:03:00 Speaker 1: They jabbed. They gestured to John with his mouth full of barley. 00:03:04 Speaker 4: Are you going to do anything about your followers? Jesus, look, they are harvesting grain on the Sabbath. 00:03:11 Speaker 1: The Pharisees had a talent for creating unnecessary rules. The Law of Moses commanded people to rest on the Sabbath, but the Pharisees had taken that to an extreme. They added extra rules and regulations on top of God's law. Dragging a chair through the dirt was considered plowing. Lifting jewelry on to your neck was considered work. They even ruled that you couldn't lift anything heavier than a dried fig leaf. 00:03:43 Speaker 4: They are desecrating the law of Moses. 00:03:46 Speaker 1: Jesus looked back at John, whose mouth was full of grain. 00:03:50 Speaker 2: Did you hear that, John, you're desecrating the law. 00:03:53 Speaker 1: Jesus smiled and winked. John swallowed and gave a nervous grin. Jesus turned to the Pharisees and plucked a piece of grain. 00:04:02 Speaker 2: You claim to be men who know the scriptures but it's clear that you've missed a few things. 00:04:07 Speaker 1: He rolled the grain in his fingers, removing a few seeds and bouncing them in his palm. 00:04:14 Speaker 2: Don't you remember how David ate bread designated for the temple when he was overcome with hunger. The bread, although meant for ceremony and not for eating, was used well. It fueled God's anointed hero for the struggles ahead. 00:04:28 Speaker 1: The Pharisees were insulted by the insinuation that they hadn't read the story. Jesus tossed a piece of grain in his mouth. 00:04:37 Speaker 2: I tell you something greater than the temple is here. I suggest you go back to your scrolls and read more. Maybe then you'll find the meaning behind the words of God when he says I desire mercy over sacrifice. If you truly knew what that meant, wouldn't come here badgering my friends, who've done nothing wrong. 00:04:55 Speaker 4: We have lost for a reason. Jesus, you're setting a dinger. You're as president. 00:05:01 Speaker 2: The Sabbath was given to us for a purpose. Rest the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And remember this, dear friends, the Messiah, not you, is Lord over the Sabbath. 00:05:16 Speaker 1: Jesus passed them. His disciples held back smiles. As they continued walking toward the synagogue, a faint snicker could be heard from them. They had never heard anyone speak to the Pharisees that way before. No one dared challenge their unreasonable and unattainable standard. Jesus wasn't a smug man, nor did he enjoy embarrassing the Pharisees. However, their pious and hypocritical rules distanced people from God. They had added so much to the law that people couldn't keep up or track. They were intent on adding to the law, but Jesus had come to fulfill it. 00:06:02 Speaker 3: Do you view Christianity as just a set of rules to follow? Does it feel like following Jesus is a constraint on your life? The Gospel message is one of freedom. Jesus frees us from the bondage of the Law of Moses and gives us a new, perfect law of liberty, a law of love, a law of endless possibilities. Those who live according to the law will be judged by the law. But we read in Romans six, for sin shall no longer be your master, because you were not under the law, but under grace. Understanding God's heart is crucial for us to live out our faith as obedient disciples. Welcome to the Jesus Podcast, a year of story showcasing the depth of Christ's love and the glory of God's truth. I'm Zach, your host from pray dot Com, and I'm so happy that you're here with us as we look at more miracles of the Messiah. Be sure to follow the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to as we continue to advance the Gospel message together. Our story today falls on a Sabbath, a Jewish day of rest, But the Sabbath would be unlike most. What would have started out as a quiet day for most eventually stirred into unrest. Now it wasn't unrest caused by Jesus, who freely allowed his disciples to pluck grain and to satiate their hungry bellies, or who healed a man with a withered hand, and the one who loved his neighbor as himself. The unrest on this day formed and flowed from the hearts of the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders who thought they knew all there was about God, as their understanding of God was challenged by Jesus, working against their rigid ways. Their hearts became cold, hard, and bitter, against the one person they needed most to find the righteousness they spent each day striving for. As we listen to our story today, we might even find ourselves challenged too. But challenges can be good if we respond with humility. Humility in receiving the Lord of Lords and the King. 00:07:50 Speaker 1: Of kings, the synagogue was like a palace, with grand archways and gemstones etched in the halls. The floors had bright tiles and rugs sown into intricate patterns. Incense swirled around Rabbi yo Kanan as he read from the Law of Moses, a meditation on the Sabbath. 00:08:13 Speaker 5: Ras says Adunai. Observe the Sabbath day, keep it holy. As the Lord your God commanded you six days, you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant or your female servant, or your arks, or your donkey, or any of your live stock or the sojourner, who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you are a slave in the land of Ea. The Lord your God brought you out from here with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. 00:09:16 Speaker 1: Rabbi y Kanan closed the scroll and placed his hands on the dais. 00:09:20 Speaker 5: The Sabbath is a day of pause, a day to reflect on the holy contentment of Adanai and mediate on his goodness. How can we do such things without refraining from all forms of labor? Has the law not been clear? 00:09:39 Speaker 2: To be wholly on this day is to be still? 00:09:43 Speaker 1: As Rabbi yo Kanan spoke, the Pharisees truckled in behind Jesus. Just then another man entered and leaned against the wall. He held his arm in his tunic. If you looked carefully in the torchlight, you could see that the man's was mangled and withered away. The Pharisees gestured toward the man and whispered to Jesus. 00:10:07 Speaker 4: So you think you are an expert on the Sabbath, tell Us, then is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath. 00:10:16 Speaker 1: They were goading Jesus. They knew he was a miracle worker, a healer. They wanted to trap Jesus with his character. If he didn't heal the man, he wasn't a compassionate person he claimed to be. If he did heal the man, he broke their Sabbath rules in the sacred space of the synagogue. From their perspective, Jesus lost either way, but they were short sighted in thinking. Jesus cared about what the Pharisees thought about it all. Jesus looked at the man. He had a hand that bent in toward his chest, as though he had been wounded that way for many years and fall with no muscle to support it. It had withered away, like a more minor appendage than the rest. Jesus heart turned sensing the wound of the man. Jesus sensed his pain, years of pain. The Pharisees saw him as a tool to puff up their pride, but Jesus saw the man. 00:11:24 Speaker 4: Ah. 00:11:24 Speaker 1: Yes, one of them raised an eyebrow at the wounded man and then back to Jesus. 00:11:30 Speaker 4: Another poor soul in need of healing. But is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? 00:11:36 Speaker 1: The wounded man clutched his frail arm to his chest and sat in a ball on the floor. He pressed his forehead into his arm, like he couldn't bear the thought of teachers talking about him. They spoke as though he were half a human, someone people could talk down about openly without worrying that he would hear. But he always heard. Jesus could sense in the wounded man the silent dignity with which he suffered for years, the pain and great agony that he had worn in his body. The tiny flicker of hope in his chest caused him to come here to the Synagogue of all places, hoping that God would have mercy on him, that God would be kind to him. Rabbi yo Kanan raised a finger at Jesus, sensing his intentions. 00:12:33 Speaker 5: Come. Come leave him alone, Jesus, it is the Sabbath. There are the days to help the needy. Today is not a day for action but reflection. 00:12:44 Speaker 1: Jesus took his eyes off the man who was folded over, bent in a contorted way around his head. He addressed the entire room. When Jesus spoke, it was not demanding. It was soft, but firm in such a way that commanded their attention. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: Let me ask you all something, Which of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? If it is suffering, would you not be stirred enough with compassion to help it? 00:13:16 Speaker 1: He turned and looked between Rabbi yu Kanan and the Pharisees. They each averted their gaze from him. 00:13:23 Speaker 2: Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? So let me ask again, if it was your sheep in that pit, or it was your sister, your brother, or even your child, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath? 00:13:40 Speaker 1: Jesus came forward and knelt beside the man on the ground. The man hid his eyes, ashamed that he had become a tool for debate. Jesus spoke as though he was the only one in the room. Nobody else mattered. 00:13:57 Speaker 2: It was just he and Jesus, my friend, stretch out your hand. 00:14:02 Speaker 1: It was like asking a lame man to jump. For a brief moment, the wounded man thought perhaps Jesus was mocking him, But when he looked up, his eyes locked with Christ's. His eyes were kind, his voice was compassionate. The man took heart and lifted his arm from his tunic and forward to reach Jesus. Then somehow he stretched it to full length. His muscles grew as they stretched, and his fingers extended as they reached. He was being healed right before his eyes. 00:14:47 Speaker 2: My arm, the man gasped, Ah, don I, my arm is healed. 00:14:52 Speaker 1: The man looked at Jesus and began to weep. 00:14:55 Speaker 4: You really are who they say you are. 00:14:57 Speaker 1: The priests clutched their amulets. It was real. The words shook the very halls. All went quiet. Heads turned toward the man, who leaped to his feet beaming. 00:15:12 Speaker 4: My army fielded. 00:15:14 Speaker 1: His voice carried, and he gripped his hand with his other, as though to test that it was not some sort of trick of his eyes. 00:15:21 Speaker 4: It's real and it's working. 00:15:24 Speaker 1: His voice echoed throughout the marble rafters and up into the spires of the temple. It was an unwonted sound, this laughter. The synagogue had never hosted such a sound like it before. The only acceptable sounds were subdued, hushed and fearful whispers. The temple onlooker shot frustrated glances at him, annoyed by the irreverent presence of this miracle, upsetting their holy Sabbath routines. Jesus smiled and shared in the man's delight, look at you. 00:16:00 Speaker 2: As good as new. Be careful not to use it until tomorrow, though it is the Sabbath after all. 00:16:06 Speaker 1: But the Pharisees walked on and turned toward each other. It is not our way. One of them hissed, how there he The other pressed. They turned their heads back toward Jesus to check and make sure he wasn't listening, then pressed in again. 00:16:22 Speaker 4: He knowingly breaks our rules. He's insolent, he's dangerous. 00:16:27 Speaker 1: The others nodded, their heads turned toward Jesus, who now walked side by side with the once wounded man, and the two of them spoke casually, like equals. 00:16:39 Speaker 4: We must do something about this. Send word to Caiaphus. Jesus of Nazareth is threatening the very fabric of our ways. Sooner or later, everyone who mocks the law of Moses will get there due justice. He will pay for his crimes. 00:16:59 Speaker 3: The idea of the South can be found very early in scripture, in Genesis one and two. God speaks his creation into existence, finding delight in each new masterpiece as he declares them good. And at the end of his work on the seventh day, God rests not because he needed to, but to enjoy the grand displays of the glory manifested through his handiwork. As an extension of his own rest, God gives man the privilege of Sabbath, rest six days of work in labor, awaiting a seventh day to rest and enjoy God's creation with him. But the Pharisees had long forgotten God's intention for this holy day. Rather than seeing this day as a blessing to spend time with God, they had contorted it by imposing rules and regulations to make the day about themselves. They added to God's law to bolster their sense of self righteousness. This was a common theme for the religious leaders that we call legalism. The idea was rooted in thinking that they could be more holy not just by abiding by the Law of Moses, but showcasing their spiritual discipline by creating even more constraints, rules, more laws that didn't need to be there. If the lawsdre a metaphorical line in the sand, the Pharisees would take a step back and draw their own A good example of this is that the Pharisees of the time said that they wasn't even good to move a chair because you might churn up dust, and that's considered plowing or farming. These absurd rules and regulations were just meant to create a teared system of who's best at obeying God or not. But for all their efforts, the Pharisees legalism was only leading to more bondage and their attempts to attain holiness, the religious leaders added to the weight of the law. Not only did this not bring them the righteousness they thought it would, it was actually pulling them away from the heart of God. The problem had gotten so bad that they weren't even able to recognize Jesus as the anointed One. God was right in front of them, and they were so blinded to his heart and character that they didn't recognize that he was incarnate walking right among them. They had added so much to the word of God that they blocked their own view of who God really was. Some people might be critics of our lifestyle when following Jesus, but we shouldn't let the chains of others judgment, bind us and hold us back from experiencing the freedom that Jesus gives to us. As the Pharisees berate Jesus and his disciples for plucking and eating grain in the fields on the Sabbath, Jesus reminds them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and that he was lord over the Sabbath. He was the one who decided what was lawful in what wasn't lawful. On the day of rest, he knew the heart of the Father and encouraged his disciples to enjoy the day for what it was meant to be, a connecting point with God. Frustrated with Jesus and wanting to eventually trap him, they follow him to the synagogue. Their intentions were clear. They wanted to trap Jesus, and seeing the man with a withered hand and knowing his pattern of performing healing miracles, they asked Jesus if it's lawful for him to heal on the Sabbath, arguably the greatest work you could perform on a day meant for rest. It's at this point that Jesus demonstrates God's heart using recognizable imagery to their day. He questions the peace people of the synagogue if they wouldn't rescue a sheep from their flock who had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath. With no response from the people, who couldn't dispute Jesus's question, the Lord turns to the man with a withered hand and commands him to stretch it out. At that moment, the hand was healed just as good. 00:20:15 Speaker 1: As the other. 00:20:16 Speaker 3: In breaking the Pharisee Sabbath rules, he was teaching the people about the loving heart of the Father, who wasn't in the habit of allowing man made rules to interfere with his willingness and desire to care for his children. He was showing them and shows us that the law of Christ hinges on loving others and was greater than the law of Moses that would bind people. I think that there is something silly about this whole interaction. The Pharisees are mad at Jesus because he broke the rules. But he broke the rules and healed somebody's withered hand, displaying obviously that he has the power of God. This proves that some people would rather abide by rules than worship the creator. Some people find more comfort in religion and religious practices and institutions than they do in the character and in the will and in the power of God himself. Because let's be honest here, it's much easier to follow a set of moral rules than it is to truly live a selfless and effective and loving life that transforms our communities. It's easy to sit on our hands and withhold from doing anything wrong. It's much harder to be an active member of our community in lifting people up around us. It's a lot easier not to curse than it is to actually speak blessing to someone who's in the throes of depression. It's easier to refrain from listening to bad music than it is to use our God given talents and creativity to create music that honors Him and blesses the people around us. You see moving to the heartbeat of righteousness in the Holy Spirit as a much more challenging thing than living a moralistic, self righteous life. As followers of Jesus, we live by the law of Christ and his love. While we should never purposefully go against God's commands, need to be mindful that where we've added to God's lung, our own moral standards that haven't even been set by God. I remember there was a prolific teacher that came to our church. Now, this teacher is very famous, and he'll remain anonymous for now, but I'll just say this. At his church he wears a suit and tie. All of his church attendees wear a suit and tie. But when he was at our church, he was wearing a short sleeve button up in some jeens. This is the common garb in our church on a Sunday morning. The comments that we received on YouTube was staggering. Tons of his followers from his church decrying him for compromising his morality by no longer wearing a suit and tie. This is a great example of modern day legalism. Nowhere in the Bible and nowhere in scripture will you find any sort of dress code for what you need to wear in church, but some people place these moral standards that aren't supposed to be there. Jesus was willing to break the religious leader rules for the sake of breaking us free from the law. Live in freedom. He offers us be willing to swim against the current push back against religiosity to follow God's heart and love others with the radical love of Jesus