With laser-like precision, they honed in on His every word. They did this, not because they wanted to learn from the Lord of lords in the flesh, but to trap Him in His words. They wanted to pounce on Jesus and show that He was a fraud.
So, those Pharisees conspired and schemed, looking for any loophole or some contrived way that they could entrap Jesus. But Jesus was wise to their game. He saw the motives of their hearts and was always one step ahead of them. When they zigged, Jesus would zag. Every trap they set in their wicked imaginations would fail. Jesus would die in His way and time for the life of the world, and not one minute before, no matter what the Pharisees would do.
So Jesus lets them spring their Sabbath-Day trap. He goes to eat with some Pharisees on the Sabbath, on God’s chosen day of rest for His people. On that day, God’s people were to stop all work, but this was for more than physical refreshment. The Sabbath was mainly for spiritual rest—God would come to His people and bring them His life and forgiveness. It was the day for God’s people to rest in Him.
But leave it to us fallen humans, not just the Pharisees. We’re inclined to take what God wants to do for us and turn it into what we’re doing for Him. That’s what the Pharisees did on the Sabbath. If you could imagine it—they turned resting into work! All the rituals that God had for His people in the Old Covenant to bring them into His rest for them, they turned into what they were doing for God! Can you get any more messed up than that?
So, while Jesus and the Pharisees are eating, a sick man somehow shows up at that prominent Pharisee’s house. That man was suffering from fluid buildup. But how did he get there, at that specific time, on the Sabbath? Of course, by now, the Pharisees know that Jesus has done other miracles. Can this be a planned setup to trap Jesus?
They know that Jesus has a heart for the sick and wounded. They know that He has a soft spot for the widow and the broken. How can Jesus not resist to do something for that man? But since it’s the Sabbath, we’ll have Him! For how can any man who claims to be a Rabbi break the Sabbath, the day that God wants us to rest?
And they were right. Jesus will heal that man on the Sabbath. He will willingly and knowingly walk into their trap! But first, Jesus will spring a trap on them, on those Pharisees who have turned resting into a calculated work of not doing. Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”
Oh, they weren’t expecting that. Is that a trick question? We’ve seen that wily Jesus trap our brother Pharisees in one puzzle or another. So, we won’t answer Him and unknowingly give Him any ammunition. Who knows, He might still do some work on the Sabbath. And then we’ll have Him!
But it’s more than that. For the Pharisees know the correct answer: It’s not lawful to heal on the Sabbath. God has told them to rest in Him on that day. But, they know they haven’t kept the Sabbath. They’ve cheated and bent the rules in secret. For they were more than experts in the Law; they were also experts at getting around the Law. So, they had two reasons to keep their mouths shut.
Jesus then will force them to confront their understanding of the Sabbath. He heals that man with swollen limbs and sends him on his way. On the Sabbath, Jesus heals a man right in front of them! They should be tearing their robes and crying out, “Sabbath breaker!”
Jesus stepped right into their trap. He has broken the Law! But they sit there in silence. For if they accuse Jesus of breaking the Law, they will, in the end, be condemning themselves. For Jesus made sure to drive that point home. He asked them: “Suppose your son or ox fell into a ditch on the Sabbath. You’d immediately pull him out, wouldn’t you?” Of course, they would, so they say nothing.
But two wrongs don’t make a right, even if Jesus is the one doing the wrong! And Jesus is guilty of breaking the Sabbath. Now, He isn’t guilty of violating the Sabbath or committing a sin. And neither is Jesus pulling out His trump card of being God. He has broken the Sabbath in this way: He has stopped it and put it to an end.
That’s why Jesus came. He came to stop the Law from accusing sinners by fulfilling what the Law demanded. He did that by choosing to die on a cross. His blood will satisfy the Law and what it commands us to do. We no longer need an official Sabbath Day with it directives and rulings, for the One to whom the Sabbath pointed, Jesus, has arrived to fulfill it.
Jesus is our Sabbath rest. Is it lawful, then, for Him to heal on the Sabbath? Yes, for that’s why He came. His coming in the flesh was the whole point of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath was always about what God was doing for us, not what we were doing for Him. That’s why God commanded us not to work on the Sabbath.
So, the technical fine print of not working on the Sabbath is no more. Jesus fulfilled it. Even more, He not only fulfilled it, but He showed that the Sabbath was about what God was doing for His people while they were resting. He would forgive us while we were doing nothing, but resting in Him, just like He healed the man with swollen limbs.
So, the specifics of Sabbath rest are no more. But the original reason for the Sabbath still exists. After all, just because we’re in the New Covenant doesn’t mean that we’re no longer sinners. And so, and we still need what God wants to do for us. We still need to stop working. Why? So what we’re doing won’t get in the way of God bringing us into His rest and refreshment for us. We still need His life and salvation.
And so the truth behind Sabbath rest is still to shape our life with God, whether in the Old Covenant on in the New. And sadly, like the Pharisees, even today, many have turned what God wants to do for His people into what they’re doing for Him. God doesn’t do anything in baptism; baptism is what we’re doing for Him. And the drum of the Pharisee still pounds, turning something that God wants to do for us into what we’re doing for Him.
How else does that happen? God doesn’t do anything in Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Supper is what we’re doing. It’s my work of remembering, instead of His Supper being the act of remembrance into which He brings us to commune. And the drum of the Pharisee still pounds, turning something that God wants to do for us into what we’re doing for Him.
And right now, the Lutheran in us becomes proud for not being like them. We become like the tax collector in the Temple who cried out, “Thank God I’m not like…” You fill in the blank. When another messes up God’s doctrine, it’s not a reason for us to exult in ourselves that we happen to have this part or that part right.
When we become arrogant and proud, we’re no better than the Pharisees, even if we happen to be right. It wasn’t just that the Pharisees were wrong. Oh, they were! But they were also proud and arrogant and saw themselves as above correction. They thought they had everything figured out; they were the ones who were right! And so they closed their heart for God to teach and correct them.
Is that you? Jesus commanded His Apostles to disciple others by baptizing and teaching. And this teaching was all (not some, but all) that Jesus had commanded. Do you know everything that Jesus had commanded? So, we never outgrow our need for learning more of God’s truths. We should never close ourselves off, thinking, “I know enough.” Such thinking comes from Satan, not God.
The Scriptures go on and on about the dangers of having a hardened heart. Why? It’s because a hardened heart turns inward in itself, smug in its state of being. A hardened heart is not open to God, for it has everything figured out—just like the Pharisees!
So, you can be Mr. Lutheran and still have a living, breathing Pharisee inside you. Like the Pharisees, we’ve all been guilty of weaseling, of rationalizing our life with God. What’s the minimum I have to do? When we ask that, we’ve already failed the test!
There are no minimums! If you ask, “What’s the minimum I have to do?” the answer will always be the maximum, beyond your ability. Go and sell everything you have, and give it to the poor. Give all that you have to Jesus, and follow Him.
There’s a reason Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath! He is the Sabbath! May God expose the Pharisee lurking in us all and kill it on the cross. That’s your only hope if you want to live. For anything but real Sabbath rest is a hamster wheel that will kill you from the unending demands of works righteousness.
The mistake of the Pharisees was not that they were sinners. After all, Jesus didn’t come for the righteous, but for the sinner (Luke 5:32). Real rest is giving up on yourself, so God’s righteousness becomes your righteousness. Anything else is the stench of death, no matter how much perfume you use to cover the stink.
The Lord does not despise a broken and humbled heart (Psalm 51:17), for such a heart is too weak to rely on itself. But it’s more than that. It’s not just not relying on yourself; it’s relying on Jesus. So, come now to receive Him and delight in His rest for you as He gives you Himself for your life and salvation. Amen.
