Outside the Box

How many times have you been offered an “improvement” that made your life more miserable?

Maybe these two examples will illustrate my question. How many of you prefer “child-proof” medicine caps to the simple, old flip-top aspirin bottle? How many of you have an alarm on your car that has ever been set off accidentally which then sent you chasing all over the house looking for that remote fob?

Sometimes an intended benefit, becomes an unintentional burden. By Jesus’ day many principles that God had put in the Law to be a blessing for man had been tweaked and manipulated by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots into a trap.

These traps had become unwritten expectations.

I watched a movie a few weeks ago that involved a speed trap in a small town. The highway speed limit reduced from 55 to 30 at the city limit, but the sign had been knocked down. When the traveler asked the deputy why the sign had not been replaced, the response was, “We can’t afford to replace it.” The offended traveler asked the town clerk when he was paying his citation how much it could cost to replace one sign. Then the clerk responded, “No, we can’t afford to lose the revenue from those who get caught.”

The Sabbath was set apart by God to be a blessing to man, but religious leaders had turned it into a burden on the people. The precise details are still practiced today in some kosher communities.

If you’ve purchased a range or refrigerator since 1997, you may have been asked if you want a model with “sabbath mode.” I watched a couple of demonstrations on how this works.

In your oven it will bake, but the display won’t tell you it’s baking. In your fridge, it will cool, but the lights won’t come on when you open the door and your ice/water dispenser will be disabled. Somewhere along the line a rabbi determined it is okay for an igniter to light a burner and electricity to run a condenser unit, but it isn’t permitted for the appliance to let you know this is happening.

In last week’s sermon (4:31-32) we learned that Jesus came for the sick and the sinner. In today’s examples we find that those whom the Pharisees thought were guilty, were not and the one who was sick that they could do nothing about, they got angry when Jesus did what he said he came to do!

“Working” for a Snack (vv.1-5)

The Offense (Lev 23:3)

Leviticus 23:3 ESV:2016

3 “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.

1. The rabbis prohibited how far a person could walk on Sabbath, then specified what could happen on that walk.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia reports,

The rabbis limited such travel to 2000 cubits (3000’ by Hellenistic measure, 3600’ by Roman measure) from one’s domicile. The figure seems to have been based on Josh. 3:4, which says that the distance between the ark and the people during the wilderness sojourn was 2000 cubits. Hence it was assumed that this was the distance necessary to attend worship in the tabernacle, and that such necessity legitimated the distance involved.

In any case the scribes invented ways to increase a sabbath day’s journey up to a distance of 4000 cubits. One could deposit food at the 2000-cubit limit before the sabbath began and declare that spot a temporary home, or one could select a tree or a wall 2000 cubits from one’s true residence and declare this one’s home; thus one could travel an added 2000 cubits on the sabbath.[i]

2. To the religious zealots eating was permitted, but “working” was not. Eating the grain at the edge of the field was protected by Lev 23:22 (the same chapter!)

Leviticus 23:22 ESV:2016

22 “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

3. God knew that for hundreds of years travelers would get hungry and wouldn’t be able to drop into Caseystein’s for a kosher snack.

4. They could pick the grain, they could eat the grain, but they weren’t allowed to hull the grain. Today it would be like – buying a sandwich is not the problem, and eating the sandwich is not the problem, BUT you’re not allowed to unwrap a sandwich!

5. Sometimes restrictions become rules. The lawyers had refined the rules and prepared the loopholes that allowed them to exploit the rules.

A famous preacher from the West Coast put it this way, “And the Sabbath day had become literally a collection point for complex restrictions that had been mounting and mounting and mounting and mounting as rabbis made regulations and they interpreted them and they reinterpreted and reinterpreted and reinterpreted until finally this accumulation of things made the seventh day, listen, the worse day of the week. It was repressive. It was ridiculously strict. And Jesus wanted to show the difference between that and the true heart of God.”[ii]

6. Jesus isn’t breaking God’s sabbath rules, he is challenging the man-made rule that had been piled on top of God’s expectation.

The Defense (1 Sam 21:1-9)

1. Jesus knows if he can point to an example in the Hebrew Scriptures then the legal experts will have to concede loss so he starts with “Have you not read…?”

2. Once a week 12 loaves of bread were placed on the altar as a reminder that it is God who provides bread for the people. Weekly the loaves were swapped and the priests were permitted to eat the old bread.

3. David and his men approach the tabernacle in Nod and ask for bread, Priest Ahimalech offers them the old bread (even though they were not priests).

The Proclamation (v.5)

1. If a priest could suspend a divine rule because of mercy, Jesus could veto the human “extra” rules (which were NOT a violation of divine rules) based upon mercy for his entourage.

2. Clinton Arnold writes, “If human beings have priority over the Sabbath, how much more is the Son of Man “Lord of the Sabbath.” He instituted it, so he has the authority to abrogate it, redefine it, or reinterpret its significance”.[iii]

3. Just as kind of an exclamation point, Jesus says, “You’re not the boss of me, I’m the boss of you. Because the sabbath belongs to God and I’m God!”

Transition: To seal the point of what Jesus can and cannot do on sabbath, he escapes one more “gotcha” trap.

unWithering on the Sabbath (vv.6-11)

The Setting (vv.6-7)

1. There were no rules about talking on the sabbath. So by pronouncing a healing, Jesus broke no rules.

2. The Pharisees can’t point to any rule, Jesus broke. Just that he did something they couldn’t.

3. In the 24 chapters of rules about the sabbath, there were no outright prohibitions on practicing medicine on the sabbath. There was a general understanding that “just to be safe” it is better to wait until after the sabbath, but midwives were allowed to sit with expectant mothers because that can’t be scheduled. Circumcisions were allowed on sabbath if that happened to be the 8th day, because that did not profane the day. So even IF Jesus’ healing could have waited to Sunday, there was no hard and fast prohibition from doing it on Saturday.

4. Note that v.6 specifies this withered hand was his right hand. Most likely he was right-handed, so this withering reduced his ability to work. Even more, in middle-eastern cultures certain tasks are only done by the left hand, so it would have been severely offensive for him to use his unwithered hand in interacting with others.

In our age of concern over viruses it would be extremely offensive for me to cough into my right hand then extend it to you for a handshake or to extend to you a cookie or a brownie.

5. Imagine the way this man interacted with his neighbors. His right hand was withered (perhaps from arthritis) and his left hand would have been “dirty” or offensive. What is he to do?

The Healing (vv.8-10)

1. Jesus had said back in 4:18 that his ministry was to proclaim liberty to the bound. This man was bound by his disability!

2. Jesus said back in 5:31 that he came for those who were sick, and this man was not well!

3. The religious zealots were sneaking around trying to trick Jesus, so Jesus called him out, front and center so that every eye was upon him and there would be no accusations of trickery. (v.8)

4. The opposite of good was harm, the opposite of saving was destruction. The best the Pharisees could do was to ignore the man, but for Jesus, avoidance was not an option. He had already proven many times that he had the authority to make a difference.

At one of our Bible studies this week I was invited to share a bowl of soup with the group.

I admitted to them that we all agree that sometimes God heals through the intervention of medicine and therapy. We all agreed that sometimes God’s healing only comes as a person is promoted to their eternal home. We concluded that sometimes time is necessary for muscles to relax or inflammation to subside as God has designed our bodies to restore themselves.

But I asked if any of them had a specific example of God healing miraculously in our lifetime apart from the methods I had already mentioned.

Honestly, I was a little surprised that there wasn’t only one or two examples, but almost every single person in the group testified that they personally or someone in their immediate family had experienced a miraculous touch from God.

5. We all concluded that God has several options available as to how he chooses to heal. But not one of us doubted that he has the ability today to do exactly what he does for this man in v.10

A response to avoid (v.11)

1. The scribes and Pharisees couldn’t take 30 seconds to rejoice with this man who had just had his ability to contribute to society handed back to him.

2. Their minds were so bent on fury and revenge that they couldn’t even recognize a blessed miracle in their own presence.

3. There is a caution in this for us: When we feel as if we have been mistreated or misrepresented by those who disagree with us (whether that be politically, or our perspective on the COVID virus, or any other perceived maltreatment) it is easy for us to jump into revenge mode.

4. Our Sunday School lesson reminded us that when we are mistreated, our default should be to patiently forgive while we anticipate God to change his or her heart.

Transition: Before I conclude the sermon, I want us to draw 2 applications out of these two sabbath encounters.

Conclusion:

1. Find pleasure in this Lord’s Day. For most of us, this is a day set apart to restore, refresh, and reset for the next 6 days. Do not allow anyone else’s expectations of you, rob you of the delight God wants you to experience today.

2. What measure of good or mercy might you show to another today? I don’t think any of us have the authority to stretch out a withered hand, but you do have the opportunity to bring a ray of God’s love into someone who is lonely or hurting.

[i] P. K. Jewett, “Sabbath Day’s Journey,” ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–1988), 252.

[ii] John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).

[iii] Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 375.