On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
They were observing him carefully, but not to learn from him. They were looking rather for excuses to criticize and condemn him. One wonders how the man with dropsy came to be in the home of the Pharisees. Were they themselves using him, weaponizing his illness, since they knew that Jesus would find healing him to be irresistible? Or was the presence of that man accounted for by the fact that Jesus himself insisted on it? It did see that on this occasion he was ready to be in their faces about this healing and the lesson it entailed. Thus there seemed to be a sort of symmetry between the hardness of the Pharisees' hearts and the insistent compassion of Jesus himself.
Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking,
"Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?"
Jesus knew that they were provoked by his willingness to heal on the sabbath. They couldn't answer his rationale that justified it, but they nevertheless refused abandon the traditions of their own approach. What was ostensibly a good thing, setting time apart for the worship of God alone, had grown into a thing that they could use to justify their selfishness and lack of compassion. Jesus knew that the sabbath was meant to be for more than the superficial relaxation of a select few. It was meant to be peace, rest, and freedom, for all the people of God. The Pharisees were resting from compassion and mercy, which was never appropriate, especially on the sabbath. And at the same time they were working, seeking a way to ensnare Jesus. No wonder Jesus himself would have none of it.
"Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?"
But they were unable to answer his question.
One might hope that if they were unable to answer his questions a sufficient number of times they would eventually be moved to concede the point. Yet we know that for most of them this only provoked them further, and resulted in an even greater hardening of their hearts, leading ultimately to their plot to condemn Jesus to death.
We tend to be much less fastidious about our cerebration of the Lord's day, which is by no means inherently meritorious. But if we want to sit at table with Jesus we need to be prepared to not only observe him but to learn from him. We need not only his words of affirmation but also those with which he corrects us. Because without these words we will be confused about the genuine rest Jesus desires for all the sons and daughters of God. We will work in the wrong ways and use rest as excuse to shield our egos from the unpleasant or the unfamiliar. Human rest is flimsy and fallible, and requires constant reinforcement lest at collapse. Genuine rest exists on the far side of this discomfort. It is precisely to lead us to that rock solid rest that Jesus allows the discomfort.
We see in Paul someone who was unwilling to allow anything to stand between him and the mercy he desired to show to others, to the point where he said "I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people". That would be a step too far, a position from which he could no longer be of use. But we see from his considering it that he was in no way using religion as an excuse to take it easy. He wasn't content to rest alone, but desired "the children of Israel" to whom the promises were first given to share in it as well.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
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