9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.These verses tell us everything we need to know about how God views the Law. From the time of Moses these words stood tall: "You shall do no work on the Sabbath." The Pharisees understood this, followed it to the letter. That was God's command.
Then here comes Jesus, who meets a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, not his biggest fans anyway, think they have him dead to rights. They've heard he's a healer. They ask what he's going to do about this man. If Jesus refuses to help him then Jesus seems small and petty, his power taken away. But if Jesus does help him then Jesus has broken God's Law about working on the Sabbath and therefore reveals himself as unfaithful.
You can almost hear the Pharisees gloating about the dilemma Jesus is in. Except there was no dilemma. Jesus healed the man. End of story. In doing so he invited the people around him to examine not just the letter of the Law, but its purpose.
The Pharisees were using God's Law like a rulebook by which they kept score. The Law was its own purpose, existing for its own sake, defining who was right and wrong. By its strictest letter they behaved right and other people behaved wrong, which is why they liked it.
Jesus gave us a different definition. The Law doesn't exist to separate right people from wrong people. The Law defines compassion and pushes us towards it. It's there so we know how to be kind and good to each other. If we're not showing compassion we're voiding the Law instead of fulfilling it. When Jesus saw the man with the withered hand, he healed it and thus fulfilled the Law. This was true even when the healing happened on the Sabbath, the day of holiness.
The Pharisees had the rulebook memorized but didn't act compassionately, so they broke the Law even when they appeared to fulfill it. Jesus acted compassionately so he fulfilled the Law even when he appeared to break it.
It's easy to flip back to Leviticus, pull out three verses of Law, and say, "This is what God says and I'm right and you're wrong and God's on my side and not on the side of those people who break this law! God's word say it right there!!!" That's cheap, immature, thoughtless, and gravely mistaken theology. Even calling it "theology" is probably a mistake because that word means "study of God" and there's neither study nor much God in that process. It's all about being right, preserving your prerogatives, justifying your judgments. The Law doesn't justify any of us. It shows us where we've fallen short that we might learn to treat each other better. Using it to treat each other worse is the height of irony.
Jesus didn't do this. He didn't treat the Law that way nor did he treat his friends and neighbors that way. Jesus showed the compassion that the Law is supposed to lead us to: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, sticking up for the poor and oppressed and condemned...especially those oppressed and condemned in the name of God's Law.
Unless you're Jewish, the only way you have access to the Law in the first place is through Christ. If it wasn't for Jesus bringing you into God's family you'd just be another non-Jewish person to whom the Law was not given. He makes the Law part of your heritage. He's the only reason you can call the God of the Law your God as well. Therefore the only way we, as Christians, are allowed to interpret the Law is as Christ did...as compassionate healers instead of self-righteous judges.
Every time you're faced with a legal/moral matter and you're tempted to say, "But God said..." you should stop, re-read this passage, and then ask yourself if you're trying to follow the letter of the Law into judgment or whether you're following its Spirit into compassion. Not everything is lawful. Not all things are good. But condemnation and an air of righteousness are not faithful responses to sin. The only truly lawful, truly faithful response to sin is to do as Jesus did, filling the space in question with God's love, compassion, and healing.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Right on point. This is insightful. The weightier matters of the law (judgment, mercy and faith) are to be pursued and not the letter (Matt. 23:23)
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