Living Stones – Thursday, February 1, 2018
Sabbath healings
Luke 6:11
But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Let’s be very clear right at the start today that this devotional is not a discussion about the Sabbath. The arguments about Sabbath worship will continue, I believe, until Jesus comes. I work in ministry with many persons who worship on the Sabbath, and there are persons who worship on Saturday who read these devotionals. I take no issue with them because Jesus is also “Lord of the Sabbath.”
Having cleared that up, let’s turn our attention to some issues that Jesus encountered in the Synagogue on one Sabbath day. The story is recorded in Luke 6:6-11. Jesus goes to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and we know that this was His custom, Luke 4:16. “Jesus kept going although the Synagogue kept becoming more and more controversial and, eventually, hostile to Him.”
Jesus encountered His greatest resistance among the people of God, not among the Gentiles, not among the Roman occupiers, but among His people. Years later John the Apostle summed it up this way after looking back at the situations they faced, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” John 1:11.
The Jews, the Pharisees and the Synagogue rulers were caught up in what we could call a religious box of their time. For a few hundred years things had gone on just as they had been, the liturgy and rituals were set and predictable and nothing was going to change. There was a sense of stability, security and continuity in maintaining things as they were. They were willing to hold on to their way of doing things at the expense of missing what God is doing.
It is difficult to understand when we got the idea that God is locked up in a box. Now let it be clear, our faith is premised on God being unchanging. The theological term for this is immutable. Because our God is immutable, unchanging, we can depend on the Him to keep His word and His promises to us. The writer to the Hebrews states that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 and the Apostle Paul said that “all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen,” 2 Corinthians 1:20.
However, God’s immutable nature does not preclude Him from doing new and different things. Not things that change His essential character, but things that give new expression to that immutable character. That God would do new things and desire new expressions is not new.
The Psalmists were always aware of this, one example, Psalm 33:3 says, “Sing to Him a new song;” and then goes on to list why, His immutable character. Another example, Psalm 40:3, “He has put a new song in my mouth—”
The Prophets were also aware of this, Isaiah declared, “Sing to the Lord a new song, And His praise from the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 42:10. And again he writes, “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19.
Again, retrospectively, the New Testament writers were able to look back, after Jesus had ascended, and give us a clear perspective on what had taken place. Here is how it was summarised in the letter to the Hebrews, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,” Hebrews 1:1,2, God had, in essence, done a new thing.
So when Jesus entered the Synagogue and established Himself through signs and wonders there should have been no real surprise. They were expecting the Messiah, Jesus had the credentials, and these were confirmed by the works he did. However, the synagogue was a place of hostility and rejection from the very first time He established who He really was. The day He read the Scripture and declared “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:21, they set about to kill him, “all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.” Luke 4:28,29.
Nothing made these clashes worse than Sabbath Day good works. Healing on the Sabbath challenged the religious box in which the synagogues operated. They failed to see the hand of God about to move mightily among them. Jesus challenged them saying, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” John 5:39. Nevertheless, they stayed in their box while God was doing a new thing. They “watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.” Luke 6:7
Jesus ran headlong into their resistance movement, God was not going to be constrained by the box men had placed Him in. With a man’s withered hand outstretched before them, He posed the question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?”
So many of us today are locked in religious boxes that we are unable to experience the move of God in our lives. We have denominational boxes, traditional boxes, cultural boxes, and boxes we have constructed for ourselves out of our own sense of self.
God is always at work to do a new thing, to bring fresh wind and fresh fire but we are missing it locked up in our box. We are always ready to shoot down anything that threatens to shake our way of doing things and our position on how God works.
Think on these things:
- What are the religious traditions that you hold on to?
- Are there any denominational barriers that limit your spiritual experience?
- What has God done that has challenged your view of how He works?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be open to see and embrace the next move of God in our church and lives.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
