Jesus Worked On The Sabbath (But So Did The Pharisees)

What Did Jesus Do?

“Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.”
John 9.14

Jesus had confused and disappointed the “sin spotters,” who were anxious to blame a man's congenital blindness on sin, either the man's or his parents', when the Lord declared that the disability was so that the works of God could be shown in the man (John 9.2-3; see WDJD from 3/31/11). But that confusion and disappointment was nothing when compared to the alarm and indignation of the “Sabbath Sheriffs” (a.k.a. Pharisees) when “the man who had formerly been blind,” the poor guy still didn't have a name, was brought to them.

Making mud and curing blindness on the Seventh Day? Why, there was a dangerous Sabbath-breaker on the loose! So the Sabbath Sheriffs went to work doing what Sabbath Sheriffs do, and launched an immediate criminal investigation. The formerly blind man was interrogated, twice. He had to be questioned a second time because there was a significant difference of opinion over the character of the mystery worker of miracles (John 9.16-17). The now seeing man wasn't really interested in the opinions of others, to him it was as if one of the great prophets of old had come and healed him (John 9.17).

But the Sabbath Sheriffs simply would not rest until they tracked down the transgressor of their law, never mind that rest was the whole idea of the Sabbath. They would work as long as it took them to get their man. Apparently, misguided efforts to try and protect the Sabbath did not fall into the category of forbidden work, but honoring the Sabbath by doing the works of God was a serious violation.

Of course, in a day and age when most folks do the same things on Sunday that they do on any other day of the week, the whole issue of “keeping” the Sabbath might seem rather quaint to some of us. But the crux of the matter wasn't really Sabbath regulations, but rather knowing and doing the will of the Father. Jesus understood that he had only so much time to do the works of the one who had sent him (John 9.4), and even from an early age the Lord knew that he must be about his Father's business (see Luke 2.49).

Now, the Sabbath Sheriffs, self-appointed reckoners of righteousness, didn't know God nearly as well as they thought they did. Their problem was that their hearts were so hard, their minds so closed, their ears so deaf, their eyes so blind, that they could not, would not recognize when God was at work right in front of them. They suffered from a spiritual disability far more crippling than the blindness the man had been born with.

In the end, what matters is not what we believe about one day versus another, but what we believe about the man who gave sight to the blind, and made the deaf to hear, the mute shout, and the lame leap for joy. If we believe and know Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16.16), then we accept his call to take up our cross and follow him every day, as, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we too do the works of the Father who sent the Son to not only cure our infirmities, but to save us.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4