casual reader of the Bible can find evidence to prove just about any point they want to make within the pages of Scripture. It is in these types of readings that many of the idols or golden calves that are found in the modern church are born. Wait a minute…there are not any idols in the modern church, are there?” Well unfortunately the answer is yes. No longer are they made of wood and stone as they were in ancient days. Today, they are found in the form of programs, schedules, structures, buildings and other traditions. These idols are revered by many and often prevent the necessary changes to allow ministry to take place. Believe me; you will know when you smash one of these simply by the reaction of many in the crowd. These idols are never intended to take precedence over God and His Word but unfortunately so many times they inadvertently do. These things are not bad, in and of themselves, until they keep us from carrying out the mission of Christ. In our text we encounter one such idol, the Sabbath. The odd thing about the Sabbath was that it was given to man by God and the people still managed to turn it into an idol. For example if a chicken laid an egg on the Sabbath you could not eat it because it was the product of work. However, you could hatch that very same egg later and then eat the chicken. This sounds so ludicrous but if you really think about it, there are things we hold to in the church that are just as ludicrous. Today, once again we are going to learn that Jesus and carrying out His mission must take precedence over every idol or tradition.
I. Religion can be so steeped in tradition that it actually becomes heartless.
A. First century Judaism was marked by three very distinct badges, circumcision, dietary laws and the Sabbath.
1. Each of these established that the Israelites were a distinctive people, God’s chosen people.
2. As the years went by many traditions and regulations grew up around these distinctive marks. In our text we see that this had happened with the Sabbath.
3. The Pharisees had compiled a list of thirty-nine categories of actions that were forbidden on the Sabbath. In fact the Talmud contains a whole chapter on what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath.
4. There were regulations about carrying weight, latching your sandals, lighting candles and even looking in mirrors.
5. Remember the chicken illustration that I shared earlier it was just one example of how ridiculous these regulations became.
B. This passage highlights that the Pharisees and Jesus each approached the law in a different manner.
1. It was not uncommon for roads in ancient Palestine to run through the center of fields, so the setting of this scene would have been quite common.
2. The disciples were hungry and they began to pick some of the heads of grains, on any other day but the Sabbath nothing would have been said.
3. The disciples were not stealing, God’s law made provisions for this kind of sharing among His people as evidenced in Deuteronomy 23:25.
4. Harvesting grain was forbidden on the Sabbath and to the Pharisees that was just what they were doing.
5. Technically the disciples were not guilty of wrong doing. They were not harvesting to make a profit. They were simply picking some grain because they were hungry.
6. The bottom line is that the Pharisees are so bent on catching Jesus in some wrong doing that they were willing to try almost anything.
7. Following in the footsteps of the Pharisees, many legalistic Christians build a fence around the strictest interpretation of Scripture attaching many regulations in order to keep people from breaking it.
II. Understanding the authority of Jesus results in the value of people being greatly increased.
A. Jesus shows the needs of people must take precedent over the authority and traditions of man.
1. Jesus uses the example of David and the priests to justify the actions of His disciples.
a. David violated the written law in 1 Samuel 21 when he ate the consecrated bread as he was fleeing from Saul.
b. The priests carry out their duty and butcher animals for sacrifices out of necessity and are not guilty of breaking the Sabbath.
2. If David and the priests can ignore the written law in the service of God then how much more can Jesus’ disciples ignore the oral traditions of the Pharisees in serving the one who is greater than both David and the priests?
3. The Pharisees knew the Scriptures thoroughly and when Jesus asks, “Haven’t you read,” He is not accusing them of not reading Scripture but of missing the true meaning of Scripture.
4. Jesus was not advocating disobedience to God’s law. Instead, He was emphasizing discernment and compassion when enforcing the different ceremonial laws.
B. When healing the man with the shriveled hand, Jesus puts an exclamation point on the principle He is trying to teach.
1. The Pharisees still failing to get the point try to trap Jesus once again by asking “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
2. Jesus uses an illustration to make His point, if a man’s sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath he is free to rescue it although it constitutes work.
3. Jesus shows that if an animal is worth saving on the Sabbath, then it stands to reason that people who are much more valuable than animals should be given the same courtesy.
4. Jesus makes the pronouncement that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, because doing good fulfills the original intentions of the Sabbath.
5. The Pharisees are angry not because Jesus heals the man’s hand but because not only had He embarrassed them and overruled their authority, He had exposed their true intentions in front of a large crowd in the Synagogue.
C. Jesus’ authority transcends both human authority as well as traditions.
1. When Jesus claimed to be the Lord of the Sabbath, He was claiming that not only was He above the Law but that He was greater than the Law.
2. To the Pharisees Jesus’ claims were blasphemies because He was claiming equality with God. However, the problem lied in the fact they did not truly understand who Jesus was.
3. Jesus being the divine Son of God had created the Sabbath. The creator is always greater than the creation; so Jesus had the right to overrule their traditions and regulations.
4. Larry Chouinard in his commentary on Matthew writes, Ironically, the “Son of Man” who has no place to rest, and is rejected as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners”, possesses authority and glory greater than one of Israel’s most sacred cultic expressions. He will demonstrate the true meaning of the Sabbath, and thereby bring “rest” to his people.
5. Jesus demonstrates His authority by healing the man’s hand in the synagogue.
III. We need to beware of things that would prevent us from effectively ministering to those on the outside of the church.
A. We learn from this passage that some of God’s greatest enemies fight God in the name of God.
1. There is a great difference between religion and Christianity. Religion is based on faithfully keeping a particular set of rules and regulations. Christianity is based on a relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ.
2. Every time Jesus would prepare to heal or show compassion, it seems like a religious leader was there and ready to provide an obstruction.
3. The Pharisees try to use a crippled man to trap Jesus and show that He was guilty of breaking the law. Things have not changed too much. Today many are guilty of following religious rules and traditions at the cost of their relationship with Christ.
4. The Pharisees are so legalistic that they will prevent their rules and traditions from being broken by any means necessary. In fact they will murder their Messiah in the name of religion.
5. How can we miss the fact that truly loving Christ means loving people and being willing to reach them regardless of what it might cost us?
B. Are their idols in our lives or church that keeps us from truly carrying out the mission of Christ?
1. Many times people have been intimidated from coming to the church because of our dress codes and special vocabulary that we use in the church.
2. We pronounce judgments and present teachings that are often on shaky ground and can hardly be justified by a simple book, chapter and verse.
3. The true health of a church is not measured by the offering or attendance figures. The true measure of the health of a church is seen in Christ and His mission being at the center of everything that is being done.
4. We must promote a relationship with Jesus Christ rather than an adherence to manmade rules and traditions.
John Norstad, a Northwestern University systems engineer and computer guru who invented “Disinfect,” a software program that protects computers from viruses, once discovered the source of many computer viruses. In an interview with writer Peter Gorner, Norstad said, “I went to a conference in Europe and most of my counterparts in the PC antiviral community were there. One fellow consultant and designer was a Bulgarian who told us about the Bulgarian virus writing factory.
Evidently, during the time that Communist rule was at its height in the 1980s, the KGB trained and paid PC programmers to break western copy-protection schemes. It was an official piracy program that was meant to frustrate computer users on a global scale. Then when the government fell in Bulgaria, all these people were out of work and bitter. So they formed virus writing clubs and set about infecting the PC community worldwide. A significant percentage of the PC viruses came out of this group of disenfranchised hackers who had formally worked for the KGB. Computer viruses are a lot like manmade rules and traditions. They look harmless on the outside but often breed false teachings and destroy what is valuable.
