Jesus, our Ultimate Action Hero is waging a battle against enemies who are keeping us captive and away from a relationship with God. He is in the middle of battling the Pharisees, members of the religious establishment of the day who desired power and control. They were oh so good looking on the outside but corrupt and evil on the inside. Jesus first demonstrates who He is, and the takeover that is coming, by forgiving a paralytic man his sins in a dramatic scene as the man’s friends lower him through the roof. It may have been meant as a demonstration for how Judaism of its day, led by the Pharisees and Sadducees, was keeping humans from experiencing God—and that it took faith, not who you know, to get to God and that the real thing keeping us away was our need of forgiveness. Jesus was telling the Pharisees in no uncertain terms that He was the Messiah, even though He didn’t use those terms. Then to show that this condition of sin separating us from God and that He was the answer, Jesus called a filthy tax collector and then went to a party at his house filled with other “sinners.” As a doctor making a house call, Jesus has come to planet Earth to heal us from the disease of sin.
Now we see scenes three, four, and five—as Jesus demonstrates that the old system of man-made rules is contrary to the character of God and cannot hold His new paradigm.
18 - 20
The Old Testament set aside one day a year for fasting for all Jews: The Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29). Luke tells us that the Pharisees fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. The tense seems to indicate that Matthew’s feast was on one of the days the Pharisees set aside for fasting. John’s disciples erroneously sided with the Pharisees in also fasting on these days, so the question arises: if John’s disciples fast, why are Jesus’ disciples feasting?
The Pharisees fasted as a show of piety. John’s disciples did it as a sign of mourning for sin and to prepare them for the coming Messiah. But the Messiah was here so no fasting was needed! The crucifixion was coming, and at that time His disciples would mourn, but not for long!
So Jesus next introduces the idea that the old way of rule keeping was not a part of what the Messiah was about:
21 – 22
The idea here is simple and yet profound in its implications. Just as no one would sew unshrunken cloth to patch an old garment, you can’t just sew Jesus onto the current system of Judaism—it would literally tear away from it. Jesus represents approaching God personally, through our High Priest Jesus, not through animal sacrifices. The new system stretches the old too much.
Wineskins were made of water-tight goatskins. As the grapes fermented they stretched the skin. Once stretched it could not be used for fresh wine anymore because it had no more room in it to grow. Judaism could not contain the new thing the Messiah was about. Judaism was about the Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law and brought about God’s love and grace, which the Law could not stretch to do. The Law itself looked to the Messiah, but the men who ran Judaism were too rigid to expand to include the grace of God through Jesus Christ. So the Messiah brings a new covenant with God, a new wineskin.
So next Jesus challenges a sacred cow of the Jewish system: the Sabbath
23 – 26
Jesus demonstrates how the old wineskin of Judaism won’t fit the new paradigm by eating, then healing on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a really big deal to the Jews. The religious leaders had created entire encyclopedias about what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. It got so bad that they, the religious leaders, became Lords of the Sabbath.
The Pharisees had declared 39 categories of actions that were forbidden on the Sabbath. It was originally created as a day of rest (Exodus 20:10). The Sabbath was a day to rejuvenate, to set the dials back to zero. It was a day to worship God and reflect on Him. The Pharisees were so good at building fences to make sure no one violated the Sabbath that they fenced God out and fenced man in to slavish adherence of what became a silly bunch of contradictory rules.
Jesus and His disciples were having a leisurely stroll on the Sabbath. When they got hungry they snacked on some grain from a farmer’s field. On a normal day this would have been acceptable according to the Law (Deut 23:25) but on the Sabbath the Pharisees had decreed that you could not walk any distance or do any work of any kind, including “harvesting.” The idea of the Sabbath was to not do any regular work. Jesus and His men were not farmers “harvesting” a crop; they were simply people “gleaning” some grain to eat because they were hungry.
This irked the Pharisees so they challenged Him on it. Instead of being defensive, however, Jesus throws out their whole notion of the Sabbath and then goes on to declare His divinity and lordship over the Sabbath itself!
The story in verses 25 and 26 is recorded in 1Samuel 21:1-6. Each week twelve loaves were placed before the altar in the Tabernacle representing the 12 tribes of Israel. When they were replaced with fresh ones the priests could eat them in “a holy place” (Lev 24:9). When David and his men were running from Saul, Ahimelech the high priest okayed them having the bread because their needs were more important than the regulation. Jesus mentions that it was Abiathar who did this. This is a rabbinical method of mentioning he who was most prominent in the section, and Abiathar was Ahimelech’s son and successor. He may have been involved in the incident as well.
But Jesus’ point is that discernment and compassion are more important than slavish obedience. He was not condoning breaking God’s Law but is saying that if you condemn Me you must condemn David, which the Scripture in 1 Samuel does not do.
27 – 28
The Pharisees were very concerned with the letter of the Law. Jesus always focused on the Law’s intent, which was to provide a day of rest and worship. Some work could be done—by the priests offering sacrifices for instance. Next, Jesus demonstrates other hypocrisies and inconsistencies with how the Sabbath rules were laid down. But here the point is that Sabbath is for the man, to rejuvenate him, rather than for man to serve the Sabbath!
3:1 – 4
The Pharisees were watching Jesus everywhere He went, looking for an opportunity to pin something on Him. Healing, in their view, was “working” because it was practicing medicine. Unless someone’s life was in danger, no healing could take place on the Sabbath. Keeping the rules was more important than doing good. Jesus saw a need and did something about it and it didn’t matter what day it was. All the Pharisees saw was an opportunity to accuse. This man, and his condition, meant nothing to them.
Jesus is going to make a big point: that He is Lord of the Sabbath. He is also saying that the Pharisee’s rules are not God’s Law. So He has the man stand up. He asks the Pharisees if it is lawful. They could have answered that no, it was not, because it was not life threatening. Jesus could have waited till the next day but that would have elevated the Pharisee’s rules to the level of God’s Law. It’s actually interesting that they didn’t answer, but perhaps in their hearts they knew the rule didn’t make sense. The tense suggests Jesus left an embarrassingly long time for them to respond, but they would not.
In Matthew’s gospel Jesus adds: "Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." (Matt 12:11-13 NRSV)
As Jesus waits He sees the hardness. They won’t think. They won’t adjust. They won’t do anything that threatens their personal power. His reaction is emotional: anger and sorrow. Other versions suggest grief instead of sorrow but they are very close. I imagine He felt anger because this hardness was keeping people like this man in bondage to disability and their rules in general kept the people in bondage to them—closing the door to the Messiah. Man standing in the way of God’s healing should always bring up anger in our souls. But it was also a feeling of sorrow at what they were missing—healing in both body and soul. Sometimes we are so stuck in our own ways, no matter how miserable, that we miss the wonderful opportunity to jettison our way and give ourselves fully over to the Lord!
3:5 – 6
Jesus simply told the man to stretch out His hand—something he could not probably have done before—and it was healed instantly. Jesus didn’t even do anything that could have been construed as healing, yet He had so embarrassed the Pharisees that their response was to plot murder, itself a violation of the Sabbath (it was not legal to do evil on the Sabbath or any day!).
The Pharisees were angry as well. But their anger turned to rage and they sought to do evil. When anger turns to doing harm, it is not righteous anger. Many times if you inspect anger and find that the anger comes because of something involving you, it may not do good. You may be embarrassed, shamed, guilty, or knocked off your high horse—Jesus’ anger was focused on what keeps people away from God, and had nothing to do with a personal slight.
The Pharisees plotted with the Herodians, an unlikely alliance since these two groups hated each other. The Pharisees hated Rome and wanted to overthrow their occupation of Palestine. The Herodians wanted to work within the Roman system to restore the Herods to full reign. But to fight against the authority of Jesus they found common ground. It’s amazing the lengths we sometimes go to fight against God’s love and healing.
Conclusions
Have you created rules that supersede God?
Is your response to life one of following the rules, or following God’s character?
The Pharisees were blindly following their own rules so much that they were blind to the need around them. Jesus was ruled by authority and love.
Paul said: 1 Cor 10:23-24 “Everything is permissible," but not everything is helpful. "Everything is permissible," but not everything builds up. 24 No one should seek his own good, but the good of the other person. HCSB
