When A Miracle Makes You Mad Series

Take the Sabbath for example. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day regulated how far you could walk on the Sabbath – no more than 1,640 feet. If you visit Israel as a tourist, you’ll discover they are still very serious about the Shabbat. For example, you cannot tear a paper towel on Shabbat. Things that are attached – through glue, sewing, or even perforation – cannot be unattached for a purpose on Shabbat. This would involve taking something in one form and carefully dividing it up into another for some use, thus creating something anew.

Back to the Story

Again, this is one of five miracles Jesus performed on the Sabbath. Just a little before our story, Jesus encounters a woman who hade hurting for 18 years. Jesus, being full of compassion, healed the woman and did so on the Sabbath. But notice the religious leaders reaction: But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” (Luke 13:14) Still on another occasion, Jesus encountered a man with a withered hand. Look at their reaction: “But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.” (Luke 6:11) Whether they were “indignant” or “filled with fury,” you get the picture. There is a new kind of evil on these pages and one that may have not thought of. No doubt there’s hurt when natural disaster comes our way and there’s pain when disabilities arrive at our doorstep. But here’s a new kind of evil here – a religious evil. Evil is so Evil that it twists even good things, even the very words of God. Evil works itself like a sock that is pulled inside out. What else would call it when an ambulance pulls up to your home to save your loved one and religious people tell the driver to go away? “Come back tomorrow!”

Just like an NFL quarterback who places the perfect spiral between defenders and into the arms of a receiver, Jesus locates His question perfectly: “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” (Luke 14:5) Humans will twist what is evil to make it look like good. The evilness of evil startles and surprises us. Just this week I read of a Rutgers law professor who argues that pedophilia was not a crime but simply a disorder. Evil is evil that it twists even good things, even the law of God. Note: The law of God wasn’t the problem. It was when the law of God was twisted, like a sock, that religion becomes a problem.

I am so grateful for the courage of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t shy away from the “sacred cows” of the religious leaders. He heals on the Sabbath, He drives the moneychangers out of the temple, He offends their sensibilities by dining with tax collectors and “sinners,” and He offends their feelings of superiority in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Real love always stands against deception. Here are two emotional reactions from this important story.