Luke 6:1-11
Let us hear God’s word together.
This is the word of God from the pen of Luke. Remember, he
is writing to Theophilus, an orderly account of all that took
place in order that Theophilus and us may have confidence that
what we know about Christ is true. On a Sabbath, while he was going
through the grain fields, his disciples plucked and ate some
heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the
Pharisees said, why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the
Sabbath? Jesus answered them, have you
not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who
were with him, how he entered the house of God and took and
ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any,
but the priest to eat. And he also gave it to those
who were with him. And he said to them, the son of man is Lord
of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath, he entered
the synagogue and was teaching and a man there whose right hand
was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees
watched him to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath so
that they might find reason to accuse him. But he knew their
thoughts and he said to the man with the withered hand, come
and stand here. He rose and he stood there and Jesus said to
them, I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or
to do harm, to save life or to destroy it? And after looking
around at them, he said to them, stretch, or to him, stretch out
your hand. And he did so and his hand was
restored, but they were filled with fury and they discussed
with one another what they might do to Jesus. Let me also get
you to turn to the book of John, just one book over. John chapter
five, you’ll see in the fifth chapter of John that in that
gospel, there’s an additional story related to Jesus, the Pharisees,
and the Sabbath. You’ll find that in chapter five,
beginning at verse one, and it says this, after there was a
feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, there in Jerusalem,
By the sheep gate is a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which
has five roofed colonnades, and there lay a multitude of invalids,
blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been
an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said
to him, Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered, sir, I
have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred
up. And while I am going another steps down before me, Jesus said
to him, get up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the
man was healed and he took up his bed and walked. Now that
day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who
had been healed is the Sabbath. It is the Sabbath and it is not
lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered them, the
man who healed me, that man said to me, take up your bed and walk.
They asked him, who is the man who said to you, take up the
bed and walk. Now the man who had been healed
did not know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn and there was a
crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in
the temple and said to him, see, you are well, sin no more that
nothing worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the
Jews that it was Jesus who healed him. This was why the Jews were
persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the
Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my father is working until now,
and I am working. Let us pray together. Lord, this
your word we ask today that you would help us to understand what
it means, what it teaches, how it applies to us and our lives,
so that we can better obey you, serve you, glorify you, and use
your Sabbath to be life-giving and not life-taking. Give us
your grace, we pray in the name of Christ our Savior, amen. No
doubt in your lifetime, you have been around rule keepers You
know what it’s like to be around them. They’re really obnoxious.
They’re really annoying. They’re like the police. They
follow you around, and they make sure you’re keeping the rules.
Maybe some of you have this in your homes with siblings. Mom
says not to do this. Dad’s coming home, and you’re
going to get it. Maybe it’s at school. Teacher
says this is what we’re to do, and you’re not doing it. Or maybe
it’s in the workplace. came back from lunch five minutes
late, or on and on it may go. And usually rule keepers, they
not only keep the rules, but they add a little something extra,
something they feel would really help rule keeping be better. And in some cases, they change
the rules altogether to something new. It’s annoying. It’s obnoxious.
We experience it in all kinds of places. And that’s, my friends,
what Jesus was experiencing with the Pharisees. They were the
rule keepers. They were the the police of Jewish
law keeping of the day. And here we have in Luke two
Lord’s days and then in John another where the Pharisees just
happened to be peeking around the corner when Jesus is ministering
to people. They just happened to be peeking
around the corner. They show up as we’ve seen in
all the places where he is with their clipboards and they’re
checking the boxes. Is Jesus doing the right things
or is he doing the wrong things? What’s his grade? What are his
marks? The three little stories that
we have before us that help us understand the Sabbath, the Lord’s
Day, are the disciples eating the grain, the man with the withered
hand being healed, and then the invalid by the pool of Bethesda. Now in Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
you have the two stories that are in Luke. You have the eating
of the grain and the withered hand, but John gives us the story
of the invalid, the man who had not walked for some 38 years. And so as we look at these three
stories where Jesus encounters the rule keepers, the Pharisees,
we want to consider a couple of things to help us understand. We want to consider what is the
Sabbath? What is the Sabbath? When was it instituted? Did it
just start in the fourth commandment when God said to Israel in the
wilderness, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy on it, you
shall not do any work. You nor your manservant, nor
your maidservant, nor the stranger who is within thy gates, your
ox, your donkey, any that is within your household should
not do any work, but we should rest. Is that when the Sabbath
came about? No, it came with creation. Remember,
the Lord made the world and everything in it. He said it’s good. And
he rested on the seventh day before sin, before the fall. God gave us as a creation ordinance
the Sabbath. He reaffirmed it, if you will,
in the Ten Commandments. God wants us to take one whole
day and seven to rest. He wants us to take one whole
day in seven to worship. He wants us to take one whole
day in seven to cease from our business and our pleasures. And
he wants us to remember, to observe, to worship, to take a break physically
and spiritually from the things that bring us weariness, that
we might find rest. were called as Christians to
be in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day with the Lord’s people
to rest and to worship and to observe and to serve. And in our modern day biblical
interpretation, you might look at least in the Reformed camp
at two perspectives on the Sabbath. There’s the Puritan view of the
Sabbath, you’ll find The explanation of it, you could look in the
back of your hymnal at the larger catechism that explains the Sabbath. And it’s a holy resting. It’s
ceasing from our labors. It’s not employing other people. It’s coming to worship. It’s
reading the scriptures. It’s contemplating our spiritual life,
our blessings in God. Maybe some of you have read stories. In our household, we’ve read
all the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And there’s
one particular story called Farmer Boy. It’s about her husband,
Almanzo’s upbringing. And Almanzo tells a story about
his father’s upbringing, where when they were young, they had
made a sled. Some of you remember this, I’m
sure. They made a sled and they wanted to ride it, but it was
the Sabbath. And they knew they couldn’t ride the sled, but their
father had fallen asleep. And so they went out to ride
the sled. Well, the pig jumped on the sled with them. And as
they went flying down the hill past the house, the pig was squealing
and their father woke up from his nap. But he waited till the
end of the Lord’s day to deal with it. because that would have
been work. And so you see an example of a maybe a strict view
of the Sabbath. And that’s the Puritan view.
Many of our reformed brothers and sisters follow that view.
Then there’s what we call the continental view that came not
from England and Scotland and Wales and the confession of faith,
but it came from Germany. It came from some of the other
reformed traditions. And they saw the Sabbath as a
little bit more freeing. We rest, we worship, we serve. And yes, it’s a different day
than ordinary, but maybe not so strict. Well, then you just
drive a mile or two from here and there’s the whole opposite
view of the Lord’s day. The malls are now open, the restaurants
are now open, the gas stations are now open. Some of you, like
I, can remember Sunday blue laws when if you wanted gas, you better
get it on Saturday night. And if you needed it on Sunday,
you better get it out of your shed or your barn. Or you can
remember when the mall was closed, when you could not trade, you
could not conduct business on the Sabbath because it was ingrained
in our society and enforced by what we call blue laws. Oh, how things have changed.
Just go up the street today and you’ll probably see that the
malls, the restaurants and all other places of trade are busier
than ever. For Sunday has become an extension
of the weekend. It has become another day to
catch up and to get things done. And so we must understand the
Sabbath in order to look at this passage. We also must understand
work. Now, in order to understand this
passage, you’ve got to understand what the Pharisees considered
work. You’ll notice in the passage
that the disciples of Jesus were hungry. And so one day on the
Sabbath, they were walking through the grain fields. They plucked
some grain. They rubbed it together in their
hands and they ate it. Well, what do you think the Pharisees
said they did? Well, they worked. You plucked
grain that’s reaping. It’s on the clipboard. You rubbed
it together in your hands, that’s threshing. And now you’ve done
work, you’ve broken the Sabbath. Well, the problem was you broke
their rule of the Sabbath and not the rules of the Lord of
the Sabbath, Jesus, who is the law giver and the law keeper
and the law interpreter. You know what it’s like when
you go for a little nature walk, you walk through the woods or
a field and you pick up a stick and you, drag it along the trees
or you pick up a grain of grass and you break it apart and watch
the seed fly away. Well, this was a little more
than that. They were hungry. And so they did pick, they did
rub the seed. They did eat it, but it was out
of necessity. They were hungry. They needed
food. They were not Sabbath breakers, but they were providing for their
needs in a simple, basic way. The Pharisees didn’t see it that
way. And in the next two instances
with the man with the withered hand, as well as the man by the
pool of Bethesda, you see, you see men who were sick, they were
handicapped for Years, this man’s right hand, Luke tells us, did
not work. You can imagine what it would be like to not have
your right hand work. You couldn’t write. You couldn’t type. You
couldn’t text. You couldn’t you couldn’t do
a lot if that was your dominant hand. And so you see his life
had been changed. His hand was crippled. It was
withered. It did not work. He could not work. And then the
invalid, the man who was by the pool of Bethesda, he had not
walked in 38 years. And what does Jesus seek to do?
He seeks to come, and as we have considered much from the gospel
of Luke, he comes to make all things new. He comes to make
his blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He comes
to take a withered hand and make it a working hand. He comes to
make an invalid a walking man. Now, what the Pharisees see here
is Well, this could have been done on Sunday through Friday. Remember the seventh day there,
Sabbath. This could have been done Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before sundown, of
course. Because this man’s life was not in danger. You don’t
heal if you’re a physician. You don’t heal under Jewish law
unless someone’s life is in danger. And the man with the withered
hand, he could make it. And the man who could not walk, he could
lay there another day. Their healing could wait, so
thought the Pharisees. And so look at, if you will,
Jesus’ responses to each of these situations. Now, mind you, as
we look at Jesus’ responses that by this point in time, the Pharisees
who had followed Jesus around with their clipboards, they had
seen that he had eaten with tax collectors and sinners. They
had seen that he claimed to be God by forgiving sins. They had
seen all kinds of situations where Jesus was doing everything
they didn’t approve of because he equated himself with God.
They were at this point pretty livid. Their pot, their pressure
cooker was about to boil over. And the things Jesus does here
in front of them are going to turn up the heat. And the first
thing Jesus says to them when their disciples, his disciples,
are accused of working on the Sabbath by plucking and reaping
and rubbing and threshing, he says this, have you not heard?
Have you not read? Now, before we explain what he
means, just think about the irony of that. What are the Pharisees? They’re also teachers of the
law. And Jesus is really insulting them. OK, you teachers of the
law. OK, you interpreters of the law. Have you not read what
is in the law? And in the law, David had a need. The men who were with him had
a need. And they were hungry and they ate. Yes, it was the
holy bread, it was the show bread, it was the bread of the presence,
but they ate out of necessity. Their material needs trumped
the ceremonial law. And Jesus is, in a sense, saying
to these Pharisees, if David did it, and I am the greater
David who has now come, he was a little M Messiah King. I am the big M Messiah King.
I am the ultimate. Can I not do what he did and
even more so? And then he gives this wonderful
statement at the end of that little section. He says, the
son of man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Then if you go to the
next little vignette where Jesus is approached by the Pharisees
about the man with the withered hand, he senses their hardness
of heart. He knows what they’re thinking.
They’re going to trap him. They’re going to get enough marks on
their clipboard that he’s done enough wrong that he ought to
be Something ought to be done with him. And so he says this
to them. I am asking you, is it good on
the Sabbath? Is it OK on the Sabbath to do
good or to do harm? You’re the experts in the law.
What is lawful? You tell me, should I heal the
guy or should I not heal the guy? And so really the question
at hand is, should they hinder a man from being healed? No,
really the question at hand is, should you be plotting to kill
Messiah on the Sabbath? And you see what Jesus is really
saying to them is there’s seven days in a week and six days in
the week we should do good and not evil. How much more on the
seventh day, the holy day, should we not do evil, by the way, what
you’re plotting to do? But how much more should we do
good on that day? And then if you look at the little
story in John’s gospel, where Jesus tells the man who had been
there on his mat for 38 years, you know, the story, the, the
pool, when it was stirred, if you got into it, they brought
thought it brought healing. And Jesus says to the man, don’t
you want to be healed? And he says, I’ve got nobody
to help me get in the water. And besides that, when I get
up and get towards the water, somebody else has to go in and
it takes two and I have no helpers. He didn’t realize what Jesus
was asking for. All Jesus had to say was, get up, pick up your
bed and walk. And the man would be healed.
All the Pharisees, they got their clipboards out. They’re following
this man around. He’s carrying his bed under his arm, his little
bed roll. It’s there. He’s working, broken one of their
rules. Who told you to do this? Well,
the man that healed me told me to do this. I’m sure their suspicions
were up. It’s got to be Jesus. We don’t know it, but it’s got
to be. And then later, as you read in John’s gospel, they find
out it’s Jesus. He is putting people to work
on the Sabbath. And what is Jesus response? His
response is this. My father is working until now
and I am working. What do we see about the Lord’s
day? Well, we see a couple of things. One is the Son of Man
is the Lord of the Sabbath. If he’s the Lord of the Sabbath,
he can do on the Sabbath what he pleases. Now, that doesn’t
mean maybe what many of our Christian friends believe, Sunday’s for
everything. Yeah, we keep the Lord’s hour, we go to church,
but we go to work, we trade, we do business, we do pleasure.
It’s not that. Jesus uses the Sabbath for redemptive
things. He uses it for worship. Yes,
he loves the father. He uses it for instruction and
for learning. He’s a teacher of the word, an instructor in
the word. He uses it for mercy to help others in need. He uses it for fellowship. He
uses it for the things that we are called to use it for. But
he’s saying here, I’m the Lord of the Sabbath and I’m doing
redemptive things. I’m doing holy things. I’m doing
things that bless others. I’m. Like the father. In a sense he’s saying, like
father, he’s working, like son, I am working. And notice how
Jesus uses the Sabbath. He tells his disciples, eat.
He tells the man with the withered hand, stretch it out, let it
be healed. He tells the man who was stuck by the pool these 38
years, get up, take up your bed and walk. Can’t you imagine these
Pharisees They’re boiling mad. They’re seething with anger.
And this is on the Sabbath. This is on the day they’re supposed
to be delighting in the Lord. This is on the day when they’re
supposed to be mindful of God who brought them out of Egypt.
God who brought them out of the hand of Pharaoh, out from under
slavery, out from under bondage and brought them into a state
of salvation and redemption. Their clipboards are hot. Their
pens are fast and quickly writing. You can imagine they’re so tense.
Their ink pens, their quills, whatever it was they used, they
snapped. And the subcommittee to kill Jesus has an emergency
meeting. That’s what’s taking place here.
He’s a Sabbath breaker. He’s a Lord’s Day desecrator. And this day of rest and gladness,
this market day of the soul, this foretaste of eternity, the
Pharisees have turned it into a day of misery, a day of rule
keeping, a day of people pleasing. And so what God intended to be
a delight, they have turned into something to dread and not a
day of joy. What is the Sabbath for? What
is the Lord’s Day for? Well, here’s a good way to think
of it. Some of you cross railroad tracks and you know the rule
that you were taught in driver’s education. When you come to the
railroad, what do you do? You stop, you look and you listen. And that’s really what the Lord’s
Day is for. We’re just stop. We burn candles at both ends.
We are so busy. We’re busy with our work. We’re
busy with our housekeeping. We’re busy with our relationships.
We’re busy with our business affairs. We’re busy with just
life. We burn candles at both ends
and we need, in God’s wisdom, to stop. We need to look. We need to look at God’s grace,
his provision, his promises. We need to look at what he has
done for us. And then we need to listen to
his word. And so the Lord’s Day is a chance
for us both physically, but also spiritually. It’s a chance for
us to stop, to cease, to rest. And we rest from our labors,
but we also rest in the promises of Almighty God. We rest in his
truths, his comforts, his blessings. And some will say, oh, The Sabbath
is Old Covenant. The Sabbath is Levitical. The
Sabbath is ceremonial. It does not apply to us today.
But dear friends, it’s a creation ordinance. It’s a pre-fall ordinance
where God himself rested and he gave us the command to rest.
He set an example for us in his doing it himself. And if rest
was needed before the fall. If rest was needed before sin,
how much more do we need it now? Running as we do, burning our
candles at both ends as we do. You know, here’s a test for you.
If you’re burnt out physically and you’re burnt out spiritually,
maybe you should ask yourself, how do I treat Sundays? How do
I treat the Lord’s day? Do I stop? Do I look? Do I listen? Do I rest? Do I worship? You see, the Pharisees abused
it by making rules. And sometimes we can do that
as well. But others abuse it by completely disregarding it,
by using it as a day for pleasure, using it as a day for business. But it’s a day for rest and worship
and doing good to others. It’s for our own body. It’s for
our own souls. but it’s for others as well that
we might serve them and that we might give them a taste of
heaven. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Our God and heavenly
father, we give you thanks this day that in your word, you show
us who we are. We’re weary, we’re tired, we
need rest. And we thank you that in your
word, you give us that rest one whole day in seven to cease,
to stop, to think, to look, to listen, to worship, to serve,
Lord, we are even so busy on the Lord’s day that we are never
rested, but restless. We are never listening, but always
going full speed ahead. And let us use this by your grace
as a challenge to use this day as for what it really is, a gift,
a gift to be different than the other days, to rest, to worship,
to be with your people. To serve others and to, most
of all, have a glimpse, a foretaste of glory that is to come. Give
us your grace to receive this gift and to use it well, we pray
in Christ’s name.