Year 2, Week 35, Day 2 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 35, Day 2

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Luke 13-14.

Today’s reading consists of two chapters from Luke’s Gospel account. The opposition to Jesus, on the part of the Jewish religious establishment continues to be a strong theme in today’s reading, as hostile attitudes towards Jesus elevate. Luke 13 opens with Jesus issuing an intense call to repent: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5). But Luke 13 includes Jesus’ heartbreaking realization that repentance would not occur in large measure: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13:34). As the opposition to Jesus increases, both Luke 13 and 14 record several parables that Jesus uses to provide greater insight to His disciples about the Kingdom of God: “He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?” (Luke 13:18). Remember, the parables both clarify and conceal; they clarify truths to those who believe, but they conceal truth from those who have hard hearts against the Lord. Nevertheless, in the midst of opposition, Jesus clarifies what it means to follow Him: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). 

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was how the Sabbath continued to be a major point of contention between Jesus and the Jewish religious establishment. Each chapter of Luke’s Gospel account in today’s reading records events that stir up the controversy over the Sabbath. The Sabbath has become the matter that is the face of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. The Sabbath controversy recorded in Luke 13 occurs in a synagogue: “Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath” (Luke 13:10). The Sabbath controversy recorded in Luke 14 occurs in the home of a leader of the Pharisees: “One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully” (Luke 14:1). The reality of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders presents itself, in large part, in the context of matters pertaining to the Sabbath.

As Jesus was teaching in a Synagogue on the Sabbath, He noticed the presence of a crippled woman: “And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability” (Luke 13:11-12). While the woman healed was overjoyed and praised God, the ruler of the synagogue did not have the same 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). The ruler does not see a human being in front of him, one freed from a terrible disability; but instead is annoyed because he feels that a command of God has been violated. Jesus is unequivocal about the matter: “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?” (Luke 13:15). The actual Sabbath ordinance focused on not only personally working, but even more so, obligating others from work on the seventh day: “On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates” (Exodus 20:10). But rescuing an animal should not be confused with making an animal work. Truly this ruler did not understand either the need to do good, but also the real point of the Sabbath. As a result, the ruler was highly offended by Jesus’ actions.

As Jesus was visiting the home of a leader of the Pharisees on the Sabbath, He initiated something of a provocation in regard to a disabled guest: “And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” (Luke 14:2-3). We are told that all of Jesus’ words and actions were under close scrutiny: “they were watching him carefully.” He asks a question that He had asked before: “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?” (Luke 6:9). While they do not give an answer in either case, they are eager to see what He would do, “so that they might find a reason to accuse him” (Luke 6:7b). Jesus faces the case that the Jewish leaders are making against Him, in order to demonstrate the significance of the arrival of the Kingdom of God. The Jewish leaders misunderstand the blessing of the emergence of God’s Kingdom, because in their unbelief, they leveraged matters such as the Sabbath to control with restrictions and repression, not expressions of rest and restoration. The ultimate trajectory of the Sabbath was how it pointed to a time when the ravages of life in a fallen world, cut off from a right relationship with God, would be reversed. And when it was reversed, people’s illnesses and sufferings would be made to go away. Jesus’ attempts to show that the Sabbath is the perfect day to heal for it anticipates the day when all the creation is restored. But unbelief refuses to consider the error of its ways: “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?” And they could not reply to these things” (Luke 14:5-6). 

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe