Luke Chapter 6
“For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.”
The Pharisees and scribes, in seeking to find fault with Jesus and His disciples on the issue of Sabbath keeping, clearly did so with ill intent. Not only are they judgmental, there is no real sincere love for others nor fearful regard for the words of God. That is why Jesus called them ‘blind leading the blind’.
On the other hand, if we truly want to be recognized as a good tree, we need to pay closer heed to what Jesus emphasized as follows:
- Bearing the right values and attitudes as espoused in the Beatitudes (verses 20 -23) while avoiding the converse (verses 24 to 26)
- To love people around us, even our enemies and those who hate us (verses 27 to 37), and by it receive the mercy of the Lord.
- Not to be judgmental but rather to be self-searching (verses 37 to 42), so that we are perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48)
- Be a doer of the word and not just a listener, in full obedience to God. (verses 46 to 49)
On the issue of keeping the Sabbath, it is of interest to note what the Pharisees and Scribes faulted Jesus and His disciples on.
The first contention was on plucking the heads of grain and eating them while out in the fields. This was reckon as doing work, which is thus not lawful.
The second was on healing on a Sabbath, which was also deemed to be doing work and hence not lawful as well.
Jesus corrected their views by pointing out the true purpose of Sabbath – that it is instituted for the good of man. As Jesus said in Mark 2:27 that Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
Hence let us treasure the Sabbath rest that God has established for us, to re-connect with God after expending our energy in our labour, to reflect on how marvelously and wonderfully we and the whole world are created, to remember His salvation grace, and to look around us, at our fellow creatures, to see how we can extend the same measure of goodness that we have received.
We know that when one seeks to find fault, one will not stop at just finding a reason to ‘attack’ the other party. To make the other party yield, we will always seek out reasons (even trumped up charges) to strengthen our case against the other.
Since the Pharisees and Scribes did not accuse Jesus nor His disciples with regards to keeping the Sabbath; i.e. in the worship of God in the synagogue, in prayer, we can conclude that there was no point of contention.
As for Jesus’ proclamation ‘The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath’, what do we understand by statement?
Some Christians postulates that Jesus had all the power and the authority that He could do with the Sabbath as He pleases, even to abolish it and re-institute as the Lord’s Day. That He is the One who exercises authority over the rules and regulations that govern the Sabbath day. How do we see it?
Jesus in stamping His authority, points out that He has the perfect knowledge and understanding of the purpose of Sabbath, since He is the one who established it.
His way of keeping the Sabbath, His explanation of what is permissible, how Sabbath is to be kept and what Sabbath is all about, is therefore unquestionable.
Man on the other hand has distorted the original intent of the Sabbath, making it cumbersome and a burden to bear (cf Matthew 23). Jesus, in no wise, is making any grounds to say that, there will be a ‘authorised change’ that He will be making from Sabbath to Lord’s day. I
f we truly understand the nature of God, that He never changes (cf Mal 3:6, Heb 13:8) and that He knows all things and has already established all things right from the beginning (cf Eph 1:7 – 12), we thus have the assurance that Jesus intention was to redirect man back to God’s will, to keep the Sabbath the right way, with the right heart and mind, for the right purpose and intent.
