Luke 6: Blessings and Sabbath - Jesus' Heart that Luke Wants to Convey to Theophilus
Luke 6: Blessings and Sabbath - Jesus' Heart that Luke Wants to Convey to Theophilus
1 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels.
2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled.
7 The experts in the law and the Pharisees were watching closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him.
46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
After highlighting Peter, Luke focuses on Jesus' healing ministry, particularly His Sabbath controversies. Why, after introducing Peter's three-stage miracle, does Luke place the Sabbath controversies and healing events side by side? It seems Luke understood that the heart of the Law lies in the Ten Commandments, with the emphasis not on the first but the fourth. While the first commandment (broadly speaking, including the second and third) outlines the proper attitude of creation toward God, the fourth articulates God's will: He desires to rest with His creation. One theologian connects Sabbath with creation, interpreting it as the seventh-day feast of God and creation.
Matthew places the Sermon on the Mount at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry (Matthew 5). Mark connects the healing of the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath with Jesus’ death on the cross (Mark 3), ironically highlighting the true meaning of the Sabbath, which the religious elite deemed so important, by showing the real reason they sent Jesus to the cross and the unexpected theological significance of the cross, which they failed to grasp. Luke emphasizes the Sabbath even more than Mark by presenting back-to-back the Sabbath controversies (eating grain) and the healing miracle (healing the man with a withered hand) in chapter 6. He then makes it clear that Sabbath healing and liberation are God's will through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes. The Jesus that Luke portrays doesn't tell us to serve God well but speaks of His grace. Except when someone asked him directly, Jesus never directly commanded people to serve God well. Instead, in the Gospels, He directly spoke of God's liberating and saving grace. He told those who fell down admitting their sinfulness to go home and live in peace. Sabbath healing and liberation from man-made laws regarding that day are directly aligned with Jesus' Beatitudes. To those bound by Sabbath laws across generations, Jesus asks, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (verse 46).
Would Jesus, who said it was okay to pick and eat grain on the Sabbath and healed the man with the withered hand, forgive those who used these events as an excuse to crucify him? Looking at the cross, we utter the gracious words, "I crucified Jesus." When my salvation as a sinner is at stake, the cross is grace with infinite power. But we can't help but ask if the power of the cross still applies to those who oppose Jesus and those we identify with as Jews and draw the line at as Gentiles. We try to answer this uncomfortable question by invoking the concept of repentance, but if we truly reflect on whether salvation came to us because of our repentance, we would never say such a thing. The time gap between Abraham's calling (Genesis 12) and circumcision (Genesis 17), the eternal ancestor of Christian faith, serves as a good example. Paul, who carefully studied Genesis, also emphasized the grace of God's calling in Romans 4. One preacher emphasizes God's grace by mentioning that the time difference between God's calling and Abraham's circumcision is over 20 years.
Jesus still asks Christians today: “Do you do what I say when you call me ‘Lord, Lord’?” Rephrasing Jesus’ question, we get: “Do you keep the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments?" We pull out the "Sunday observance" card as if to say we are keeping the commandment to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Yes, we must observe Sunday. But how? Jesus, who struggled with this question in his time, ended up creating the story of the Good Samaritan, lamenting religious practices. Jesus is still engaged in the Sabbath debate and needs to heal the chronic illness of Christians on the Sabbath.