The Gospel of Luke 6:1-11 A couple of Sabbaths

Good morning. We're going to venture into this passage here, Luke 6, 1-11. And just to lay it out, there are two parts. The first part of this passage happens out in a grain field. Jesus and the disciples are out in this field. Doing what they did, stepping out into somebody else's grain field and getting some of the grains from there, was allowed by the law of Moses, as we'll touch on a little bit here. The second part is where Jesus heals a man. His right hand, it says specifically, had been withered.

We don't know whether that was a disease or an injury process that brought about that way, but nonetheless significantly diminished in its capacity. Matthew 12, 1 through 14, and Mark 2, 23 through 6, Each contained a parallel account of these same events. The accounts are not identical in that they differ in some details. The differences are compatible. We'll have, for example, other things that Jesus said at that same event recorded in another book. They're not conflicted, even though the accounts are different.

Here's Luke 6.1.

Now it happened that he was passing through some grain fields on the Sabbath, and we're not told exactly where. His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating the grain. So what they would do is they would just pick a head of grain off, There was chaff that is the kind of a hole that's on the outside and so they'd go and rub like this and blow off the chaff and then eat the grains and So that it was what they were doing. Yeah as they were doing that which was allowed by the law of Moses They do we're doing exactly it was as was permitted. Okay The disciples became hungry, okay and They were passing by this grain field. They picked some of the grain by hand to eat it and take the edge off their hunger.

It wasn't the sort of thing where I'm going to get enough by this to have a full meal, but it's just basically a snack. So it was a Jewish snack. That's all it was. And so what you would have them doing is just like you see here, they'd take the head and break it up and then blow off the chaff, the hull that was just fiber.

Now, Deuteronomy 23, 25 actually allowed this, so this wasn't theft on their part. When you enter your neighbor's standing grain, Then you may pick the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor's standing grain. So you can take a little bit. You can't go in and do a harvest, right, of your neighbor's grain. So it was a way of providing for travelers. It was a way of providing for those who were poor. And so it was one of the means of providing for people who didn't have, but they still had to do the work for it, right, to get that grain.

So here's Luke 6.2, it says, But some of the Pharisees said, Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? So, while the Sabbath is the issue in both of these parts of the passage, the Sabbath is the issue, and the Pharisees are going to oppose Jesus about the Sabbath issue. The Pharisees often made Sabbath-keeping the issue, the big one.

That was a biggie, right? Jesus didn't try to counter the Pharisees with something like, but we're not under law, we're under grace, right? He didn't do that. Instead, one of the things we're going to see, He turns it from a Sabbath issue to a do-you-know-who-I-am issue. Do you understand who I am issue? He turns it into being about who he is, because that's the bigger issue.

Now the Sabbath was indeed part of the law of Moses. It was part of the 613. God did indeed give the Sabbath law to the Jews. It's actually inspired scripture. One of the 613, remember there were 365 of those individual statutes. that were things not to do, just like the same as the number of days in a year. 365 things not to do, the remainder were things you should do.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy is one of those positive statements. God wrote on these stone tablets given to Moses. Now, so it says there in Exodus 20, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God.

So it was indeed scripture. It was indeed inspired. It was a part of the law. Now, what you have, this should be the bottom half of page 1 on your handout, are the 39 things that the Jews considered work. The rabbis all thought this out and so they made a listing of planting and plowing and reaping.

Now think of it, if these guys were gathering from the grain field, they were reaping, weren't they? Small scale, right? Were they gathering? Yes. Were they threshing and extracting and winnowing? Yes. They were brushing it in order to get the holes off and then they would blow away the chaff. So they're doing that and so that's winnowing. So they're doing several things there. And so the rabbis defined what they were doing as work. And so that was bad. They were breaking the law because they had this definition.

And then you go down the list, and this is all the list of things that were defined as work. And so now, in our era, with our new technologies and things of that sort, what they've had to do is extend these with more rules about what's work and what's not.

So pushing the elevator buttons on a Sabbath is not permitted. In a Jewish building, they will stop at every floor in order to avoid pushing the buttons on the Sabbath. You cannot tear off the sheets of toilet paper from the roll. That's work. That's tearing, number 24. So you can't do that.

So there's rules like that that you have to abide by. So they've got all these things figured out. You see extinguishing a fire and igniting a fire? That's why the Jews have Sabbath ovens. that you program to go on and off at a certain temperature at a certain time and it does it by itself because pushing the button to turn the stove off and on would be breaking the law. So they had all kinds of things defined as work and this is what the rabbis worked out and what the disciples were doing violated several of these. So of course it was terribly terribly wrong for the disciples to do this.

Now, what you see here, their laws permitted medical assistance to save a life, to deliver a baby, and to circumcise. So following the typical pattern of the Pharisees, they come up with extra laws to make sure you didn't break the one law that was given. Lots of extra laws. We saw here 39, and then they extend that with additional laws on top of that that are kind of subsets of the ones they've defined as the 39. So they had this list of here's the things that you shouldn't do.

Because that's work on the Sabbath. Jesus always pointed the Jews back to the original law of Moses. He turned away any attempt to tinker with the law by making additions according to the traditions of the Jews. So, what the Pharisees were really saying is Sabbath snacking is against the rules that we invented.

That's the problem. Now, in Matthew, it says, look, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath, but in Dr. Luke's account, he plays Jeopardy and puts it in the form of a question. Nobody got that. We'll eventually see the Jewish leaders are not satisfied with just words. So this one incident was just part of a steady stream of verbal opposition, false accusations, and Jewish arguments thrown at Jesus. Constantly throwing things at them based upon their added traditions.

Luke 6 3 & 4 reads like this and Jesus answering them said have you not even 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 consecrated bread which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone and gave it to his companions now So here's Jesus and his Pharisees.

Do you remember David? Remember David. Jesus reminded these Pharisees that when David and his mighty men became hungry, they came in and ate bread at the temple, which at that time was the tabernacle, at a time when Israel's leaders were rejecting David. The leaders were rejecting him, but still the Lord had anointed him through Samuel. So Jesus, the blood descendant of King David, was there with his men and they were hungry so did that not also take priority were not israel's leaders also now rejecting christ the son of david doesn't this compare is what jesus says doesn't this compare and now you're accusing us of breaking the law so here's luke six five and he was saying to them the son of man is lord of the sabbath So this term, Son of Man, where does that come from?

This is Daniel 7.13, and it refers to Christ, the Messiah, as He will come again.

That passage, if you read it, is His second coming. When He comes with the clouds, when He comes again, as soon as seven years from now with us. So we call that His second coming. I had a meeting with a local rabbi a little over a decade ago, and the rabbi said, when the Messiah comes, we'll ask him, is this your first or second time?

Right? Christ here refers to himself, as he does in all four of the Gospels, as the Son of Man. So all four of the Gospels use that term. It's directly out of Daniel 7.13. But Luke particularly will use that term. It focuses on Christ's humanity, fully God and fully man, fully deity and fully man.

And then he says that he, the son of man, is Lord of the Sabbath. Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who has the authority over the Sabbath. The Sabbath does not have authority over him. He says, didn't you see about David and how David ate the bread that was supposed to be only for the priests? And did they get that picture? And now, do you understand that I am Lord of the Sabbath? The Sabbath is not Lord over me. The issue is who Christ is. The issue is who Christ is. Certainly, the Pharisees were not understanding that issue.

As we look ahead in the Gospel of Luke, in Luke 11.29-32, as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, This generation is a wicked generation.

It seeks for a sign, yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here, right now, today. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Jesus says, I'm greater than the temple. I am greater than Solomon. I am greater than Jonah. I'm here right now. What is your decision, man?

If the temple and the temple service have exceptions to the Sabbath, doesn't Jesus, the one descended from David, who will be the heavenly high priest, wouldn't he be given an exemption too? The real issue is not about details and arguments and how many different definitions you have for work. The real issue is about who Christ is. If you understood who I am, you would not be coming up to me and asking me if these guys are breaking the law or why they do it.

Because you don't understand who I am, that tells me why you're asking this question. That's what the problem is. Christ is the I am who spoke to Moses from the burning bush and put Moses, the lawgiver, on assignment. He's the I am who was there at the burning bush and gave Moses his assignment. They don't get it.

Jesus is greater than, okay? We've had examples in what we've shown in these passages of a priest, here's the priest and the bread, and Jesus has privilege with that. We've had the example of the prophet Jonah, and we've had an example of a king, Solomon. Jesus is greater than a priest, a prophet, and a king. Matthew chapter 12, Jesus tells them that he is greater three times. Here in Luke 11, he is greater than twice. He says it twice.

These are the same passages where Christ compares himself to priests, a prophet, and a king, Solomon. Christ will be all three of those. Prophet, priest, and king. So I can make those comparisons. Priests and prophets and kings were all anointed into service. Christ is the anointed one.

That's why he would make exactly those comparisons to them. Do you guys not understand who I am? You come to me thinking that you have some little traditions that you're going to pick on me about. I'm the one who put Moses onto the task that he followed through on, and that you claim to listen to. Now, a couple of things to make a distinction about here.

Israel and the church, they're two peoples of God with two separate principles. The Israelites were baptized into Moses. That's listed there at 1 Corinthians 10. The Israelites were baptized into Moses. We have been baptized into Christ. God himself gave the Israelites the law of Moses. And Christ's death on the cross accomplished many things, including ratifying the new covenant, which will be implemented in the coming millennial kingdom, starting as soon as seven years from now.

For us, that same death on the cross, which was shared with him, we were there too. Each one of us was there. causes us to die to the same law of Moses. Law was their reigning principle as Jews. Grace is our reigning principle as being in the church. And not a little bit of the law of Moses for us. Not one. Not one law. Not 10, not 9, not 11. Not one.

Luke 6 6 on another Sabbath, and this is beginning part 2 here on another Sabbath So this isn't the same day He entered the synagogue and was teaching and there was a man whose right hand was withered So it was typical for Jesus to go and teach throughout the synagogues particularly in Galilee He spent probably a good estimate is about 80% of his time in Galilee during his earthly ministry He certainly grew up in that area. Galilee is on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, or otherwise known as the Sea of Tiberias and a couple other names. So he entered a synagogue. We're not told which one, but there were likely several there in that area.

So there's a man whose right hand was withered. Now, real interesting. He's in there. He's teaching. And here's a man whose right hand is withered, and he just stops the whole thing. We've got to deal with this guy with the right hand withered. So here's the man sitting there, and his hand's like this. There may also have been some other aspects to the injury.

Nonetheless, it was noticeable and visible. In Luke chapter 4, this is kind of looking back, Jesus casts out a demon. on the Sabbath in the synagogue, and we saw that previously. Then he healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever, and by appearances that was a building very close by in Capernaum. What's interesting, he spent the rest of the Sabbath day healing and casting out demons like crazy. all the way up to sundown, and the Sabbath wasn't over until sundown. It's almost like he says, I've got to get as much healing in before the sundown, to deliberately, deliberately do all this on the Sabbath. So imagine, here's the sun setting, and he's just healing and casting out demons, just like crazy, while it's still the Sabbath. Just to make sure it's on the Sabbath.

Luke 4.40 says that Jesus cast out demons and healed while the sun was setting. He was, you know, until the sun set, right? Sabbath isn't over. So you've got to cram as many of those healings and demon possession, you know, endings into the Sabbath, as many as you can get.

In Luke chapter 13, up ahead here, we're going to see that Jesus heals a woman who is doubled over and cannot straighten up at all. Then in Luke chapter 14 we'll read about a man who is suffering from edema, fluid swelling of the skin. Jesus heals both of those people on the Sabbath, a woman in the synagogue and a man in a home right in front of the Jewish leaders each time. He makes sure that he heals on the Sabbath. He makes sure he does lots of healings on the Sabbath. He makes sure that he casts out demons. many, and make sure he does it on the Sabbath, lots of them.

At this point Jesus and his disciples And the next encounter with the Pharisees shifts to another location. It's in the synagogue here, in this particular context. There's a man at the synagogue who has a withered hand. Most likely, all the people knew this man, because think about it. You go into these towns, and here's the synagogue, and here's who has a habit, and everybody knows this guy with a withered hand. So everybody knows this man locally, almost certainly.

Jesus healing and casting out demons is now ramping up to be a really big issue. And Jesus isn't backing down. As a matter of fact, he's making sure that he does lots of healings and lots of demon possession endings. Casting the demon out. Make sure that he does it on the Sabbath. Just to irk the Pharisees.

You know, think about it, even in our own day, with all our wonders of modern medicine, and they certainly are phenomenal, people can still be troubled by chronic medical conditions and fatal illnesses and injuries. We've not gotten to a place where life just goes on and on and on endlessly. We've not gotten to a place where people don't succumb to something. So even with modern medicine, we're still in a place where medical conditions exist and we still have to go through some pretty intense surgeries and treatments of different kinds.

In the time of Christ, Dr. Luke knew well that there were many diseases and injuries and things of that sort for which little to nothing could be done. Even more so. Some things that today we would just say, I'm just going to take this medication and I'll be fine. even today where we would just say, okay, I'll just have this little brief treatment or operation and I'll be fine.

Many of those things were debilitating or fatal during this time, and actually for much of human history. To heal and cast out demons was life-changing, not just for this individual that got healed, but for all the family and friends surrounding that person. There was no government check coming in for disability or anything of that sort. If you got disabled, your family and friends would try to take care of you, but it got burdensome, got difficult.

Imagine, just as we studied previously, these guys who are motivated enough to scratch out a chunk of the roof and drop a guy down through the roof so that Jesus could heal him. These people must have really cared for this guy, but also been very burdened by this fellow who was paralyzed. The whole rest of the family and friends having to take care of him. So here's Luke 6-7, the scribes and the Pharisees were watching him closely to see if he healed on the Sabbath so that they might find reason to accuse him. Can you imagine the kind of the Pharisee mindset? Oh boy, I get to accuse somebody! Isn't this exciting? So they were really looking forward to this. And they're going down the list of, boy, here's all the different things.

And somehow they had worked into this that healing on the Sabbath was, you know, one of these things. And see, they had exceptions here for saving a life, delivering a baby, and circumcision. Those were okay. But they couldn't find healing on the list. And besides that, healing is something like a right hand. That's not saving a life. So they just excluded it.

They said, automatically, Jesus is definitely breaking the law here by healing. So under the law of Moses and the traditions that were added to the law of Moses, the Jews viewed it just as much a violation of the law to break one as to fail to point out and punish for it. You see, that's the way that they looked at it. They saw, if I fail to point out Jesus' law-breaking, then I'm guilty of it. So they would most certainly be strongly motivated to catch Jesus and to point out his great error, as they thought. When the scribes and Pharisees came to expect that Jesus was going to violate the Sabbath, they were all ready to pounce fast and hard at Jesus' healing because they didn't want to fail. They didn't want to fall short at pointing out these, as they saw it, great errors that Jesus was carrying out.

So this brings us to a good point. We who are in the body of Christ are in a good place to learn from this as to how life should be lived. If we're going to live by a principle of law, not even the whole law of Moses, people have given up on that. But by a principle of law, if we try to live by a principle of law, we will end up beholding ourselves, gotta make sure I'm not doing the wrong things, and make sure I'm doing the right things, and other people. And we'll be eager to find fault. That's the way law works. Just like these guys, beholding ourselves and beholding other people, eager to find fault in others, and hoping like crazy that they don't catch the fault in me. Having died to the law, we in the body of Christ are free to behold the Lord and to let His righteousness be lived out in us and through us by faith. It's an entirely different way of living. So not one law, not ten, Not 9, not 11. No number at all. Zero. No laws at all apply to us.

Okay, here's Luke 6, 8. But He knew what they were thinking, and He said to the man with the withered hand, Get up and come forward. And he got up and came forward. Now, the Jews had not said anything yet, right? Matter of fact, we're going to find out they didn't get to say anything at all. Even though they were thinking, that they would look to see if they could accuse him of working on the Sabbath, they had not at this point said anything. He was going to give them a chance, but at this point they hadn't said anything.

They didn't need to say anything at all, because Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking before they said anything. And let's ask this, how long before these guys were there to try to accuse him, how long before Did Jesus know what they were thinking? Eternity passed. He knew from eternity past what they were thinking right then. He was going to heal on the Sabbath anyway. Deliberately. On purpose.

Do you ever wonder Why didn't Jesus, since he knew that the scribes and Pharisees would get upset and make accusations, just tell the people to come see him when the sun went down and come another day? Why didn't Jesus do that? I mean, he could have. It would have solved an awful lot of conflict and problems, right? Why didn't Jesus put a 24-hour delay timer on the healing so that they couldn't accuse him of healing on the Sabbath? He could have done that, couldn't he? He didn't. Okay? Didn't healing cause them, on the Sabbath, healing on the Sabbath cause them to stumble over him?

Why didn't he just do things in such a way that he avoided the conflict? What we find is he intentionally healed and cast out demons on the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, in some cases, it looks like he did it as much as he possibly could. He could have avoided all this conflict with them, and instead he intentionally did it again and again. From every record we have in all four of the Gospels, he did it many times. Intentionally healing and casting out demons on the Sabbath, sometimes as much as he possibly could.

Another question, couldn't Jesus have healed the man with the withered hand right where he sat? Could he have done that? Yeah, yeah, he could have, sure. Of course he could. So why have the man come up and get up and come forward? Why have him do that? He could have just said, hey, you out there with the withered hand, okay, it's fixed. And gone on with his teaching, no? His getting up and coming forward would be an evidence of the man's faith. That would be for starters. But also, it would make Jesus' healing of him on the Sabbath all the more evident.

Instead of doing kind of a low profile, hey, don't tell anybody, but I'll heal you. Instead of coming up after the service and saying, hey, and have a hand, right? And doing it quietly and secretly, instead he says, no, you get up and come up here and let's talk about this healing, where everybody can see it, and where it's very evident.

So here in Luke 6, 9, it reads this way, And Jesus said to them, I asked you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it? And notice that save a life, that's the principle that the Jews had that was an exception to their 39.

So he's saying on the basis of that, can't I do good for someone? Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath? Do you do harm on the Sabbath? No. Save a life or destroy it on the Sabbath? No. On that principle, I ought to be able to do good here. Because why are you circumcising? Why are you allowing someone to deliver a baby? Why would you save a life? Except on the principle of you're doing good on that day, doing a good thing.

But they had their rules. They had their laws. Now, good was allowed on the Sabbath, and as I looked at this, I thought, well, I wonder if God was allowed on the Sabbath. But anyway, the rabbis had reasoned that the Law of Moses had loopholes for doing good and necessary things.

I mean, you're supposed to circumcise a baby boy on the eighth day, not the seventh, not the ninth. If that lands on a Sabbath, so be it. Doing something that was medically necessary to save a human life on the Sabbath. And in fact, they allowed doing something to save the life of an animal even. It was okay.

So I can save an animal, but I can't heal somebody. Hmm. What's wrong with this? Right? They even allowed to deliver a baby on the day the baby came. That was awfully nice of them. Right? Can you imagine telling the mother, hold it! It's not sundown yet. Right?

That's not going to work. So, anyway, so they allowed that, right? It was just too much to ask the mothers to stop pushing or something. Alright, circumcision had to be done on the eighth day and one could rescue an animal on the Sabbath. You could do all those good things. That was all allowed.

So here's Luke 6.10, after looking around at them all, and so here's Jesus. He could have done this quietly and secretly, just a little after the service, kind of sneak up to the guy and, you know, touch him real quick or, you know, just say a quiet prayer. Instead, he gets him right in front of everybody. After looking around at them all, he said to them, in other words, he's getting these guys eye contact, right?

Stretch out your hand! And he did so, and his hand was restored right in front of them. So, now of course the Pharisees, they see this. And they go, Woo-hoo! This guy healed a hand! Jesus, man, he is that cool dude! Right? No! So Jesus, knowing that the scribes and Pharisees were eagerly looking for an opportunity to accuse Jesus of doing work on the Sabbath, looked at them, giving them all opportunity.

They knew what he was about to do. He even asked a question of them. They knew what he was going to do. He asked the question. Nobody said a thing. He looked them all in the eye first. He made sure they could all tell what he was about to do. They said nothing. Since he knew what they were thinking, and none of them, not one, had a response to his question, it is so clear they had no answer to Jesus' question.

So he said, stretch out your hand. Stretch out so everybody can see. Right? Right there in front of everyone, the man's hand was restored to healthy appearance and full function instantly. Right then and there. The scribes and Pharisees, seeing this obvious miracle, repented and begged Jesus to forgive them. Right? Not! Okay? No, they did not.

That's where we come to Luke 6, 11. They themselves were filled with rage and discussed together what they might do to Jesus. Oh, we've got to put an end to this. Horrible thing. This guy goes around healing people. Left and right. How awful. People are controlled by demons and completely, completely out of their own control and doing awful things to themselves and to other people. And we've got to put a stop to that. Because it's the wrong day.

So they were way beyond slightly ticked off. They weren't just irritated. Dr. Luke here records their reaction. And Dr. Luke likes to use the word filled when somebody is filled with an emotion or spiritually speaking. He wrote that the scribes and Pharisees were filled with rage. Their rage meter was pegged. Their rage meter was just pegged all the way. Dink! Filled with rage. They were very angry.

Funny, they didn't say anything about it when Jesus asked them a question. In fact, they were so filled with rage, they began discussing with one another what they might do to Him. It wasn't just do about Him. Do to Him. They were starting to aim at Him. Directly. At first, at this stage, it's all talk.

Later on, not so much. Eventually, their plan to do something to Jesus would result in Christ's death on the cross, but Christ was not the victim. What's interesting is human beings can plot out whatever they want, but what's going to happen isn't always what they intended. Unintended consequences? Christ was not a victim. He didn't go to the cross saying, no, no, you're making a terrible mistake, you've got to stop.

No. It says this in John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, God loved and God gave Him. God loved and God gave.

In Galatians 2.20, we sang essentially that message in Galatians 2.20, I'm crucified with Christ, talks about the Son of God who, what? Loved me and gave himself up for me. He loved and he gave. The motivation that drew him to the cross was that he loved. The motivation that took him beyond the cross was joy. For the joy set before him he endured the cross.

In Ephesians 5.2, Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. He loved and he gave. He loved and he gave.

And what's more, in Ephesians 5.25, Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. He loved and he gave. He voluntarily gave up his life. They were plotting to do something to him. And they could plot all they want and eventually their plot would succeed.

Right? but it was Christ who gave his life voluntarily was motivated very clearly by love love for you and for me amazing love I would say let's pray Lord we thank you as we as we look at this as we see what you did doing loving things like healing and casting out demons on the Sabbath as you did these loving things we see that even those of ill intent end up doing something that's wonderful, something that shows God's amazing love for us and His grace. And we thank you for that forever, Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.