Matthew 12 What is the Sabbath Day Really For?

Click to Read the Whole Chapter of Matthew 12



9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” 11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
As Jesus' following increases, so does the Pharisees' jealousy.  They weren't used to people challenging their authority.  They were the ones who were supposed to be leading the people, not this upstart teacher from Nazareth.  Since they could not deny the works he was doing, they needed to find a chink in his armor. There was no better place than the Jewish Law to expose the error of his teaching.  After all, they were the experts and no one could challenge them in these matters. 
On this day, there was a ripe opportunity to trip up Jesus in his interpretation of the Sabbath law.  The Sabbath day was at the heart of Jewish piety.  There were several hundred laws of what the Jews could do and not do, which the rabbis added to over the years. Although the Sabbath day was made for man, it sure had become the opposite for the people in Jesus' day.  Today a man with a shriveled hand showed up, and the Pharisees were at best using it as a test case for Jesus.   
But as Jesus often did, he turned the test back on the Pharisees.  He questioned them on what they would do if one of their sheep fell into a pit.  Everyone knew what the answer was for the sheep was at the heart of their livelihood.  One commentator has said,
"Jesus exposed their hypocrisy by showing their greater concern for their own possessions than for a man in need, arguing persuasively that it can’t be wrong to do good on the Sabbath." 
At the heart of legalism is valuing rules over people. It also creates a ripe environment for hypocrisy, because those setting the rules often break the rules too.  But Jesus reminds them that God's laws were not to be used to control others, but to set people free.  God's law was meant to to protect the Jews from things that would do them harm.  The Sabbath day laws protected them from workaholism, not getting enough time for rest and worship, and time with family.  But the Pharisees turned it into an excuse for not healing a man with a shriveled hand.  Jesus reaches out to the heal the man.  He kept the Sabbath day holy by loving his brother and bringing him what he really needed ... a new hand.  Meanwhile the Pharisees, instead of being happy for the man being healed, sulk away to devise a new plot to get at their new enemy.      

     


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