reversed sabbaths in luke

The Jewish Sabbath seemed to be a day when Jesus has particular flash points with the religious leaders.

In Genesis 1 we discover God takes a sabbath rest having created.  There is no command in Genesis that this seventh day should be observed by all mankind.  In fact, it is not until Israel comes together as a nation that sabbaths are again mentioned in Scripture.  It is only in the Ten Commandments that the Sabbath comes a command.    Thus the Sabbath was a distinctively Jewish institution.  It was at the heart of their national- cultural-religious identity.  Its observance was therefore important and slights of it likely to offend.

The OT had laid down rules about the Sabbath to which Jewish traditions had added its own rules (rules interpreting rules).  Jesus is careful, as God’s obedient servant, to keep the Law of Moses, however, he is not committed to the Jewish additional rules and seems to deliberately break these at times as a teaching point.

Luke gives various accounts of clashes Jesus had with religious leaders on Sabbath days.  In Ch 6 Luke highlights this by putting two such sabbath conflicts consecutively.  In the first the teaching point was intended to point out Jesus’ identity and their culpability.

Luke 6:1-5 (ESV)
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not 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 bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

The setting is significant.  At the end of Ch5 Jesus had taught that the old order of Judaism and the Mosaic Covenant was about to come to an end.  It was a covenant of old wine in old wineskins.  He had come to bring new wine in new wineskins.  The old and new can’t mix and the old must give way to the new.  The Old Covenant was about to give way to the New Covenant. He now teaches this dramatically through his flouting of the sign of the Old Covenant, the Sabbath (Ex 31:31).

In fact the incident is dramatically laden.  Jesus alludes to David, at a time when he was the anointed but not yet recognised King. Despite being God’s anointed, he and his followers were rejected by the establishment and were hounded. Their desperate need was clear in their need to eat Priests’ bread. Perhaps desperate need in desperate times justified desperate measures.  Be that as it may, the parallel sat in the air obvious but unspoken.  How ancient Israel ill-treated David was being repeated in Jesus, their Messiah, the Son of Man.  The depth of evil in the nation was evident in the hounding and desperate hunger of their Messiah.  The need for new wineskins was obvious and paramount. Jesus as Lord has authority over the sabbath and indeed over the OC. In due time he would end both.  This incident is but a harbinger of this.

Israel’s spiritual redundancy is seen however, not simply in the rejection of her God and King (the first tablet of the Law lies broken)  but also in the treatment of the people (the second tablet of the Law lay broken).  Judaism had failed.  The Sabbath sign again eloquently proves this.  The Sabbath, intended for the people’s good has been twisted into an instrument of harm.

Luke 6:6-11 (ESV)
On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 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?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Regularly in Luke sabbath confrontations are about ‘doing good’ on the Sabbath (Cf Lk 13,14).  The Law commanded love but had no ability to produce it.  The failure of works-righteousness is nowhere more evident than in this twisting of the command for love into a command for heartlessness; a withered hand made life and survival difficult, especially a withered right-hand.  The new wine of the Kingdom would be different. It would bless where the OC was helpless and heartless.  It was about love for the outcast, the orphan, the widow, the sinner, the helpless, the disinherited. In the Kingdom mercy triumphs over judgement.

Jesus displays the reversals in God’s Kingdom by reversing the prevalent idea of the sabbath; it is about mercy not legalistic minutiae.  Soon the OC of which the sabbath was a sign would be replaced with a NC.  The Law would be fulfilled and superceded by the new wine of the Kingdom.  With its demise, would be the demise of its sign – the Sabbath.  In Luke’s Gospel Jesus lies dead in a Jewish tomb on the Sabbath.  It is an eloquent statement about the bankrupcy of Judaism and the end of the Law and the Sabbath so important to Jewish identity; on the Sabbath Jesus was an outcast, just as he is in this chapter.

Christians worship on a Sunday, not a Sabbath, however much some would like to construe it as such.  It is the day of new life, new wine, new beginning.  Of course, the danger is that Christians corrupt grace the way Israel corrupted the law.  On Sunday, of all days, do we reflect the new life, wine, joy, hope, and grace of which it speaks, or do we turn it into a dead ritual; a day without a soul; a ritual without a heart; an occasion without grace?  Is Jesus ‘Lord of a Sunday’?

more luke reversals

We’re looking at the reversals in Luke’s gospel.  God’s Kingdom reverses expectations.  This reversal is made explicit in Jesus sermon at Nazareth in Luke 4.  Luke 4 is perhaps the key to the whole gospel.   It announces the core of Jesus’ mission and the gospel of the Kingdom.  Jesus announces the reversals as he quotes from Isaiah’s prophecy.  Luke frames the quotation in vvs 16,17 and then v20; ‘he stood up… unrolled the scroll’ and ‘he rolled up the scroll… and sat down’. The framing serves to highlight the significance of the reading and announcement itself .

‘When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”‘ Luke 4:16-21

Jesus assumes the Isaian mantle of the Messianic Servant and announces the gospel fortunes reversed for four groups; the impoverished, the broken, the blind, and the oppressed.  Throughout Luke the Spirit of God in Jesus brings the liberating power of the Kingdom into the lives of needy people. At this initial point the message is one of pure grace.  The prophecy read refers only the exalting of the needy, it says nothing of the downfall of the proud.  Jesus stops his reading in Isaiah before the clause, ‘the day of vengeance of our God’.  It is only as Jesus is progressively rejected that the message of judgement will move progressively into the foreground until in Luke 21, just prior to his arrest, it is explicit.

And so ‘release’ or ‘deliverance’ is mentioned twice (release to the captives… freedom for the oppressed).  The ‘poor’ in Luke are not simply the ‘spiritually poor’ or even the ‘economically poor’, though both may be included.  Rather it is a group generally recognised as outside the boundaries of God’s people.  The Kingdom of God stretches its boundaries to bring in the ‘outsiders’, the ostracized, and the untouchables.  It will include lepers, tax-collectors (like Zaccheus), widows, the ceremonially unclean, the demonic the dead, the deranged, the immoral, robbers and even gentiles*. It is to such lives the power of the Kingdom breaks in.  People like this celebrate and find release.  The Kingdom of Jubilee finds them. People barred are invited.  People rejected are welcomed.  People who have nothing to give are freely given.

There is lesson for those of us who belong to such a kingdom.  We too are to live with the same Kingdom Spirit.

Jesus says to us in Luke 14,

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

It is hard to believe that a message of hope like this provoked deep hostility; yet it does.  When he warns that if they do not embrace him then they may find that the blessings of the Kingdom pass them by, they are incensed and try to kill him.  The reversals of the Kingdom are already at work; those who are ‘outside’ will by divine generosity and grace be brought ‘inside’ but those who pride themselves on being  ‘inside’ may find themselves ‘outside’.

Luke 13:25-30 (ESV)
‘When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

These are words not simply for Israel but for all who believe they are on the ‘inside’.

* When King David was rejected and hiding in the cave of adullam those who attached themselves to him were the outsiders and ostracized in Israel.   The Kingdom of God is no different.

reversed expectations

Luke’s gospel stresses reversed expectations.  It is about the Kingdom of God and this Kingdom specializes in reversed expectations.  We noted this reversal in a blog a few days ago.  It is signalled right at the beginning of the gospel.  Mary praises God as she reflects on her miraculous pregnancy and exclaims:

‘he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
land exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.’ (Lk 1:51-53)

Simeon points out in Ch 2,

“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel”

The reversal signs are there early on.  Lowly Shepherds are informed the leaders of Israel are left in the dark.  Messiah is born in a byre not a palace.  His bed is a cattle trough not a cradle. He will grow up in inconsequential Nazareth, not Jerusalem.

In ch 3 the ‘word of the Lord does not come to whose names are in the c1 version of ‘Who’s Who’ (3:1) but to ‘John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness’ (v2). John probably also alludes to the reversal as he heralds the arrival of Messiah and prepares people for his arrival in a baptism of repentance.  He announces:

‘every valley shall be filled and every mountain laid low’

Those who come to be baptised are societies disreputables – tax collectors and soldiers.  However, Herod, the Tetrarch, has John locked up in prison.  The lines are being drawn.  Later Jesus refuses to speak to Herod.  Herod had his opportunity in John and blew it.

Ch 4 signals a more profound reversal.  Ironically, in Jewish Nazareth where he grew up Jesus could do no miracle because of their unbelief. It is in the other towns of Galilee where he is unknown he is initially accepted and blesses with healings.  Another tangible sign of what will become an emerging pattern of reversal is revealed: his own will reject him and others will accept him.  The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

In God’s Kingdom flesh and privilege count for nothing.  God acts only and always in grace.  When we think we are something we are nothing.  Our privilege is more likely to blind us than save us.  In God’s Kingdom it is only ever those who realise they are hungry who are filled and those who feel their thirst who are replenished.  We privileged evangelicals need to take great care that like those Nazarenes we do not despise our birthright.

We shall further explore this reversal over the next few blogs.