No More Bleeding on the Sabbath
By Jon Walker
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” Luke 13:14 (NIV)
Imagine, you’ve just stopped by your neighbor’s house for a quick visit and while you’re chatting in the den, her toddler trips and hits his head on the sharp edge of a coffee table.
Before you can even move the toddler turns toward you and there’s so much blood your stomach gets queasy. As you rush to help the child, you hear the boy’s mother behind you screaming, “Oh my Lord, he’s ruined my carpet!”
If the story were true, you’d be pretty angry, perhaps even livid, that a mother would be more concerned about carpet than about her injured son. Most likely, you’d question whether she was fit to be a mother, and so would just about anyone who heard the story.
Here’s the thing, the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was that they were more concerned about the carpet than they were about the injured child. They placed a higher value on rules and regulations than they did on the people they were meant to shepherd and love.
They elevated the how above the wow.
Luke, the first missionary doctor, describes a microcosmic moment in life lived among the list-lords. The local leader of the lists chastised Jesus for, in a sense, rushing to the aid of a bleeding child instead of making sure the carpet stayed clean.
“Those of you who are bleeding, come back tomorrow!” (paraphrase of Luke 13:14). Can you think of a more effective way to teach that love is not a 24/7 thing? But among the list-lords, love is subject to all rules and regulations. “And the greatest of these is the law.”
God’s grace to you as you learn to walk by faith and not by lists.
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.
