Jesus Is Lord Of The Sabbath – Sunday Thought For The Day

In the 5th chapter of John we read the account of Jesus healing a man at the pool at Bethesda during a feast of the Jews.  The remarkable thing about this healing in my opinion, is not the miraculous healing of the man; it is what the Jews who were told of the miracle failed to comprehend.  Let me explain.

We are told that the unnamed man at the pool had an infirmity 38 years.  Thus it’s highly unlikely that he wasn’t known to the people on some level.  John tells us that Jesus knew the man had been laying at the pool for a long time.

Jesus asked the man: “Wilt thou be made whole?”  Then, after listening to the man explain why he wasn’t healed, Jesus responded: :“Rise, pick up your bed, and walk.”

I find it amazing that seeing the man and hearing him recount what had just been done to him, the people ignored the enormity of the miracle and scolded him for carrying his bed on the sabbath.  It is incongruous to me that they ignored the fact that another “Man” had performed such a wondrous work.  They scolded the man for breaking their sabbath rules, and afterward, when he told them it was Jesus who had made him whole, they persecuted Jesus and sought to slay Him, because He had healed the man on their idea of the sabbath.  This brings me to my point.

Today is the day we call Resurrection Day.  Those churches that are now open, many are still closed in obedience to the godless progeny of Satan, are celebrating the day.  My question is, do the people attending, personally know Jesus or are they merely celebrating the holiday, because that is what they think they’re supposed to do?

How many people attending Church today actually truly believe that Christ was crucified, dead, buried, and arose on the third day?  How many of the people attending church today actually believe that the very same Jesus Christ who asked the unnamed man: “Wilt thou be made whole” is the same Jesus who is wants to make us whole through His gift of salvation, if we believe He is the Son of God who died as sacrifice for our sins?

Going to church doesn’t make us saved, i.e., born-again Christians, any more than the strict rules made by those who scolded the healed man and who then sought to slay Jesus for healing him on their version of the sabbath, made them pleasing in the eyes of God.

Keeping the sabbath without believing in the God of the sabbath is a worthless errand.  Going to church because it is Easter, but denying the resurrection and truth of Christ is an exercise in futility.  We cannot truly celebrate the day unless we worship He who arose from the grave on that day.

READ:
Matthew 12:1-13 KJV
1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.

2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;

4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?

5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?

6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.

7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:

10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?

12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.

13 Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.