Most of us have lived under a rule that nobody can explain. A rule in a family, or a workplace, or a church. Everybody obeys it. Nobody remembers who made it. After enough years, it starts to feel like it came from God.
Jesus walked straight into the biggest one of his day: the rest day. He broke it over and over, out in the open, in front of the men most likely to report him. Not once, and not quietly. Here are three of those days, and the one sentence he said about it.
The field of grain
The Sabbath was the rest day, the seventh day of the week. The books of Moses, the oldest part of the Bible, said nobody could work on it. The book of Exodus puts it in the Ten Commandments.
The Pharisees were a group of religious men of that time. They studied the law of Moses and tried to keep it in every small way. They had long lists of what counted as work. Picking grain was on the list.
Mark tells this story in chapter 2, right after Jesus says nobody pours new wine into old bottles, and just before he heals the withered hand in chapter 3.
Jesus and his friends were walking through a field of grain on the rest day. Matthew says his friends were hungry. As they walked, they pulled off heads of grain and ate them. Some Pharisees saw it, and they said this to Jesus.
And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? (Mark 2:24)
Jesus did not apologize. He shot their own book back at them. Have you never read what David did? David was the shepherd boy who became the most loved king the people ever had. Once, when he was hungry and on the run, he went into the house of God and ate the holy bread. That bread was only for the priests. David ate it anyway, and he gave it to his men.
These men had read that story all their lives. Jesus was telling them they had read it and missed it. Then he said this.
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (Mark 2:27)
The man at the pool
John tells this one in chapter 5, right after Jesus heals a royal official's dying son in the town of Cana, and just before he feeds five thousand people beside the Sea of Galilee in chapter 6.
There was a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda, with five covered porches around it. Sick people lay there waiting for the water to move, because they believed the first one into the moving water would be healed.
One man had not been able to walk for thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years of watching other people get to the water first.
It was the rest day. Jesus told him to get up, pick up his bed, and walk. Jesus did not just heal him. He told him to carry his mat, and carrying a load was work on their list. The man stood up, rolled up his mat, and walked out on his own two legs.
Some of the religious leaders saw him carrying it, and they said this to him.
The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. (John 5:10)
A man who had not walked in thirty-eight years was walking past them. All they could see was the mat under his arm. Then they found Jesus and went after him. He told them straight out whose orders he followed.
But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. (John 5:17)
John says plainly what they thought he had done. He had broken the Sabbath, and he had called God his own Father. For that, they wanted to kill him.
The withered hand
Mark tells this one in chapter 3, right after the grain field, and just before Jesus goes down to the lake with a huge crowd following him.
It was the rest day again, in a synagogue, the meeting house where people gathered to pray and hear the old books read. A man was there whose hand was withered. Mark uses that word, withered, dried up and useless.
The Pharisees were watching Jesus. They were waiting to see if he would heal on the rest day, so they could bring a charge against him.
Jesus knew it. He did not hide. He told the man to stand up in the middle of the room where everyone could see. Then he asked the room a question.
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. (Mark 3:4)
Nobody answered. They knew the answer, and they would not say it.
Jesus was angry. Mark says so.
And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. (Mark 3:5)
He looked every one of them in the eye, angry. Then he healed the man in front of them, on the day they were waiting for.
The Pharisees walked out and met with the men loyal to Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. They talked about how to kill him.
He chose the day
A man who wanted to avoid a fight had six other days in the week. He could have waited until sundown. Jesus chose the rest day every time, and he chose it in public, where it would be seen and talked about.
That was the point. Moses said keep the rest day. Jesus never said that was true. He broke it in front of everyone, for mercy, on purpose. He did it because the rule did not come from God. People made it, and people said it was God's.
If the rest-day law came from God, then God in human flesh would not have broken it. He broke it because it was not his Father's rule. That is why he said my Father worketh hitherto, and I work. His Father had never stopped working to heal people, and neither would he.
The gospel writers lived among people who still kept these laws. They told what happened and left some of it soft. They show you the field, the pool, and the hand, and let you see the rest. Our job is to say it plainly. Jesus broke the Sabbath, and he meant to.
The sabbath was made for man. Not man for the sabbath. A person does not exist to serve a rule. And a rule that leaves a hungry man hungry, or a sick man sick, was never God's rule to begin with. The temple, the altar, the hand-washing before meals: every time Jesus came near one of them, it turned out to be something people had put there.
Something for today
Maybe you still carry a rule that makes you afraid. A day you must keep, a ritual you must not miss, or God will be angry. Jesus broke that kind of rule in public so you would never have to be afraid of it again.
So today, if someone near you needs help, help them now. Do not wait for the right day. He didn't.