Why did the Jews observe the Sabbath for rest and worship with all adherence and exaggeration that it was expressly forbidden to kindle fire for cooking, heal the sick, or cover a long distance in traveling, in addition to more than one hundred other prohibitions? In keeping the law they saw the way to God, and by emphasizing the judgments they intended to gain heaven. They also prohibited traveling on the Sabbath. Even today, some of their professors stone any car running on a Sabbath, believing that the awaited Christ will not come to earth and establish his kingdom of peace unless all the people of the Old Testament keep the judgments of the Sabbath without transgression.
In this way they did a big mistake in understanding the love of God, refused the mercy of God, and hoped for salvation through their own power. They did not accept the free redemption in Christ, and made their ears deaf to the invitation of the Holy Spirit who confirms to us our inability to keep the law by ourselves, and reveals to us our corruption in his wonderful light. So let us resort to Christ’s grace and power, and never rely on our own righteousness.
The Pharisees who invited Jesus to a feast in the house of one of their chiefs, were not already filled with hatred toward their respectable guest, but were willing to examine him, and watch him to know him and explore him, or see a wonderful miracle. Yet Christ saw their proud hearts, and asked them which was more important, the flowing of the power of God’s love to the world, or keeping the law in a selfish way to gain one’s own righteousness. The observers and the owner of the house became ashamed for they still had the sense and cautiousness to perceive the importance of the love of God. The might have also felt the authority of Christ is his word, bowed their heads reverently, and said nothing.
Christ broke the lying of their understanding of keeping the Sabbath through healing the man who was suffering from dropsy. He showed them that God delivers the poor everyday, for in the New Testament everyday became a day of grace. The love of God delivered us from holding fast to our righteousness, and consecrated us to the service of love willfully. Jesus took the man, whose skin was swollen, for his heart and kidneys were unable to secrete the water out of the body. With his creative power, Jesus cured the sick man whom no physician could cure, without any surgery, or suggestion, but with the word of his power. The currents of divine powers came out from the person of Christ until the patient’s nature became organized and made up through his faith.
Christ cured the sick not only in body, but also in spirit, and showed them once again by human examples about saving a son from a well, or pulling an ass out of a pit that every normal man, in his wits, would always be prepared to save those that are in hardship, even on the Sabbath day, for the thought of helping and our motive to serve bring us near to the image of God who helps, blesses, serves, and saves incessantly those who are going astray.
Examine yourself! Do you only meditate and pray on Sunday for yourself and for the growth of your knowledge, and your soul towers in the atmosphere of worship and hymns, or do you think practically how to help your disturbed brother man? Is the arrogant "I" your aim in your life, or did you find in serving every man the goal intended in your life? Christ intends to convert your mind, and renew your intents to reinforce his essence in your heart, for God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.