One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things. (Luke 14:1-6)
This section has three interesting tid-bits that we’ll dive into. One being that Jesus chose to dine at a Pharisee’s house, two is that He healed someone in the Pharisee’s home, and three is that He asked questions of the Pharisees and lawyers present.
1) Dining With Pharisees
First thing we notice is that Jesus was dining at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees among a party of lawyers and other Pharisees. We know Jesus dined with blatant sinners, but here we have a ruler of the Pharisees, which up to this point we have mainly seen Pharisees opposing Jesus, not inviting Him over for dinner at their house. This is noteworthy though because it proves that Jesus didn’t just give up on people who initially opposed Him. Jesus gave opportunities for people to have softer hearts and ears to hear and came to the invitation of that Pharisee.
2) Healing The Man
Before we dig into this one, dropsy isn’t likely something many people have heard of, and it’s only mentioned this one time in the New Testament. That’s because it is an old term for swelling due to water retention. Nowadays, the medical term for it is edema, and while it isn’t a disease in and of itself, it’s a symptom of a serious underlying issue in the body. We don’t know exactly what this man was suffering from, but swelling was a major symptom of it.
What’s really interesting is that this man ends up in the Pharisees house where Jesus was. We don’t have any other information about how he got there, maybe he was a servant in the household, or maybe he just walked in from the street when he saw Jesus sitting there so he came for healing? We really don’t know, but we know he was there before Jesus in that moment. And we know that the Pharisees and lawyers were watching Jesus carefully on that Sabbath day, and yet Jesus would heal the man regardless of the circumstances.
3) Asking the Pharisees
From an outside perspective, it would appear Jesus was kind of a in a tough situation. He was a guest in a ruler’s house on the Sabbath where they were already watching Him carefully, and a man in need of healing is now standing before Him. Notice though that Jesus didn’t take a break from His mission. The Father told Jesus to heal this man, and in His wisdom, He also took it as an opportunity to gently teach the Pharisees and lawyers.
This was a gracious thing to do because the tendency of the Pharisees and lawyers up to this point is to get all judgmental, throw a hissy fit over something that’s not actually wrong in God’s eyes, and then their wall of anger would blind them to godly explanations and teachings. Jesus frontloaded His actions here as He asked them a question to get their minds in the right perspective to what they would soon witness – a healing on the Sabbath.
Even after Jesus healed the man and sent him away, He followed up with another question that would help them check their own hearts on the matter. They were silent to both questions as they likely pondered it in their own thoughts and possibly later discussed amongst themselves when Jesus was no longer around.
Jesus could have preached a sermon on the Sabbath and quoted the Law and Prophets and pretty much rebuked the Pharisees and lawyers, putting them in their place, but He didn’t. He chose to engage in communication with the goal of invoking self-reflection and a deeper dive into what Scriptures truly say on that topic. For those who were seeking truth and whose hearts were open to what Jesus asked, they very well may have been changed that night and they may have even later gone back to the scrolls seeking to understand Jesus’ perspective on the Sabbath, which so widely varied from their own traditional views of it.
Being Like Jesus
If we want to be like Jesus, we can’t show partiality one way or another. We can’t pick and choose who to minister to and who to be an example to based on whether they are nice to us or jive with our personality or have opposed us. Now there is of course times to use wisdom in which we may not accept an invitation to something, but if our motivation for not accepting isn’t right before the Lord, then we’re wrong.
There’s also the aspect of listening to the calling of the Father regardless of the circumstances around us. Jesus was faced with a crazy situation on the Sabbath and surrounded by Pharisees and lawyers who were watching carefully, yet before Him was a man in need whom the Father wanted Him to heal. Jesus was not distracted by the stress of the circumstances or events; He was tuned in and ready to do what He heard from the Father.
When we, as followers of Jesus, interact with people in this world, they too watch us carefully to see how we’ll respond to things. To be like Jesus and respond like Him, we must spend time with Him and abide in Him so that when those times come, we can choose to love like Him, speak like Him, and act like Him. If we’re doing that, I am confident that we will be able to follow in His footsteps of loving even the harshest of people, do great works that He tells us to do, and speak the wise words that the Spirit will give us in the moments we need them.
On the flip side of this, we can’t ignore that there may be things that we have taken a hard stance on that’s not a doctrinal stance but a preferential one. I couldn’t tell you in this devotional what that might be in your life, but the Spirit of God sure can. I encourage you to sit and listen and let Him ask you those questions that invoke a self-reflection and then dig deeper into Scripture as you seek to align yourself fully with the truth of God’s perspective.
I’ll leave you with a song to accompany this week’s devotional. If you’ve followed these devotionals and my music, you’ve likely heard this song before. Since God created us as social and emotional beings, I like to take opportunities where music fits well with what we’re studying in God’s word. So here is my song, While I Wait Here.