Why does Jesus keep breaking the rules?
“Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?'” -John 9:16
Some people are more concerned with the do’s and don’ts of religion than with the deliverance and restoration of people. It’s not wrong to want to keep the Sabbath, but Jesus said “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) The spirit of the Pharisees is one that elevates procedure over people, more concerned with enforcing a moral code than expressing and enabling the glory of God through healed lives.
This is simply a deeply rooted and cleverly concealed root of pride. It is pride that uses religion to beat others down to raise oneself up. It is pride that bludgeons the soul of a man who was healed by Jesus, telling him his healing wasn’t valid because it didn’t fit in the right religious box or happen on the right day.
Even more than this, it is only a short step to cross over from nit-picky religious legalism to something worse, “calling good evil and evil good” (Isaiah 5:20), denying the work of Jesus and calling into question from whom His power comes. This is what the Pharisees did in Matthew 12:22-32, and Jesus gave it a name: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the sin that will never be forgiven.
May the Church be a people with the heart of Jesus, concerned less with the regiments of religion and more with showing the glory of God by our passion for people.
