The Healing of a Man with Dropsy - on the Sabbath
You may be familiar with this miracle in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 14. We…I…can easily become too familiar with recognisable bible passages that we fail to see what we need to see.
This happened to me this week. I have a fresh way of looking at this passage.
The scene. Jesus is invited to dinner on the Sabbath. It’s quiet in the streets. No shops open. No beasts of burden dragging goods up and down the road. Children are inside, getting ready for bed. A ruler of the Pharisees has invited various guests, including Jesus (and maybe his entourage), for an evening meal. It’s Friday evening, after sunset.
I prefer thinking it’s a Friday evening, not Saturday lunch, as the work that would have had to have taken place on a Saturday to prepare the meal may have broken the Sabbath, something a ruler of the Pharisees would not have permitted.
Note, the Pharisees were a hugely popular movement, calling the people back to the Law of Moses, blaming Israel’s misfortune on their disobedience to the Law. It’s a simple message.
Jesus disrupts the proceedings by asking,
‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’
In the shocked silence that follows, he heals a man of dropsy, then goes on to tell the parable about seeking the best seats. It’s about humility:
‘Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted’
Lastly, he says,
‘Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind…and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’
Here are my points.
1. The sons of God are led by the Spirit. On this occasion, the Spirit led Jesus not only to accept the invitation but to fall into conversation with a man suffering from dropsy. Dropsy is an affliction where its victims swell up with excess water in their bodies. There may have been many there with a variety of medical conditions, but the Spirit led Jesus to this man, or the man to Jesus. They talk. Jesus offers to pray for him. He is the centre of attention. Everyone is silent. Watching. The man would love to be healed, but he, too, is aware of the potential condemnation in the air for breaking the Sabbath, by ‘working’, ie performing a miracle. Jesus is looking around. The man is looking around, but he agrees and is healed. His excess weight drops off him, his clothes don’t fit anymore, and he takes himself off home rejoicing. It says ‘Jesus let him go’ – he wanted to remove himself from the party, perhaps with the hypocrisy of the host revealed, and the charged atmosphere, he wanted to leave early.
2. The healing is key. It illustrates all of Jesus’ teaching, which disrupts the familiar scene of popular politics. Something greater was here…the kingdom of heaven. Jesus goes on to reveal the nature of the kingdom and the nature of the King:
‘Invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind…and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’
By all means, take this literally, if that is what God is leading you to do by His Spirit. But keep your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus in this passage, not the setting, not the Pharisees, not the Sabbath, not breaking the Sabbath. What did Jesus do? He healed a man who could not heal himself. The man with dropsy could not repay Jesus.
The real sabbath is this: God does ALL the work. The Spirit led Jesus to the house. The Spirit led him to the man with dropsy. The Spirit spoke to Him and led Jesus to stretch out His hand to heal.
We have rested from work, altogether. ‘For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works, as God did from His’ Heb 4v10.
Does this mean we laze about all day? No. Did Jesus? No! But Jesus said, ‘I only do what I see My father doing.’ Often, we break the Sabbath, we rush around doing our own thing…and that might be reaching out to the lame, the blind, the blind. Ou life can be full of good works, but if they’re not what the Spirit has led you to do, you have broken the Sabbath, however ‘Christian’ it appears to be!
3. The first shall be last. First, we must stop. In Psalm 23, the sheep are MADE to lie down. That’s the starting point. We are prone to wandering around, full of our own will. No, this is a completely new way of living in the kingdom. What God is doing today is our only concern.
4. True contentment and radical living. The fact is that much of most of our days is routine. The Christian life is not a miracle a minute. Think about Jesus in this passage. It was just a Sabbath meal. An ordinary Friday evening. He’s been to countless Sabbaths before. And then, on this particular occasion, his heart starts beating as God speaks to him whilst he’s talking to the man with dropsy, probably about his day, his vineyard, his family, the weather…small talk. At some point, the man tells Jesus he’s suffering, or Jesus points it out. And then, in an instant, everything changes. Jesus knows He has healing for the man; the power of God is present to heal, and everything else follows on. The miraculous and the mundane. Don’t mistake the mundane…it’s often where God is at work.