Beyond Traditions, Part Two

Yesterday’s devotional, July 1 Beyond Traditions, Part 1, began our look at the elite’s traditions and how they conflicted with Jesus. Today, Sabbath keeping is another sticking point with the elite against Jesus which repeatedly points to the fallacies of their Sabbath traditions as not agreeing with God’s purposes to refresh and remember His creativity on His peoples behalf. John 7:21-24, Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5 are all recognizable confrontations between Jesus expressing God’s care on the Sabbath at the expense of the elite’s traditions. Jesus even has the audacity to use the example of Abiathar the High Priest ‘breaking’ their tradition to serve the needs of King David by giving him showbread which was an offering to the LORD as sustenance for David and his men when they had nothing else.¹ Jesus then continues immediately after noting the practice of an earlier High Priest on the Sabbath to do the traditionally unconscionable, then Jesus heals another man—this one with a withered hand—on the Sabbath because the man needed healing, had been waiting for healing and now was the opportune time:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.²

But they didn’t give up on persistently pestering Him. Like Satan waiting for another opportune time to tempt Jesus, the elite kept coming at Him from different angles, always trying to get the best of Him, so hence His anger and grief over the hardness of their hearts. Their agenda had nothing to do with the heart of God toward the man needing God’s healing. Next they change tactics and ask for something God had repeatedly provided and which the seekers had never found satisfying:

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.³

Do any of us have pet beliefs that we strive to hold onto while we suspect the desires of God for us might be elsewhere? You know the kind: denominational distinctives not evident in the Bible, end-time beliefs of how God has to finish His agenda to meet our expectations or any of those personal practices which we are pretty sure don’t honor the LORD as much as we profess. Maybe today is a timely point to reconsider some of our personal traditions in light of God’s desires.