I chose this topic because it speaks to the heart of a God centered religion vs a man centered one. A man centered religion will be worried about following the law “to the letter” so as to appease God, and possibly show others how much better than them you are. A God centered religion, on the other hand, will be worried about following the heart of the law. This is what Jesus shows us throughout His ministry, and He does so against the historical backdrop which lead to the Pharisees coming to power.
John 9 is one of a few narratives in which Jesus is accused by the Jewish leaders, in this case the Pharisees, of breaking the Sabbath. From the end of chapter 8, we know that Jesus was leaving the Temple complex. As He did, “He saw a man blind from birth.” Jesus could easily have healed the blind man through a spoken word, or even a thought if He wanted to, after all He had done other miracles in that manner. But instead, He decided to spit on the ground, make some mud, place it on the man’s eyes, and then have the man make his way to the pool of Siloam and wash it off (see verses 6&7). Why did He do it this way? In verses 14-16, mention is made of Jesus making mud and opening the eyes of the blind man, and the blind man washing. To which the Pharisees say, “This man [Jesus] is not from God, for He doesn’t keep the Sabbath!” It would seem that making mud and/or opening the eyes of a blind man (aka – healing him) and/or washing is against the Sabbath. We can see from other passages, such as Luke 6:6-10, that healing on the Sabbath is prohibited.
The real question is, why are the Pharisees getting so upset about Jesus performing miracles on the Sabbath? It would seem like He is doing a good thing. Well, they had taken the Law of Moses, given to them by God through Moses, and had “put a fence around it.” They were legalistic in their religion. No doubt it started as a fear of repeating the events of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, followed by 400 years of never really being under their own control. They wanted to make sure that the Jewish people did not even get close to breaking God’s law. However, it went from “do not break God’s law” to “do not break our law” before Jesus was even born. We can see from history that the Pharisees had a power over the common Jew. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 23:2-4, “The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore, do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them.” They had power, and that can be seen by the fact that the Scribes and Pharisees were the only group of Jewish religious leaders to survive the destruction that the Romans brought to Jerusalem in AD 70.
Another question that could be asked is, why did Jesus do things on the Sabbath that He must have known would upset them? The blind man could have waited one more day to see, and the man with the shriveled hand could have waited one more day to get the use of his hand. Jesus was showing the people that keeping the Sabbath Holy (as instructed in Exodus 20:8-11) was not about what you could and could not do, especially when it came to the traditions of men (aka – the oral law of the Pharisees). Sure, if you can avoid picking up something heavy, they avoid it. But if your neighbor falls and needs help getting up, then go help him up, even if he weighs a lot. This also had the side effect of upsetting the Jewish religious leaders so much that they ultimately killed Him, which allowed Him to become the sacrifice that washes away our sin.
