Jesus gets pushback from the religious leaders for not following the man-made rules associated with the Sabbath. Instead he heals a man with a shriveled hand!
Jesus chooses 12 apostles among his many disciples and then describes life as part of the New Israel, the New Kingdom!
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Message Notes:
Jesus gets pushback from the religious leaders for not following the rules associated with the Sabbath. Now, these rules were not from God or found in the Old Testament but added by religious leaders over the centuries.
They added so much to what God intended as resting on the Sabbath that they were missing the entire point of Sabbath.
So Jesus reframed everything saying with a remarkably bold claim: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Just as David had been anointed king and had special freedoms, Jesus is communicating he has an authority they do not yet recognize
On another Sabbath he knew they were watching to see if he would heal someone so he asks: “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9 NIV)
He then heals a man with a shriveled hand!! Can you imagine watching a hand go from shriveled to healthy and whole?
Jesus has many followers at this point and he selects 12 of them to be apostles just as the people of Israel had 12 tribes.
Then Jesus shares some of the conditions of the New Covenant with this New Israel just as we see in the Hebrew Scriptures in Deuteronomy. Now blessings and curses are often misunderstood. This is not God warning us that He will zap us. Jesus is saying in His New Kingdom, God values the opposite of what the world values. Outcasts are welcome. Those who don’t think they need help or want help will get what they want.
Jesus then describes how those who follow Him are to live. Those of us in this New Israel, this New Kingdom are to love our enemies, avoid judging others, but instead lavishly give grace to others and obey God’s ways because “each tree is recognized by its own fruit” and “a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
