Again and again, the issue of the Sabbath comes up as a point of contention between the Pharisees and Jesus. Jesus intentionally provokes the Pharisees on this subject over and over. Why?
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
John 9: 13-16
Did it ever occur to the Pharisees that complying with rules about what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath might be considered “work” in itself? In the name of avoiding work, they had made work out of the Sabbath.
Q: What is your definition of work and how would you apply it to God’s commandment to keep the Sabbath holy? (Exodus 20: 8-11)
Work is the expenditure of energy. So even turning on so lightswitch is work (although it seems like the switch and lightbulb are doing most of the work).
I think that God is really calling us to stop busy activities that draw our attentions away from Him.
I find it fascinating that Jesus healed in this manner on the Sabbath. I believe that may be the primary reason He did heal this way on the Sabbath. I think He may have been pressing the issue – to confront the idea that you cannot do good on the Sabbath if the religious leaders called it work. He looked at the point of the Sabbath rather than having the Sabbath held hostage by human misrepresentations and trappings. Doing good on the Sabbath is work, but it is God’s work. Just working to make more money at the altar of materialism or for a lack of faith may be what the sabbath was aiming toward. The motive and heart matter to Jesus and thus to God. If it is a work of faith then it is good. If it is faithless work then it is bad.