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.
Continue reading “Work”