Forbid God? God Forbid!
Jesus Christ never missed an opportunity to perform a miracle, even and perhaps especially if it was on the Sabbath. What better day to show forth God’s power and love than on the Lord’s day? The scribes and Pharisees didn’t see it that way. In their minds and in their hearts, they had decided that certain things were off limits and impossible even for God. Sorry God, it’s the day of rest. You’re going to have to show mercy on this injured child of yours some other day. We do this all the time. We get it into our heads that the conditions have to be just right for a miracle. We have to wait until after we stop losing our temper all of the time before we can ask for a miracle to calm the raging storm inside. We have to wait until after we’ve kicked a bad habit before we can ask for the miracle to go and sin no more. We’re too busy drowning in depression or debt or dieting to bother asking the Lord for help. The really sad part is that we fail so often, forgetting or refusing to ask the Lord for help all the while, that we assume since He’s never helped us before, then we’re an impossible, hopeless case. God may say He’s got all power but He’s never met us. First of all, of course God’s helped us even when we didn’t ask for help in thousands of small and big ways that we’ve failed to notice. And second of all, the only reason He hasn’t helped us more is because we’ve refused to ask, or to accept the help being offered. Not everyone’s miracles are going to look the same. Sometimes Christ is going to heal us on the Sabbath. Sometimes He’s going to heal us at a ballgame, or stuck in traffic, or out on a ledge grasping for a reason to live. God can save us in the middle of a snowstorm or at the bottom of a mineshaft. He can save us when we’re the black sheep who can never do anything right, or when we’re the golden child being crushed by the expectations to never do anything wrong. Christ’s title, His job description, His very reason for existing is to be our Savior. One Who Saves. That’s what He does, that’s Who He is. To try to put limits on when and how and why He saves us is to try to put limits on Who He is. Christ would not allow the small-minded, unimaginative, twisted perceptions the scribes and pharisees held of what the Sabbath could and couldn’t be, and by extension, what the Lord of the Sabbath could and couldn’t be, and He will not allow our own misguided understandings of His work and glory to limit His love or HIs miracles.
