Unforgettable Encounters with Jesus - The Pharisees

This week we're looking at another encounter Jesus had while on earth. We can learn so much by looking at his interactions with people. And this time it's Jesus and the Pharisees. Last week, Pastor Simon looked at Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee who came to Jesus secretly. He was curious.

He wanted to talk and hear from Jesus. He wanted to discuss things with Jesus. Today's encounters are very different because rather than these Pharisees wanting to receive from or hear from Jesus, they want to trap him. Often encounters with Jesus open the eyes of those he interacts with. They recognize something special about him.

In this case, because of their hard heartedness and blindness, the Pharisees refuse to see who they are encountering. They're so caught up in what they think is right that they're unwilling to be challenged on it. So let's look first at Matthew chapter 12. Starting at verse one, we're going to look at verses one to eight to start with. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. He answered, haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?

I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

The Pharisees are angry at Jesus because they see his disciples breaking their rules about the Sabbath. There would have been no problem with what the disciples were doing if it had been any other day. Jewish law allowed a person to pick a small amount of grain from a field if they were hungry. In the Pharisees eyes, picking some wheat from the stem, then rubbing it to remove the chaff, was harvesting the wheat, which they held was forbidden on the Sabbath. They didn't seem to be able to see a difference between someone out in their fields working hard all day on the Sabbath and the disciples taking a little bit of grain to satisfy their hunger.

The Pharisees held that Jesus was responsible for the actions of his disciples. They thought any godly person would have made sure that their Disciples did what the Pharisees thought was right on the Sabbath. They already consider that Jesus flouted the Sabbath rules. So this was a good opportunity to attack him again.

I love the way Jesus comes back at them. He says, haven't you read? He challenges them on their knowledge of the Scriptures. This would have infuriated them. The Pharisees prided themselves on their knowledge of God's law.

They were the Jewish religious leaders who thought themselves incredibly knowledgeable and learned. In their eyes, not only did they know the Scriptures, they considered that they did everything that God said. And they did their best to make sure others did too. They were the religious police.

Interestingly, another time we see Jesus quote Scripture is when Satan tries to trap him in the wilderness. Each time there he says to Satan, it is written Jesus relied on the word of God to silence his enemies.

Jesus points out to the Pharisees two examples in Scripture where the Sabbath law was broken and yet there was no condemnation of those who did it. David, when he was fleeing from Saul, ate consecrated bread, which was only for the priests to eat. In this case, the need to sustain life was the important thing. In the other case, the priests in the temple are involved in work on the Sabbath. They have to carry out the sacrifices.

And the Pharisees knew this. Yet it wasn't considered a violation of the Sabbath law because it was necessary that it was done. That's what the priests were called to do. There were exceptions allowed within the rule.

The Pharisees, though, didn't just take God's law and try to enforce it. They had made their own rules about keeping it, which they expected every Jew to follow. Their idea was that if you made a large number of rules about what you could or couldn't do, it made the law clearer and you were less likely to accidentally break.

Started from a good intention. But over time, these rules had taken on a life of their own. Jesus wasn't interested in following man made rules which missed the essence of what God wanted.

Jesus declares he is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the only one who could show what God intended for his people by giving them this Sabbath day. This again would have infuriated the Pharisees who considered that they were this. They were the ones that said what could or couldn't happen. Then Jesus uses the title Son of Man, a reference to the Messiah prophesied in Daniel 7, a reference the Pharisees would have known.

In this, Jesus points out his authority. He emphasized that he is the one promised by God, the one who has now come and who knows what was intended by what God had said.

In the Pharisees eyes, the rules they had made were as important that as what God had said and more important than what God intended. To the Pharisees, what you did or didn't do was the important part. And they judged this against what they had decided was right. The law of Moses stated that the Sabbath day was to be kept holy and work was not to be done on this day, and God had a purpose. With this the Pharisees, in their attempt to be holy and righteous by their own efforts, had usurped God's purpose and made numerous nitpicking rules which they expected everyone to obey.

In doing so they thought they were right in God's sight and they condemned others. God's rule for the Sabbath was for the benefit of people. It was a blessing, a gift to the people, not a judgment. The Sabbath day was to be a time when people could leave their everyday life, the precious, the relentless hard work and have a time of rest and refreshing to physically, mentally, spiritually. Exodus 23:12 points this out six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.

It was a time to rest the body by abstaining from work. The word for Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning to be at rest, to cease from work. Continual work without rest can lead to physical, emotional, mental breakdown as we see from the Exodus verse. God wanted everyone and everything to have a rest. The Sabbath was a time to be rested and refreshed physically and mentally by spending time with family and friends.

It was a time to be refreshed spiritually by spending time in God's presence and with others, reflecting on the goodness and mercy of God. The Sabbath day wasn't to be a really dull, boring day where you just sat around waiting for it to end. It started at sunset on the Friday with a synagogue service which focused on praise of God, followed by a meal. Everything would have been specially prepared and everyone gathered together, enjoying themselves. There were more times like this on the Saturday.

Times of worship and celebration of God, with meals and rest and recreation. It was a time of reflecting on God and his goodness. This was what God intended for his people. When he said to stop everyday work on the Sabbath. Jesus points out, as Lord of the Sabbath, he is greater than any of the Pharisees rules.

He is the one who created the Sabbath and the only one who can determine how the Sabbath is to be observed and it wasn't through some man made petty rules which created burdens, not freedom.

He also points out that what God desires is mercy, not sacrifice. Compassion for people was much greater than mere external acts. It was through compassion for his creation that God gave them the Sabbath. Jesus quotes from the book of the prophet Isaiah, a book about the incredible faithfulness of God and the love he had free people. Hosea 6, 6 says, for I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Here God is rejecting sacrifice that is simply external, empty religious rituals and rule keeping. What God wants is a compassionate heart that comes from knowing God and his compassion. A heart that wants to meet real human need. Which is why out of the compassion and mercy of God, he sent Jesus. The scriptures which the Pharisees should have known, talk about the compassion of God.

In many places there are verses such as the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Jesus tells the Pharisees that they don't understand God's word. If they had, they would have responded to Jesus differently and also to the people. They were meant to be leaders of leaders who served who were the shepherds. They were meant to care for the people as God did. Instead, they had put insurmountable burdens on people, requiring of them far more than God did.

Because God knew that the people couldn't be righteous through the law, which is why Jesus came. God's care and compassion were seen in Jesus, and the law pointed out man's need for God's grace and mercy. Yet the Pharisees rejected Jesus and tried to gain righteousness through their own efforts. They had no understanding of God's compassion toward them and others and their incredible need for it. Their pride in themselves blinded them and cut them off from God so much that they didn't recognize the Messiah he had sent.

They saw Jesus as flaunting their rules, but they failed to recognize the depth of love and compassion Jesus had for the people he had come to. Jesus knew the burden of sin that people were under, sin which destroyed the perfection and freedom of life that God wanted for his people. Jesus had come to overcome this, to show that in him was fullness of life and he was the living water, the bread of life, the one that could truly say to the people, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The very presence of God was with them. The same God they claimed to worship in the temple, and they rejected him. Instead of this encounter causing them to recognize their failings and wrongdoing, of making them change how they thought and acted. They became more convinced of their rightness and rejected the only one who could show them the truth.

We now come to the second of Jesus encounters with the Pharisees in Matthew 12, 9:14. Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus. They asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? He said to them, if any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?

How much more valuable is a person than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

The Pharisees saw this as the perfect opportunity to trap Jesus. They knew that Jesus could heal. It's incredible that they couldn't see that this power came from God. They also believed that Jesus would heal, that he was moved by compassion for those suffering.

There was nothing in the law that prevented healing on the Sabbath. But the Pharisees thought it was wrong. They only allowed medical care to stop a person getting worse. But they didn't object to anyone who rescued their animal who'd fallen into a pit. Even if it wasn't a life threatening situation.

Lifting an animal out of a pit would have been classified as work under their rules. Yet they allowed this. But they thought helping a person who needed it was wrong. As far as they were concerned, the man with the crippled hand did not need any immediate medical care, even though he was suffering. They valued him as less than one of their animals.

The Pharisees had lost the heart of God and had substituted their own image of him as an uncaring God who was only concerned with rule keeping. Jesus challenges them again on their knowledge and understanding of the law. He points out that if it's acceptable to rescue an animal, how much more important was it to care for a person, someone made in the image of God?

There's no reply from them because of course it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees are unable to argue with Jesus logic. Because the Sabbath day was a day of mercy from God for man's benefit. It made sense to do merciful acts on that day to feed the hungry, to rescue those in danger, to heal the Sick.

It's important to note that Jesus wasn't abolishing the Sabbath. He was showing the true meaning of it. He wasn't saying to the Pharisees, it doesn't matter what you do on that day, you, you can do what you like, just please yourself, don't worry about what God has said. Instead, Jesus was showing what God desired by giving people Sabbath rest. A time to draw closer to God, to be restored, a time to share the mercy and compassion of God.

Jesus heals the man Just as the Pharisees expected. They saw Jesus breaking their rules, but they failed to recognize the depth of love and compassion that Jesus had.

These encounters with the Pharisees, that Jesus had, did not open their eyes to who he was. His authority, both in words and actions, should have shown them that he was the one they had been waiting for. Yet it failed to have this impact. Jesus talked of people hearing but not understanding. And the Pharisees were a prime example of this.

They were so caught up in pride and so sure of themselves that they had no room for anything which challenged this. They wanted to destroy Jesus rather than realise they had been wrong and change. Funnily enough, they didn't want a person healed on the Sabbath, something which was doing good, yet they were willing to plan murder, something definitely against God's law.

We can look here at the Pharisees and think how short sighted they were. They had Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. And because he didn't look how they thought, because he didn't act how they thought he should, they didn't recognize him, they didn't listen to him.

I've heard people say, say, oh, if only I'd been alive when Jesus was on earth, it would be so much clearer, so much easier to believe, you know, Wouldn't be so much of a difficulty. I wouldn't have to kind of, you know, kind of struggle to understand or whatever, because Jesus would be right there and I could see him and I could hear from him directly. Yet we see from the Pharisees and from other examples in the Gospels that people, people condemned or mocked Jesus because he didn't fit how they thought he should be.

The Pharisees wanted a Messiah who applauded them and condemned other people. The crowds at times wanted a Messiah who gave them good things but demanded nothing.

God calls us to obey him and do what he says. He's told us the way we should live and we need to try as best we can to live that way. But God wants obedience. That flows from the grace we have received that knows the mercy and compassion of God. We need to be careful that we're not distorting what God has said or substituting external religious practices, trying to justify ourselves or judge others instead of looking at what is true in God's word, the truth that is found in Jesus.

The Pharisees did this. The rules they created were originally meant to help people obey God's laws. But they became an end in themselves and a way for the Pharisees to judge others. And they decide that this was what God also did.

In their minds, the Pharisees saw themselves as being the only ones accepting in God's sight. Without realizing how far away they were. They were trying to fit God into their thinking to make him manageable. They had developed an image of God which looked amazingly like them. They weren't interested in a God who wanted to change hearts.

We see in these encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees the supremacy and authority of Jesus. He is the one who shows what God intended and how life is to be lived. If we want to know the truth of anything and how to live our life, we need to look to Jesus. In Jesus we find true Sabbath rest, the rest that our souls need. We need to not lose sight of the heart of God, which is mercy, not meaningless sacrifice or empty rituals, and recognise that we all need God's mercy.

We're acceptable in God's eyes only because of Jesus, not because of our own supposed rightness to live in the way that God desires. We need a life changing encounter with Jesus. An encounter that recognises our need and lack and sees his authority, grace and mercy. An encounter that changes us completely. We need to put aside preconceived ideas and open our hearts and minds to Him.

Then each and every day we need to continue to look to him, to examine ourselves, to make sure that we are following him, not substituting some image of him that we find more acceptable. I pray that you have experienced this encounter. If you haven't, then please put your hope and trust in in Jesus. He is the only way to be right in God's sight. No human striving, no attempt to measure up will be enough.

We need to encourage other people also to have this life changing encounter with Jesus. We are to direct people to the One who can change hearts and minds and who shows true life. We need to share the truth and the compassion of the God who sent his only Son for our sake so we could truly experience the heart of the Father. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for the grace and mercy and the compassion that you show to us.

We thank you for Jesus who brought this, Lord, who showed us what it meant to follow you, who showed us what true Sabbath rest is, to find our peace and our life in you, resting in you. Lord Lord, not in some supposed way that we can measure up, but by surrendering ourselves to you. Lord God Lord, I pray that our hearts will be open that, Lord, that we won't not do the things that you've called us to, but rather we will look to you each and every day, that we will examine ourselves, that we will see whether we are walking in that compassion and mercy that you extend to us and that we are to extend to others. Lord God, just give us your truth in your life, Lord, in all that we do. Amen.