Luke 14:1–6 (ESV)
Healing of a Man on the Sabbath
14 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was
a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained
silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”
6 And they could not reply to these things.
Jesus exposes His enemies’ inconsistencies and cruelty. Today, we are also tempted to build
our religion on human tradition (rather than on God’s Word) and then to condemn others on the basis of our traditions. Jesus holds the well-being of God’s children above all. Still, He reaches out to us in mercy, despite the indifference or rejection
of others.
I pray: Jesus, look upon us in our need, heal us, and dismiss us with Your blessing. Amen.
Edward A. Engelbrecht, The Lutheran Study Bible (St. Louis, MO: Concordia
Publishing House, 2009), 1745.