Luke 6:6-11: Sabbath breaking on trial

Jesus is still being dogged by OFSTED. The scribes and the pharisees are watching his every move. I get the impression that they are making up their minds about him, and they don't like what they see. The problem is, they haven't actually got much hard evidence against him. They've challenged him on blasphemy, on fasting, on keeping the sabbath, but they know well that a defence lawyer would get him off on a technicality.

Before they recommend censure, they need something more solid. A clear, unambiguous flouting of the rules. I wonder if they tried to set one up? Did they plant this disabled man right in Jesus' eyeline, to see if he would take the bait and heal him on the sabbath.

But Jesus doesn't just swallow their hook, he grabs hold of the line and pulls the whole fishing rod and the fishermen in after him. Probably stretching that metaphor too far, but you know what I mean.

He stands the man up in front of them all and makes this into the most public of challenges. What is the sabbath for? he asks. Are you going to tell all these people here that it's not a day for doing good?

He looks into their eyes, one at a time. Luke keeps telling us that he knows their thoughts. I used to know someone like that - he would look at me and I felt like his eyes were studying the back of my skull, they saw so deep. If I hadn't liked and respected him so much, I would have been intimidated.

So the pharisees were enraged on this sabbath day. They went their way, not full of holy and charitable thoughts, nor even a professional calmness as they made their dispassionate judgements. Jesus had seen into their souls, and they knew full well he hadn't liked what he saw there.

They didn't like it either, and the clanging, jarring pain from their consciences provoked them.