Jesus has become quite the controversial figure over the course of time.  This should come as no surprise, since He was quite controversial during His life on earth, approximately 2,000 years ago.  Let’s look at some of the controversial things He said and did.

Violating the Sabbath

One of the best known parts of the Law of Moses in the Old Testament was the Ten Commandments.  One of those commandments was that the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, were to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy(Ex. 20:8-11).  They weren’t supposed to do any work that day.  They had the first six days of the week to work, but on the seventh day of the week(Saturday), they were not supposed to work.  Having a day off during the course of a week might sound like a perfectly normal thing, but people in ancient times worked 7 days a week, quite often.

Most people lived an agrarian life(i.e. they lived on acreage, growing much of their food, and usually having some degree of livestock.  Not a lot, as most people were poor.  Livestock required work, like feeding every day.  So when God gave the people a law stating that they were to work for six days, then have a day off(basically), this was different . .  . very different.  But what did having a day off really mean?  What was prohibited?

By the time when Jesus was living on earth(some 1450 years later), the religious leaders among God’s people(Israel) had filled in the empty spaces God had left, at least from the standpoint of some people.  They decreed how far you could walk, as well as other restrictions . . . none of which came from God; these just came from people.  And that can be dangerous, as these “laws of men” were being viewed as being right up there with what God had commanded.  And that is VERY dangerous.

So when Jesus healed a man . . . wait for it . . . ON the Sabbath, this was viewed by many of the religious elites at sinful.  In Mark 3:1-6, Jesus went into a synagogue(these were buildings that had been erected by Israelites in cities and villages away from Jerusalem, the capital city where the Temple was.  Synagogues were places that people could meet, read the Law and the Prophets(what we might call the Old Testament) and discuss religious issues. 

When Jesus was in a synagogue on the Sabbath, there was a man with a shriveled hand.  Jesus asked the people there(these would have been people interested in doing what was right, or at least what they thought was right, according to God) if it was lawful to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill, on the Sabbath.  Nobody responded.  Jesus was angry with them because He knew their hearts and He knew that they were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus of doing something wrong.  Jesus healed the man, and the Pharisees left the synagogue, plotting to kill Jesus.

In John 9:1-41, Jesus healed a man who had been born blind.  Normally, this would have been a great thing, but He did it on the Sabbath.  In John 5:1-18, Jesus healed a lame man on the Sabbath at the pool of Bethesda.  All of these instances, and others(healing on the Sabbath), caused some of the religious elites to want to kill Jesus.  People accused Jesus of all kinds of different things, none of which were true.  At one point, the man who had previously been blind was brought before the Pharisees.  Some of the Pharisees concluded that Jesus was not from God, because He did not keep the Sabbath, or at least their version of the Sabbath(John 9:16).  They accused Jesus of being a  sinner(John 9:24), but the formerly blind man stated very succinctly that God does not listen to sinners, yet this person(he did not know it was Jesus who had healed him) had healed his blindness.  And if this man(Jesus) had NOT been from God, then He would not have been able to cure his blindness. 

This man was not a part of the religious elite.  He was just a regular person. And even he understood quite simply that if someone was performing miracles, that person had to be sent by God.  It’s so simple, but some people are just too “smart” to see what is plainly obvious.  When you hear someone tell you something that is so clearly contradictory to what the Bible says, don’t be persuaded by their degrees, titles, public accolades, popularity or anything else.  Be persuaded by God . . . by His Word.  Then do it. Do it even if it isn’t popular . . . like Jesus.  Do it even if the religious elites think you’re wrong . . . like Jesus.  To put it simply, let’s just follow Jesus.