Healing in the House of a Pharisee
Daily Reading: (Luke 14:1-4):
“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body.Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.”
Today in Luke 14 we will discover a miracle happen in the unlikeliest place of all. Because it is not the place, it is the person where salvation is found.
“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body” (Luke 14:1-2). Some translations read that the man was suffering from dropsy. Well, what is that? Dropsy is abnormal swelling in the body. What is interesting is that dropsy isn’t a disease itself. This is unique. It is instead a symptom of various illnesses or diseases in the body. I assure you he doesn’t know exactly what has caused it. You and I might not know all the causes of why we have high blood pressure or why we are dizzy or whatever ailment we might have, we just know that we have a condition. We have symptoms that are plaguing our body and the root causes can be unknown. The truth is God knows and Jesus is able to heal the root cause of your problem (Luke 14:2,4).
We are not specifically told this, but there is a clue from verse 1. “He was being watched carefully.” What were they watching Jesus for? He is simply at a Pharisee house, but it is on the Sabbath. I believe they have set a trap. Let’s invite Simon over, you know he has got abnormal swelling. His body is swollen like a balloon. He doesn’t even have to say anything, to know that he has an ailment. You can see it clear across the room. Let’s invite him over on the Sabbath because you know you aren’t supposed to labor on the Sabbath. Jesus was accused of this in Matthew 12:10; Mark 3:2, John 9:14-16.
Jesus knows their hearts and what they are after. “Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not” (Luke 14:3)?
Coffman’s Commentary on the Bible says the following. If they said, “Yes,” they had no case; if they said, “No,” they would have spoken a lie. “The law did not condemn such acts of mercy; and they undoubtedly saw the point of the Master’s question.”[1]
What Jesus did for the man with the swelled body is that “he took hold of” which is a Greek metaphor of rescue one from peril, to help to cure, heal to make whole to free from sin and bring about one’s salvation. The man with dropsy (swelling of the body) had his root problem of sin removed, he was made whole, as his salvation was received.
Whenever we take communion, we don’t just drink of the cup representing His blood, but also we take of the bread, His body given for us. By His blood that was shed we have forgiveness of sins but by His body we have wholeness and health. Because every provision for us is found in the Lord, we need to abide and rest in Him (John 15:4) to have the root of our problem removed (Luke 14:4).
[1] https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bcc/luke-14.html#verse-3
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