The Pharisees, who led Jesus to explaining his opinion to the Sabbath (above), by questioning him for “working” on the Sabbath were very upstanding and well respected people in the community of Jesus’ time. They were the people who the public went to if they had any questions on how to please God or how you should live life and be “safe”.
The Pharisees attitude as I have briefly mentioned above was one that made sure everyone carried out every one of the 516-619 oral laws that existed and monitored the people making sure they ere not violating the Sabbath law by doing something that, for example, existed under the 39 categories of which work could be classified under. They enforced the fence around the law to make it unbreakable. They enforced each law rigidly and made sure that everyone else followed their strict interpretaion of the laws.
We can clearly see how Jesus attitude to the Sabbath totally contrasted the view of the Pharisees in that he looks upon it in nearly the opposite fashion. Where the Pharisees took the attitude that the Sabbath was an issue that carried strict laws that shouldn’t be broken, and not much else, Jesus took the attitude that the Sabbath is there to help, not hinder humanity.
Where very few people follow the attitude of the Pharisees today, most of them keep alive the attitude of Jesus to the Sabbath. This is probably not, in my opinion, because it is Jesus’ attitude, but because it suits and that people can get away with not following the Sabbath laws simply by saying that Jesus was not a firm believer of keeping them strictly.
Following up to the above points I would say that Jesus attitude has had an impact on the way people react to the Sabbath. I think that people in today’s world like to follow Jesus in whatever ways possible and the fact that Jesus took a very “lenient” attitude to the Sabbath I think, is exploited in today’s world where people take it too far, to the limit if you like, and not care about the Sabbath at all.
Jesus was brought up in the way that the Pharisees would see as and ideal upbringing. He was brought up to follow every Sabbath law immaculately but he has expressed the message that the Sabbath was made for man, not the other way round, this, in my opinion has led people in to thinking that they are too good to worship the Sabbath almost, and this affect is drawing to the point where the Sabbath will no longer be cared for.
Philip O’ Hare
