“It Is Lawful To *Do Good* On Sunday!”

“It Is Lawful To Do Good On Sunday!”
In this life you’ll always come across people who ask you questions on issues whose answers they already know. Such people are looking for a reason to accuse you. It is worst these days of mobile phones. A supposed friend calls you and while you are talking, you are being recorded. Before you know it, your voice is circulated all round among them that want to give a dog a bad name so as to hang it.
Isn’t it unethical any more to circulate an audio or video clip of a private conversation without consent? Well, since men have learned to shoot without missing, the sparrows have decided to fly without perching. When you are aware of the evil intentions of even some that you call friends, you just play along and play the fool to fool the fool.
As the Lord Jesus Christ entered a synagogue on a Sabbath, there was a man with a shriveled hand. “Looking for a way to accuse Jesus, they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?'” Jesus asked to know who of them will not take out his sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath? “How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
They already knew the answer to their question. For them, it was not lawful! Healing was prohibited on the Sabbath, unless it was feared that the person would die before the next day. And there was certainly no emergency for a mere shriveled hand. It could wait. But Jesus thought otherwise.
Jesus did what he said was needful on the Sabbath: He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And when the man did, “it was completely restored, just as sound as the other.”
We notice that Jesus did not say it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. He said, “it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Healing someone on the Sabbath is doing good to the person, in the same way that any act of goodness to anybody any day brings healing to that person.
Again we notice that Jesus did not do anything to the man with the shriveled hand except that he said, “Stretch out your hand.” A brief sentence with fewer words than each Pharisees would use on the Sabbath to say, “Serve my food. Bring me some water to drink. Come clear the table. Etc!” What height of hypocrisy! And they had the mind to go out and “plotted how they might kill Jesus.”
My friend, do not think that the good you do would always attract the praise of men! No! Humanbeings are very unpredictable! Just know that, *”it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Knowing this, do not stop doing good; even on the Sabbath. Doing good is good business! You cannot do good to the whole world, but the good you do to just one person near you may mean the world to her/him.
Weekend prayer: Holy Spirit inspire me to do good that heals with the means I have, to the few I can reach out to. Amen!
Have a blessed weekend! Peace be with you!
Babila Fochang
nibabsfon@gmail.com