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Sermon 42… The True Observance of the Sabbath

Revealed to Gottfried Mayerhofer on April 23rd, 1872
spoken by Pascal

Luke 14:1-6
And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.

And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? And they held their peace.

And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? And they could not answer him again to these things.

Thus says the Lord…

1. The beginning of this chapter speaks of the healing of a man from dropsy, which took place in the house of a chief Pharisee and on a Sabbath, on which day, according to the strict laws of the Jews, any activity beyond the performing of religious rites and ceremonies is inadmissible.

2. There was a good reason for this healing to be effected under the mentioned circumstances. Although this chief was an adherent of My teaching, he understood the dogmas of the temple in their literal sense; he also liked to listen to Me as long as I did not do anything that contradicted his views and offended against his dignity as a Pharisee. Therefore, I let it happen that while we were sitting at his table, a man suffering from dropsy entered and entreated Me to heal him.

3. The Gospel states that I did heal him. However, since I healed him on a Jewish Sabbath, this caused annoyance. Thereby I wanted to point out to the Pharisees how badly they understood their own laws and how incorrectly they taught them to the people. That is why I said: “Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straight away pull him out, because it is in his own interest? But to do a good work on others or for others, that you regard as a sin!”

4. Thereby I wanted to prove to them that charitable and good deeds do not desecrate the prescribed holidy or Sabbath, but are more likely to hallow it than many useless rites and ceremonies thoughtlessly performed.

5. As far as the Jewish people were concerned, there were plenty of abuses. Although they had the laws of Moses and the prophets, they did not know how to interpret them spiritually. The Pharisees and scribes encouraged them to stick to the literal meaning, since it was important to them to have the laws interpreted in such a way that to be a Jew in the literal sense was not too much trouble.

6. Therefore, I came into the world in this particular nation which had for a long time possessed a religion that was the most suitable to serve as a basis for My teaching. The old laws did not have to be abolished, but rendered to the Jewish people cleansed. They had to be interpreted spiritually thus to save the human dignity which was on the point of being lost altogether in all the ceremonial rites of the temple and egotistical worldly pleasures.

7. During the three years of My ministery I kept pursuing this purpose. I sought opportunities or allowed events to take place which gave cause to fight against the Jews’ false notions and prejudices.

8. Thus, also the observance of the Sabbath was a subject which I, as the originator of My divine and sole true religion, could not ignore. To eliminate these prejudices, I began to take action in the house of a chief of the Pharisees to give rise to a discussion on this subject. Since the Pharisees always wanted to be the first, claiming to know and understand everything better, they were also the first ones that had to be cleansed of their false notions if ever the people were to be taught the truth. For this reason, I performed this healing before them and gave them an answer which silenced them, as is witnessed by verses 5 and 6.

9. The temple chiefs had quite different notions of charitable deeds, so that I often felt obliged to explain to them in more detail, through examples and parables, the texts about the love of one’s neighbour; for they were of the opinion that good deeds were only due to the temple and their own person. Everything else that was done for other people did not count with them.

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