Jesus Our Overseer, Watching Ourselves, and Looking Out for Each Other
Have you ever had the feeling that someone wanted you to mess up – that wanted you to be wrong?
Jesus, in our text, is surrounded by people who want him to be wrong – who want Him to sin.
The text says that after Jesus had been invited to dinner by one of the rulers of the Pharisees, they were watching Him carefully.
Everything He taught, everything He did, listening carefully for Him to be wrong, trying to perceive His thoughts, getting ready to jump on any opportunity if His deeds were wrong – they were watching Him carefully.
And even above that, they had set a trap for Jesus. He was being set-up.
They, who wanted Jesus to be wrong, put a man who had dropsy in front of Jesus on the Sabbath day, knowing that Jesus was merciful,
and then watched Him carefully to see when He would sin against their culturally man-made rules that they had added to God’s Word about work and the Sabbath
Have you ever had the feeling that someone wanted you to be wrong?
Jesus did here. But He responds brilliantly.
Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, He asks. Saying out loud for all to hear exactly what the trap was and making the trap in question not about the lawyers or Pharisees and their hatred for Jesus – but about God and what He has written. Is it lawful – And they remained silent.
As it always will be when you want Jesus to be wrong – it will end in a shameful silence.
Throughout your days and weeks, it doesn’t take much reflecting to see how much the devil wants you to mess to up. But I’m sure you also missed many.
And it doesn’t take much reflecting to see that you were not as brilliant or as faithful as Jesus.
You often did not make it about God and how He is right and wise. You, too often, did not ask, is it lawful. You too often made it about you and your desires and perceived wisdom.
The devil set traps and you weren’t awake enough in prayer to see them and fell right in.
The devil wanted you to sin, and you did!
But the devil isn’t the only one who is watching others carefully in hopes they will mess up – we do, too.
We sometimes want others to be wrong. We don’t like them, either at that moment or we’ve never like them and we never will.
How many times do you want someone to say the wrong thing or lose their temper in an argument?
How many times do you want to look better in front of the boss or the friend?
If we are looking for others to be wrong, if we are looking for others to sin, if we waiting for somebody to mess up – we will live a life of pulling the trap, “Aha! Gotcha! Wrong again!”
Instead, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4)- and you should urge the same for me.
In contrast to watching others carefully, Scripture gives this admonition, first to pastors, but also to all Christians:
Keep a close watch on yourselves and the teaching. (1 Timothy 4:16).
St. Luke records these words of Jesus:
Watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap
Watch yourself, and watch the Word, the teaching – lest that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
Any time Jesus is dining with others, as He was with lawyers and Pharisees at the ruler of the Pharisees house, Jesus is teaching. Teaching and dining always went together – as it does for you today.
The lawyers and Pharisees missed the gift of both Christ’s teaching and the gift of His dining with them. They were too busy wanting Jesus to be wrong.
Let’s be busy today in the joy that Jesus is right.
Both in admonishing for our sin,
calling us out on our traps we set in anger or annoyance with others,
calling us to repentance for falling into the traps the devil set up for us – Jesus is right. He always is.
And Jesus is right in His teaching and His dining that is refreshing us with His forgiveness, peace, and wisdom and in the wonderful truth that
He too is watching us carefully.
But not watching and waiting for us to sin – not watching and waiting for us to be wrong – but watching us carefully to love us and protect us and deliver us and rescue us. He doesn’t watch silently. He gives us His Word out loud!
When the lawyers and Pharisees were watching Jesus carefully, and He silenced them with the question is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, Jesus immediately heals the man with dropsy and asks a question centered around rescue and deliverance and salvation –
“Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things.
Jesus wants the rulers of the Pharisees and the lawyers to confess that as they have watched themselves and kept a close eye on the teaching – they have been wrong – so wrong they are fallen into a pit and cannot rescue themselves.
So wrong that they need someone who is watching out for them to rescue them.
Jesus is watching out for the Pharisees and lawyers and He is also watching out for you.
Scripture give Jesus the title of the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (1 Peter 2:25).
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2:24-25)
In overseeing your soul, He saw you trapped by the devil and your own sinful flesh and deserving of God’s wrath and He became your substitute bearing your sin in His body on the tree.
In overseeing your soul, He saw you wounded mortally by sin and selfishness and pride and despair and straying like sheep and He returned You back through His Spirit and Word, for He is the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul and By His wounds you have been healed.
He promises that He does not see our sins, but see’s us righteous and holy,
He does not mark iniquities,
for with Him there is forgiveness, that He may be feared (Psalm 130:3-4).
Confident that He is overseer and with faith that looks trustingly to Christ of Calvary and keeping a close watch on yourselves and the teaching He then works in you a desire to walk according to His will and ways.
So rather than looking unto others to see them fall and sin, and set traps for them in action or in mind, let’s watch out for each other, knowing the devil’s temptations and traps are for us all and that our sinful flesh is prideful and strong – but that Jesus, our overseer is our common rescuer and helper.
Scripture urges us to watch out for each other so that we might all walk in the manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.