“Mats”

I was reading John chapter five yesterday and verse ten jumped out at me:

…the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”

In this passage, Jesus had healed a man who had been lame for 38 years and told him to, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” – and so he did.

The fact is, the “mat-carrying” offense that the Jewish Leaders accused the man of wasn’t really violating a command from God.  From the ESV Study Bible,

Nothing in the OT specifically prohibited such an innocent activity as carrying one’s bedroll on the Sabbath day (cf. Ex. 20:8–11), but the man was violating later Jewish traditions that had developed hundreds of minutely detailed and burdensome rules about what kind of “work” was prohibited, including a code that forbade carrying an object “from one domain into another” (Mishnah, Shabbat 7.2). [my emphasis and link added]

As I read this passage, the thing that got me was the traditions and rules that the church (i.e., me, you, us together) has often set up – even canonized – as though they were commands from God Himself.  We apply or append our “criteria” for appropriate or proper Christian or God “honoring” or “obeying” behavior to that which is from God’s Word – which really puts us in God’s position as Law and Grace-Giver (John 1:16-17) and Righteous Judge (Romans 2:1-3).  […which by the way is a “non-mat” offense.]

Certainly, I’m not excusing sin or behavior that is contrary to what God’s Word calls us to as those who would honor and worship Him.  My point is that we (the Church) too often worry about “mat-carrying” things – which are not even of concern to God, according to or in light of His Word.

I confess guilt here.  I need to do better.