Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.

9-10 That day happened to be the Sabbath. The Jews stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.”

11 But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll and start walking.’”

12-13 They asked, “Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?” But the healed man didn’t know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd.

14 A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, “You look wonderful! You’re well! Don’t return to a sinning life or something worse might happen.”

15-16 The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus—because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath. (The Message)

I still smile when I remember the words of one commentator about this healed man. What he said was to the effect that he seemed to be ‘a nasty piece of goods.’ I understand the comment though, because it must have been obvious to him that ‘the Jews’ were hostile towards Jesus. Nevertheless, he ‘shopped’ Him.

Their problem was that the miracle took place on the Sabbath. Religious ‘rules’ can be so nit-picky and uncharitable, and religious people so unpleasant According to the law, it was illegal to carry a bed or a mat on the Sabbath. This was considered ”work” (Jeremiah 17:21-22) However, it was legal to carry a bed if someone was lying on it. Tom Hale explains:

‘The Pharisees and the teachers of the law had added many kinds of regulations concerning what was ”work” and what was not ”work.” Many of these regulations were not written in the Old Testament. The rules forbidding work were made in order to keep the Sabbath day holy; it was supposed to be a day set apart for worship and prayer and rest. But the Jewish leaders had added so many little rules that the original meaning of the Sabbath had been lost. Because of all these rules, it was no longer possible to do any healing or other good works on the Sabbath. But Jesus’ teaching was that it was always lawful to ”do good” on the Sabbath (see Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-5; Luke 13:10-17…)’

We would do well to consider what evangelical ‘rules’ we cherish and seek to lay on others.. Maybe we inherited them from our parents. Perhaps we inhaled them from within our church tradition. There are numerous ways we can pick these things up, and the problem is we often confuse them with what the Bible actually teaches. We can end up burdening people with our own stipulations and taboos. Of course we mean well. We are committed to godliness. We want to protect people from sin and all its insidiousness. But we need to search our hearts and ask, ‘Are we asking others to live the Bible, or do we just want them to conform to our ideas?’

Religion cripples people with man-made regulations, but Jesus sets people free to walk.