In this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus shows his divinity once again by curing a woman “crippled by a spirit” who had been bent over for 18 years, and once again he is criticized by the religious leaders for doing this on the Sabbath. He sets them straight by pointing out that they look after even their animals on the Sabbath. In so doing, he points out that such a petty interpretation of the Sabbath rules is not only unsupported in the law, it goes against the spirit of the law and would deny the people access to the physical and spiritual healing they sorely need. To cast Jesus in a bad light, they try to equate His saving and compassionate acts with the type of “work” we are meant to avoid on the Sabbath.
St. Irenaeus
St. Irenaeus of Lyon weighed in on this, writing in the second century. He recalled that the Lord vindicated Abraham’s posterity by loosing his people from bondage and calling them to salvation, just as He did in the case of the bent over woman Jesus healed. St. Irenaeus points out that Jesus healed at Siloam and and on frequent subsequent occasions on the Sabbath, and consequently many people sought Him out on Sabbath days.
In Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus writes that God released and animated those who believed in him as Abraham did, and this was not contrary to law,
For the law did not prohibit men from being healed upon the Sabbaths; on the contrary, it even circumcised them upon that day, and gave command that the offices should be performed by the priests for the people; yea, it did not disallow the healing even of dumb animals.
Fulfillment
What the law did require was abstaining on the Sabbath from “every servile work, that is, from all grasping after wealth which is procured by trading and by other worldly business.” The law in fact encouraged people to “attend to the exercises of the soul, which consist in reflection, and to addresses of a beneficial kind for their neighbours’ benefit.”
In healing on the Sabbath, St. Irenaeus emphasizes that the Lord did not make void, but rather, fulfilled the law. He healed the sick and suffered His own death, “ . . . that exiled man might go forth from condemnation, and might return without fear to his own inheritance.”
