Ox in the Mire - Luke 13:36-14:6

I’m a little bit confused because I thought that Jesus had left Jerusalem after the Feast of Dedication was over, but apparently he is still there because he is teaching in and mourning over Jerusalem. One of the Pharisees comes to Jesus and tells him, “Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.” Because most of the interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees seem to be based on entrapment, it is difficult to not look for some ulterior motive in the Pharisees’ warning. It is possible though that Jesus was admired by some of the Pharisees, we know that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea are both Pharisees and that they are both believers in Jesus, so surely it’s possible for there to be others. Let’s look for a second to see what the Pharisee would gain by warning Jesus and having him flee. Jesus would still be alive and therefore cause a ruckus among members of his party. The Pharisee doesn’t ask Jesus for money to this information, other Pharisees who hate Jesus could learn that this man saved Jesus by warning him, and therefore cast him out of their class and society for thwarting their efforts to kill Jesus. And worst case scenario, the Romans could find out that this man warned Jesus that they were coming and was therefore guilty of obstructing justice or defying Herod, and that man could be killed and have all his family sold into slavery. It might not have been likely, but it was definitely a possibility and the stakes were high during this unprecedented time in human history. It is not reasonable for us to attribute any malicious intent to the Pharisee who warned Jesus of Herod’s desire to kill him, we could probably even call him a hero for risking so much to help the Savior.

What this Pharisee didn’t understand and Jesus helps set him straight is that as the Messiah, Jesus’ life could not be taken from him, he had to willingly give it up. Jesus gives this Pharisee some eternal perspective, and while it seems a little harsh, it is possible that I’m reading too much into it, and that Jesus probably recognized the sacrifice that this man had made for the cause. Jesus’ response here is the first time that I can recall any type of “name calling” comes out of Jesus’ mouth. He tells the man that risked so much, “Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.” JTC says, “The specifying of today, tomorrow, and the third day, was a means of expressing the present in which the Lord was then action, the immediate future, in which he would continue to minister, since, as He knew, the day of his death was yet several months distant, and the time at which his earthly work would be finished and he be perfected. He placed beyond doubt the fact that He did not intend to hasten His steps, neither cut short His journey nor cease His labors through fear of Herod Antipas, who for craft and cunning was best typified by a sly and murderous fox.” Think about the tragedy it would be if Jesus stopped preaching or teaching at that moment because of the threat of death at the hands of Herod. We could look back on all that we would miss out on in the last several months of the Savior’s ministry and marvel that Herod Antipas had deprived us of so much goodness. It’s like when I am grateful that Jesus did not come as a military force to overthrow the Roman government and free the Jews politically. It would be great for those people at the time and yes they would be freed, but none of us would have been able to repent, their physical freedom would have meant the spiritual bondage of all people. Seems like a big deal at the time but 2,000 years later, here we are.

Some time later, Jesus is invited “into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day.” This is one of those times that we can look and say, “this is probable a trap.” Also at the house “was a certain man before him which had to dropsy.” The implication was there that Jesus could heal the man, but there was the fact that it was the Sabbath and there had been so much drama surrounding the concept of healing on the Sabbath before. He surely knows that this is some sort of game for the Pharisees to test him, so he asks, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?” If they answer “yes” then Jesus is vindicated and they are all in agreement, but if they answer “no” then they open themselves up to criticism for other Sabbath day rules. What do you do when you’re stuck? You don’t say anything, and they don’t. Jesus heals the man and then asks, “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?” This is an obvious example of “of course you would pull the animal out of the pit.” Leaving it there would mean certain death for the animal, meaning loss of income for you and suffering for the poor thing in the ditch. This was a no-brainer, and the Pharisees knew it. The IM comments, “At the time of the Savior’s mortal ministry, many Jewish leaders prided themselves on their strict Sabbath observance. However, Jesus Christ rebuked their hypocrisy for being willing to help an animal, but not a person, on the Sabbath.”

This example has become know to me and my friend as “the ox in the mire.” I like to think that I have a pretty decent record with keeping the Sabbath day holy, as I see it interpreted, but there have been times when I consider my ox mired. When I lived in California, my best friend and I would often say that our ox was mired when circumstances necessitated a breaking of the Sabbath day. Out circumstances were different and we did different things, but there was no judgment, we were just doing our best with what we had at the time. The IM gives a warning however, “the phrase ‘the ox is in the mire,’ based on Luke 14:5, is used by some people in our day to justify activities inconsistent with the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. President Spencer W. Kimball acknowledged that emergencies may occur on the Sabbath, but he cautioned against intentional or habitual violations of proper Sabbath observance: ‘The Savior knew that the ox gets in the more on the Sabbath, but he knew also that no ox deliberately goes into the more every week.’” I thought that that was a humorous way to point out that, yes, sometimes things happen, but we need to be careful to make sure that we are as prepared as we can be to mitigate any “ox in the mire” scenarios beforehand if we can help it. If we need to take our kid to the emergency room on Sunday because they got hurt, there is no preparation for that. If we have to get gas on the way to the ER on Sunday because we ran out, that is something that we probably could have thought out a little bit better. I am guilty of this to the point that I have to mentally remind myself to check the gas gauge on Saturday. If our house catches fire and we have to go to a restaurant for dinner, that’s not foreseeable, but if we go to a restaurant because we don’t have anything to eat, then that’s another thing, especially if it is every week. There is no judgment here, I’ve been guilty of more things than most people, and we are all in different places in our lives, what might be Sabbath keeping for me might look like sacrilege to someone else. Jesus gives us some hard and fast rules, and then allows us some wiggle room so that we can grow closer to him as we try to make the best decisions that we can.