John 7:19-24, Jesus at the Feast of Booths

19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" 20 The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?" 21 Jesus answered them, "I did one work, and you all marvel at it. 22 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment."

Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath (chapter 5) when he was last in Jerusalem. One month later the people want him dead for one miracle because he performed it on the Sabbath. Jesus wants to serve God’s people and demonstrate God’s glory, and in response they want to kill him, which is the tendency of the “religious” who prefer the outward correctness of the law rather than the inner heart of the law, who judge by appearances rather than right judgment.

As Jesus points out, the Jews are breaking the law by planning on killing him. They also regularly break the law when they circumcise children on the Sabbath, conceding that it takes precedence. Jesus presses that the logic of cutting one small body part to fulfill the covenant should lead them to accepting the healing of a whole person on the Sabbath. Effectively, Jesus is accusing them of extreme hypocrisy.

Consider where you practice religious hypocrisy in your life. Where do you judge others because of appearances rather than with a right judgment?