Is it lawful to save life on the Sabbath? It did not take long before Jesus got into confrontations with the “custodians” of the law and tradition, the scribes and the Pharisees. And it all had to do with how Jesus was carrying out his ministry. Apparently, there were some things that Jesus “formed the habit” of doing that violated the laws and traditions of the community. Most of the time, these violations were taking place on the Sabbath, in a synagogue, or in the confines of a holy/sacred place. In today’s Gospel passage, the confrontation concerned Jesus healing an individual on a Sabbath. Jesus was aware that the scribes and the Pharisees were in attendance, and from the question he poses to them, it seems that he had knowledge of what could be done or not done on the Sabbath. Even though he did not receive an answer, Jesus proceeded to do what he had planned to do, much to the dissatisfaction of the religious leaders. It was a move on the part of Jesus that should make us ask some tough questions: did Jesus deliberately perform the healing in order to provoke the religious leaders, or were the religious leaders reading too much into what Jesus was doing? Were the religious leaders letting themselves fall in a trap set for them by Jesus or was it Jesus who was falling in the Pharisees’ trap? Sometimes it feels as if it was Jesus who was falling in the traps set for him by the religious leaders. And if this be the case, one might be inclined to ask why Jesus was intentionally falling on such traps. One might argue that it would have been a win-win situation had Jesus performed the healings outside the precincts of the worship area or on days other than the Sabbath. Personally, I think Jesus would have gladly done that if he thought his actions were violations of the Sabbath. To Jesus, there was nothing he did that violated the sanctity of the Sabbath. Rather than violation the Sabbath, Jesus was actually fulfilling the Sabbath and doing within the worship area what was lawful. For the Sabbath is all about the giving and restoration of life (wholeness). When God instituted the Sabbath, he did it to celebrate the coming to be of creation. God instituted the Sabbath and made it holy as a celebration of life. Consequently, an action that seeks to give or preserve life cannot be a violation of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is properly observed when any and all things that threaten life are done away with. This is what Jesus did when he performed healings on the Sabbath.