iPainting The Ox

Luke 14:5 (ESV)
5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”

The word ox here in Greek means to graze. They named it apparently after what it did, it’s nature was to graze. That was not all it could do, it had great strength, but they didn’t name it after it’s strength. They named the ox after what it did to stay alive. What do you do when you

It’s interesting to me that Jesus tells this parable after healing the man with the withered hand. Verse one in Luke fourteen says the man sat before Jesus. The Lord used the comparison of the person with the need coming to Him, and the ox falling in the well.

The man was before a well too. Like the ox, Jesus healed the man so the man could live, and work, and fulfill what He could not do on his own. The man’s strength was not enough to heal him, his need was greater than anything he had. Like the ox, he was helpless, but like the ox, He came to One Who was not limited by our strength and ability.

In Verse five, Jesus says which of you having a son or an ox fall into the pit? We know that The Lord says everything for a purpose. In this Verse He mentions both a son and an ox. The Pharisees tended to view people like cattle, as something to manage. Jesus looked at them as children to save.

Aren’t you glad He looked beyond our fallen condition? Aren’t you glad He came to adopt us into His family? Aren’t you glad that He didn’t look at us the way others did? By the way, the way you view people will determine where you take them too.

An ox you take to the barn, a son you take home. Jesus didn’t just want to heal the man’s hand so He could go back to his work. He wanted to quench the man’s thirst so He could experience what was beyond His abilities, and take those who believed on Him to a place far greater than their own nature ever could.

Jesus would later turn over the tables of the money changers, who John said sold oxen, sheep, and pigeons, the money changers. He wasn’t against the animals of course, but the reason behind those were selling them. The difference, Jesus came to take the place of the animals that were sacrificed, to die for the man for who’s sins they were sacrificed, and by paying a debt that none of us could pay.

He doesn’t turn over things to anger us, but to get our attention. Like the ox, Jesus knew money wouldn’t change the money changers future. Their actions would not save them, nor could their own strength cause them to escape where we were all destined to go, until God’s Grace stepped in. When you come to Jesus, your whole future is changed, and God turns the tables on our past failures, pulling us out of our sins.

Just like the man with the withered hand, God healed both our sins and our infirmities. He bore the burden of our sicknesses and sins. You might say that the Pharisees in the parable, got their ox out of the ditch to work for them, while Jesus saved sons from their fall to bear their burdens for them.