Healing of the Man with Dropsy

The Pharisees could not answer him.

People	Jesus, the Messiah Pharisees and Lawyers from the Synagogue betwen Bethany and Jerusalem Man with dropsy
Location	Somewhere on the way from Bethany where he has visited with Mary and Martha, on the way to Jerusalem. Area of Perea Luke 13:10,22 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath...22 And he went through the cities and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Direct Location: Luke 14:1 ....house of one of the chief Pharisees...to eat bread on the Sabbath."
When	Appears in the last months of Jesus's earthly ministry. Somewhere in the circle of Bethany, Jerusalem and Bethabara in the area of Perea, following the visit with Mary and Martha, the discourse and parables,the discussion of Siloam and thehealing of the woman on a Sabbath.
Type of Healing	Dropsy:(Luke 14:2) A Condition of the skin that involves edema or fluid build up and inflammation, can be very painful and cause dysfunction. The word is hydropikos in Greek.
The Request	Not a direct request but 14:2 says that the man with dropsy was 'brought before him'. Indirect question: Luk 14:3 And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
Means of Healing, The Healing	Does not remark on the exact way, but notes: 1) Andhe took him 2)and healed him and 3)let him go; 14:4 In the same passage it notes that the Lawyers and Parisees did not respond, they kept their silence.
Outcome	Dropsy healed.
Response/Reactions	Jesus responds to his own question about healing on the Sabbath: ....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?
Jesus' or Apostle's Teaching	On more than one occasion of healing Jesus is met by questions of the Sabbath or 'Shabbat', and whether healing was 'legal' on the Sabbath under the law. Servile work was forbidden in the Levitical code, but readings in the Talmud defined what servile work actually constituted. For example some held to not eating a chicken's egg laid on the Sabbath, and there was a biblical command not to travel more than a mile on the Sabbath. When confronted by Pharisees, at performing healings on the Sabbath, the center of Jesus's teaching is the question he poses: "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath", and he makes it clear that it is lawful, because it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. The Pharisees he confronted were not all hypocritical or bad, for many were seeking to learn whether such an act was 'lawful', or in obedience to the Scriptures, although the legalism of some of the pharisees was indeed an issue in trying to destroy Jesus. These Pharisees, though were an interesting lot because they were not at least in the beginning, antagonistic towards Jesus: Luke 13:#1 notes that they had told him to get out because he was in danger: "Herod will kill thee". The actual act of healing the man with dropsy receives only a brief description, 'took', and the healing was immediate as in all healings. It is used as an object lesson for what may and may not be done on the Sabbath. The eminent answer is that yes, one may heal on Shabbat, but that more eminently, as noted in the healing of the woman with an infirmity , or the woman with the issue of blood, or others, is that the son of Man is Master of the Sabbath or Shabbat.
Implications for Faith	One of the main implications for faith in this healing of dropsy has not so much to do with the condition as with the seventh day rest. Shabbat was never intended to be a burden and hardship where one was to sit very still, obeying a thousand rules and regulations. Shabbat was intended to be a day of rest, joy, being with God, thankfulness and worship and to have a restorative and healing function. It was both to commemorate the day God rested from the 6 days of creation, and to point ahead to the Messiah as our 'seventh day rest'. Legalists had made it into a stoic trial in which all had to 'toe the line' : Jesus was trying to bring back the truth of the joyous worshipful, healing day of spending time with God, in love where work was lain aside. At that point so few understood, that they worried the healing was work, more than seeing Shabbat as healing and praise. He also points though to the fact that even on the Shabbat with regular rules, if an ox falls into a pit, they do not leave it till the next day, and that if they have mercy on an animal on the Sabbath, why would it be wrong to have mercy on a child of Israel? So often the things of God are seen as drudgery, when they are meant to be love and joy. The non-stop scrutiny of Jesus to see if he was 'imperfect' in any way, is parallel to the 'inspection of the lamb' at Passover, for passover lambs had to be perfect for sacrifice. .
Cross-references & Other Critical Facts	Other healings on shabbat: John 7:23: the Man made whole; John 9:14: the blind man healed; Matthew 12:10: the man with the withered hand (also Mk 3:4); Luke 13:10: the woman with an 18 year infirmity; Luke 14:1-6the man with dropsy (current ); Mk 6:5, the laying of hands on a few sick; Luke 4:33, the man with the unclean devil in a Capernaum synagogue, Luke 4:38, the healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law, Luke 4:40 the Sabbath evening following the healings of Peter's Mother-in-Law, the multitudes with divers diseases and devils coming out, and lastly, the John 5 incident of the man at the pool of Bethesda. "Perea" is the area of Israel to the east of the Jordan River under what was formerly Herod the Great's territory, south of Galilee. The healings in this area are referred to as Jesus's Perean ministry, by some theologians. [Wikipedia:Perea; Thompson's Chain Ref. Bible.]