St. Luke records (14:1–6) that Christ went to dine on a Sabbath at the house of one of the chief Pharisees, and 'they watched him.' A man suffering from dropsy — abnormal swelling caused by fluid retention — was standing before Him.
The Lord asked the lawyers and Pharisees: 'Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?' They held their peace. He took the man, healed him, and dismissed him. Then He pressed His question: 'Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out, on the sabbath day?' To this they could not answer Him.
This is the seventh and final Sabbath healing recorded in the Gospels. Together they form a deliberate pattern by which the Lord teaches that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk 2:27). To heal is precisely the work of the Sabbath day.