FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: Mark 2:1-3:6

Why Is He Breaking the Rules? – Continued

Please read Mark 2:23-3:6 for the background to this section.

The last two stories in this group are about Jesus and the Sabbath, and again we find people accusing Him; “Why is he breaking the rules?” The hearts of these accusers are fossilized; they will not see or recognize Who Jesus is. This passage contains a strong warning for people like that.

Both stories take place on the Sabbath, that is, Saturday, which was the Jewish day of rest. Look at the verses. Now this incident seems innocent enough, so what’s the problem? The law decreed that on the Sabbath no work should be done. That rule made sure that no one could force you to work on the day, and everyone, even including the animals, had a complete day off every week. But the tradition has added to that a whole superstructure of additional regulations. The religious experts have “helped” by dividing “work” into thirty-nine major categories, just so that everyone can be sure what they are not allowed to do. Category number three involves “reaping.” In fact, to a really sharp legal mind, the disciples are breaking three Sabbath regulations in this section. By picking off heads of corn, or wheat, rolling them in their fingers and then chewing them, they are (a) reaping, (b) threshing and (c) preparing food on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees spot them!

What, we might ask, are the Pharisees doing out for a walk on the Sabbath? Almost certainly, they are there to spy on what Jesus and His company are up to. By the way, in case you are wondering what kind of high-powered binoculars the Pharisees are using, remember that these fields would be very small, unlike the huge prairies we know today, so it would be easy to stand at the edge of the field and see what is going on. For the Pharisees, the most legally-minded of all the Jews, this presents another great opportunity to attack Jesus, because obviously if His disciples are cheerfully breaking all these rules, that does not reflect very well on their leader. That is why they address Jesus, not the disciples.

Jesus responds with a question of His own, which may sound strange to us, because, how does it relate to the issue of Jesus and the Sabbath? The story comes from 1 Samuel 21:1-6. David is on the run; he goes to the priests and he persuades one of them to give him and his companions the special bread from the altar of God, which only the priests are supposed to eat. With that story in mind, Jesus in essence says, “Look, one of your biggest heroes, David, who became the great king, did something much worse than this, and no one condemned him.” In fact, even though what David did was a very minor breach of the law, the priest freely gave him the bread, after all. The point is that meeting human need is more important than keeping every letter of the law, and, once again, the Pharisees can’t seem to see or grasp that. They are blind, they are hardened.

Behind all of that there is an even bigger point. These religious experts have made the Sabbath an intolerable burden on ordinary people. The Sabbath was a gift from God. It was important, yes, keeping it special is one of the Ten Commandments. It was the world’s first law on workers’ rights and it has protected untold millions of people from exploitation down through three and a half thousand years. God gave us the Sabbath because He knows how easily people exploit one another and He knows we need guaranteed rest.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Mark 2:1-3:6

What Does He Think He Is Doing? – Continued

Please read Mark 2:13-22 for the background to this section.

From Last Lesson: Obviously, Jesus is not giving us His top ten household tips here! He is saying you can’t fit Him into your religious box.

He doesn’t match up to your old, rule-bound religion. You need a new set of clothes, a new set of wineskins to put the new wine in. The Pharisees simply failed to see that Jesus’ arrival changed everything. They saw Him as just another teacher who was a bit out of line. Plenty of people today look at Jesus and still, that is all they see. He breaks a few taboos, offers us some positive values, well, add Him to the mix, put Him in there with Gandhi and Mohammed, and perhaps a guru, or maybe just some wise words from your friend down at the pub, because everyone has useful things to say. As Jesus makes crystal clear, that is not His way. His coming changed everything. He is unique.

The natural way that people think is to live by a set of rules. If they have some sense of God, and nearly everyone does, they feel that if they can keep these rules then God will be pleased. This is a comfortable way to think because it means you know what is expected of you. That is what the Pharisees were doing in Jesus’ time. They had their rules, they were all in the book, and they devoted their lives to keeping them. They knew where they stood and it made them feel healthy and righteous. Today there are millions who do much the same. In Islam, it’s a question of performing five key actions. Say the right words, give away some money, pray five times a day, fast one month per year, go on a pilgrimage at least once in your life, do all that and Allah (God) will be pleased with you. It’s a comfort zone. But people in churches do this too. Go to mass, go to communion, be respectable, say the right words, sponsor charities, keep lots of external rules, and you will be OK.

The story of Levi points in exactly the opposite direction. If ever you want proof that God doesn’t choose people because they are good, here it is. Here is an outcast, a collaborator, and Jesus says to him, “Follow me.” A hundred years later, opponents of the Christian faith were still trying to discredit Jesus because He had associated with people like Levi. But Levi the traitor, Matthew, becomes one of His closest followers, one of the Twelve. His name goes down in history as the writer of one of the four Gospels. Jesus came for the sinners, not the self-styled righteous.

Why Is He Breaking the Rules?

Please read Mark 2:23-3:6 for the background to this section.

Humans, as well as dead animals, can become fossilized! A fossil can look so lifelike that you would think it could walk or swim away at any moment, but in reality it is long dead, hardened, totally incapable of moving, or responding, or of any kind of life. It takes hundreds, or even thousands, of years for dead animals to become fossils. But people are very often fossilized when they are still alive! Not their bodies of course; it is their spirits that are fossilized, what the Bible calls a hardened heart. What could be worse than being fossilized while your body is still alive? Yet, without Jesus in our lives, that is what happens to us, that is what we are . . . fossils. These five opposition stories are about people who are fossilized, people Jesus meets who simply will not respond to His love and grace, even when they see Him in the flesh, when they see His miracles.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Mark 2:1-3:6

What Does He Think He Is Doing? – Continued

Please read Mark 2:13-22 for the background to this section.

From Last Lesson: So here is the Messiah, hosting a party not for the elite, but for all comers, the sign that God is breaking in, that His Kingdom is coming to earth, and we have just a foretaste of the golden age which is still to come.

The Pharisees don’t see that; they don’t see that they themselves are just as much sinners as the people they despise; they simply see a list of rules which Jesus is shredding. But Jesus has come to make strangers into friends, to build bridges instead of barriers as people join His Kingdom.

The story which immediately follows simply hammers that message home. Verse 18 gives us the challenge. The rules about fasting are a good example of what the Pharisees have done to the law God gave in the first place. The law lays down only one day a year for fasting, the Day of Atonement. But by the time of Jesus, pious Jews are fasting two full days every week, Mondays and Thursdays. In their minds, therefore, Jesus should take the lead and do the same.

Jesus’ answer is interesting. He doesn’t say, “Wait! You have gone a bit too far. I think you should tone it down a bit.” We find His answer in Mark 2:19-20. Fasting in the Bible is generally connected with mourning, or deliberately humbling yourself before God, or else it is a response to disaster. Jesus is saying, “Why should my friends fast at all while I am here? That would be like starving at a wedding!” At the same time, by using this illustration of Himself as the Bridegroom, Jesus is dropping another hint about His true identity. Yes, the time will come when Jesus is taken away, first when He dies; then when He ascends to the Father, and that will be a time for sadness. Fast then, by all means. The kingdom of God is breaking in, but the time for the real party, the never-ending party, still lies in the future. Until then, there will still be times of sadness and pain, time for struggle, time when fasting is absolutely right, not because it’s Thursday, but because sometimes it’s a helpful thing to do. “But for now,” says Jesus, “My friends have Me here. It’s all about Me at this time! Don’t you understand, this is not about keeping your beloved rules, as if God were more impressed with you when you’re hungry?”

Jesus makes the point even clearer with the little parables about patching clothes and storing wine. In those days, people might own two sets of clothes at most; if one of them developed holes it was a calamity. Knowing how to patch those holes was vital. You didn’t take your worn old coat and patch it with a brand-new piece of cloth that hadn’t been shrunk. If you did, you would end up with a bigger hole than you had before. It was the same with the leather bags that wine was kept in, again, not a luxury item, but something you needed in a situation where drinkable water was often hard to find. Suppose you get some new wine, still fermenting, with the gas bubbling out of it. What do you keep it in? Not the stiff, unyielding old wineskins that are on the point of cracking. All you’ll end up with if you patch that is a flood on the floor.

Obviously, Jesus is not giving us His top ten household tips here! He is saying you can’t fit Him into your religious box.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Mark 2:1-3:6

What Does He Think He Is Doing? – Continued

Please read Mark 2:13-22 for the background to this section.

In the next instance, Jesus is having dinner at Levi’s house. It seems likely that he has thrown a party for his colleagues and associates to come and meet this amazing man who has broken through the triple barrier of religious prejudice, politics and morality and has asked for his company. However, we must not, there are spies at the party, Pharisees. If anyone is going to object to Jesus’ consorting with undesirables, it will be the Pharisees, who now make their first appearance in Mark’s Gospel. They represent the party who are the most passionate about following the Jewish law and all the extra regulations that tradition has added to it. Within that Pharisee group, their legal professionals, “the teachers of the law,” are the ones who actually make the rules. “Sinners” is what they call anyone who does not take the rules as seriously as they do. They are watching Jesus closely and, frankly, they don’t like what they see. No true Jew, still less anyone who claims to be a teacher, a rabbi, should have anything to do with these common people, these “people of the land” (in Hebrew, the am ha’aretz), as they dismissively title them, let alone these tax collectors, who are corrupt, unclean and serving the enemy.

But now Jesus lays His cards on the table; “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Clearly, Jesus is not saying that there is nothing wrong with the Pharisees. In other places (such as Mark 7:6-13) he makes it abundantly clear that the Pharisees’ religion is very sick. Jesus is adopting their own language, which divides people into “righteous” and “sinners,” those “OK” and “not OK.” In other words, “If you think you are fine, if you think you are so healthy, all right . . . but kindly let Me get on with looking after the sick.” Jesus has come for those who know they need Him. Most of the people at the party may not feel that, but Levi certainly does. He knows he is a sinner, and Jesus has come and found him. The Pharisees have missed the point. They think they are simply dealing with someone who is breaking their rules. In fact, Jesus is doing far more than that. This meal with Levi points to something much greater.

Look closely at verse 15, and you will see that it is Jesus, not Levi, who is the focus, even the host, of the party, and here are the ordinary people of the land, the undesirables, the rejects, gathered together to celebrate His coming. There is a strong hint here of something the Old Testament prophets look forward to: in the future time when God breaks into history and establishes His Kingdom on earth, one way in which it is described is as a banquet, a party which God will throw for His people, the “messianic banquet,” as it was known. You find this theme in various places in the prophecy of Isaiah, especially in Isaiah 25:6-8. This is one of many occasions when Mark’s narrative alludes to Old Testament themes without saying so explicitly. In this he is unlike Matthew, who usually points out to us the ways in which Jesus is fulfilling the prophecies.

So here is the Messiah, hosting a party not for the elite, but for all comers, the sign that God is breaking in, that His Kingdom is coming to earth, and we have just a foretaste of the golden age which is still to come.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved