Jeffrey Heine: So we are continuing our study of the gospel of Mark. Today, we're going to be, chiefly looking at 3 scenes at the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. I would like for us to start off by just focusing in and reading the scene in chapter 3. It's printed in your worship guide. If you do have a Bible with you, I would encourage you to to use that.
We are gonna be looking back at a a few scenes that we've already studied and looked at, in the in the last couple of weeks. We're gonna be reaching back a little bit for some quick recaps, and then making our way through. So if you have a Bible, I'd encourage you to use it this morning. But, for us to begin with Mark chapter 3 beginning in verse 1. Mark chapter 3 verse 1.
And let us listen carefully for this is God's word. Again, Jesus entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here. And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?
To save life or to kill? But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Lord, we come to you this morning needing more than we know to ask for and more than we can even imagine. But you, Lord, you know our need. You know our desperation better than we do, and you love us more than we know.
So in your love and your matchless power, would you draw near to us by your holy spirit and give us the knowledge of your greatness, the eyes of our hearts enlightened to know the hope to which you have called us. We pray that as we study your word, we would not only grow in our understanding of the history of our salvation, but that you would grow us in love and wonder and in trust as we follow your son, our savior Jesus Christ. So would you speak, Lord, if your servants are listening? We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.
I remember being about 6 years old, standing in my grandfather's garden with him in Southern Illinois. It was a warm spring afternoon, and there was barely a cloud in the blue sky. And yet, my grandfather told me that we needed to finish up and head inside soon because it was about to rain. Now nothing that I could see indicated that there was even the slightest chance that a rain shower was about to begin. Yet within a few minutes, the sky quickly darkened and the rain began to fall.
And it was then that I learned that my grandfather could see the future. And I wondered if I too would have this gift. No. What really happened was that I witnessed a man who had been around for a good long while and who had learned in his years to read the signs of a coming rainstorm. He had learned over time to see when a storm was coming.
And our passage today offers numerous signs that the blue skies of the gospel of Mark are starting to darken. There have been little signs throughout the previous chapter, and they culminate with our passage in that we just read in chapter 3 with an ominous and terrifying crack of thunder. What I'd like for us to do today is to go back a little and and look at these subtle signs, these five conflicts, these five signs of conflict that warn us that a storm is coming. And in these five points of conflict, we we would actually get a glimpse of and a better understanding of the mission of Jesus. The first sign that a storm is coming in Mark's gospel, the first distant rumble of thunder is back at the beginning of chapter 2.
It's a passage that we looked at about a month ago. This scene is the first of the 5 intensifying interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees. And as you may know, the Pharisees were a Jewish sect that were known for their strict observance not only of the law that was given by God, but they had developed their own traditions and regulations and interpretations of the law. And they enforced these regulations with increasing political and religious power. And the oral law tradition was eventually written down in what's called the Mishnah.
The practice of interpreting the law and commands of God and creating regulations around those commands goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The Lord commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And when tempted by the enemy and questioned, Eve responds that they weren't supposed to eat of that tree. They weren't even supposed to touch it. And that's a good example of taking a command of God don't eat and creating a regulation around it don't touch.
Volumes and volumes of traditions and regulations were developed over time about ritual cleanliness, about food, about work, about the Sabbath. And the Pharisees were quick to point out when someone wasn't keeping one of those regulations and traditions based off the law of Moses. And some of those Pharisees and scribes were present in the home when the paralytic man was healed by Jesus. Before that day, when the friends of the paralytic man cut that hole in the roof and lowered him down to be healed, Jesus had been gaining attention and notoriety, mostly without significant controversy. The biggest problem that Jesus was facing at the start of his ministry was the crowds.
But something different occurred that day with the paralytic healing. Before the man was healed of his physical need, which was clear and obvious to everyone, Jesus addressed his spiritual need, his more profound eternal need. Jesus forgave the man of his sins. The remarkable exchange was the first sign that a storm was brewing because the the Pharisees and the scribes who were present sitting in that room with Jesus, the same people who up until that point had been pleased and impressed with Jesus, his authoritative teaching, and they marveled at his power to heal. And now after hearing Jesus proclaim forgiveness, something that only Yahweh could do, the Pharisees were taken aback.
They began to question, not out loud, but internally, this inward grumbling and questioning. Who does this rabbi think that he is? This is blasphemy against the Lord. Their inward grumbling was like the low rumble of that distant thunder. If you have a Bible, let's look at Mark chapter 2 verse 6, which says, now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that?
He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? The extent of the authority of Jesus is being revealed here, and the responses to his authority are varied. Many people are intrigued and are celebrating Jesus' authority, while others are left with questions. And soon, those questions become accusations.
Why does he say these things? Who does he think he is? In the next scene that Mark offers us, another sign of the coming storm, Jesus calls Levi, the tax collector, to follow him and join him as a disciple. And we looked at this passage last week with Joel and and Connor in the afternoon. This new disciple, Levi, he brings his friends, the tax collecting colleagues that he used to work with, to spend time with Jesus.
And Jesus is welcoming these people, these known sinners. Jesus is showing them kindness and hospitality. He's sharing meals with them. To be clear, according to the Pharisees' interpretation of the law, their understanding of the law, Jesus is engaging with unclean people. He's risking His own ceremonial contamination along with His disciples.
These are known sinners. They are unclean. Some are even pagans. This is serious and dangerous behavior. This is not simply that Jesus is socializing with the unpopular, the outcasts, the riffraff, the uncool.
He was engaging with the unclean. And unlike the leper who was unclean because of a disease, these sinners were unclean because of their own actions. Through theft, through vicious deceit, They were willful enemies of both God and his people. And Jesus wasn't simply acting socially defiant. Jesus is squarely taking on the Pharisees' understanding of God and the law.
And similarly to when Jesus reached out his hand to touch the untouchable leper, Jesus is deliberately taking on the rules and the regulations of the Pharisees and audaciously breaking them right in front of their face. But Jesus is not breaking these rules without reason. He isn't picking a fight just to pick a fight. He's not causing trouble just to cause trouble. So we need to be careful here because Jesus is doing so much more than leading a pack of countercultural disciples in a fight against the Pharisees.
Jesus isn't a revolutionary. That's too simple. He is the revolution. He's not a rebel taking on Rome or the religious elite. He is the son of man taking on sin and death and evil itself.
So as we see Jesus take these deliberate steps of confronting the Pharisees, let's be sure to keep this greater picture in view, not of a rebel or revolutionary but of the revolution of the new covenant proclaimed by Christ and established by his blood. The Pharisees observe this behavior of Jesus welcoming, eating with, and befriending sinners. And once again, they question what he's doing. But this time, the questions move from the inner grumbling monologue to outer inquiry. Look at chapter 2 verse 16.
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to the disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' Why does he do this? Why does he risk this uncleanliness? Why does he socialize with the enemies of God and his people? And another darkening cloud forms in the sky, another rumble of thunder. And now we arrive at the 3rd conflict in Mark 2 verse 18.
It's in your worship guide. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to Jesus, why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? See, the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting, and the law of Moses, only required one fast per year and that was on the Day of Atonement. That was the expected required fast for the people of Israel.
But many of the Pharisees, most of the Pharisees, they would fast twice a week every week, every Monday, every Thursday, regularly fasting. And at best, fasting was done in devotion to the Lord and seeking his face and attention in worship. But at worst, it was pious, just ritual ceremony that was ultimately seeking not the attention of the Lord but the attention of other people. Jesus and his disciples were not participating in this fasting that the Pharisees and John's disciples were doing. They carried on eating and drinking as normal.
And once again, Jesus is not following those pharisaical conventions of his time. And once again, the Pharisees don't understand why He would behave like this, why He would act like this. And so they have questions. And this time, they confront Jesus directly. Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?
And Jesus responds to the Pharisees with 3 brief illustrations, 3 quick images. And each one of them describes unreasonable behavior. Look at verse 19. Jesus asks them, can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
The day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. Weddings, as they are now, were the largest celebration in 1st century village life. But back then, the feast would last a week or longer. And you would never find a guest at a wedding feast who was fasting. That's unreasonable behavior.
A feast is the wrong time for fasting. Jesus tells the Pharisees that his disciples they're like the groomsmen celebrating at a wedding. And they will fast later. When the groom departs, then they can fast. And this is the first kind of passing reference in Mark foreshadowing that Jesus will at some point depart from his disciples.
So that's the first image, the image of the wedding feast. The second and third images. No one this is verse 21. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it and the new from the old and a worse tear is made.
3rd image. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. But if he does, the wine will burst the skins. The wine is destroyed and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.
It says you don't patch an old garment with unshrunk cloth. When you wash it, it will pull away and will make it worse than it was beforehand. And if you put new wine in an old wineskin, when that new wine ferments, it will bust open and ruin the wine skin and ruin the wine. He says you don't do that. That's unreasonable behavior.
And Jesus is saying he's not patching up the law. That's not what he came to do. He's not going to tinker with it and fix up the law and make it better somehow. And he's not going to take this new wine of the grace and greatness of the kingdom of God and put that into the old wineskins of the law. That's not what he's doing.
What Jesus is accomplishing and inaugurating is the new covenant. The former ceremonial regulations of the Mosaic law are coming to an end. And the exhaustive and exhausting traditions and regulations of the Pharisees in that oral law tradition, they were never the way to reconciliation with God the Father. And Jesus is demonstrating that he is not beholden to their regulations. In fact, Jesus seems particularly interested in demonstrating that those traditions have no bearing on the people of God.
And he's doing this, he's instructing this, demonstrating it by publicly and deliberately breaking their pharisaical traditions. And he does it here by leading his disciples in fidelity to the kingdom of God. And with it, the thunder grows closer. Which leads us to the 4th conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. Next, Mark tells us of Jesus and his disciples walking through a field on the Sabbath.
Verse 23. 1 Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields. And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, 'Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?' Once again, the Pharisees are quick to call out and question the behavior of Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees are watching and waiting for every suspicious action, like a cat and mouse game.
Jesus seems eager to give them plenty to complain about. Mark doesn't explain why the Pharisees are following Jesus through a grain field. It doesn't really make sense especially because those Pharisees, in their regulations, had a limited number of steps that they could take on a Sabbath without breaking the Sabbath. There are so many steps that they could take, so many steps for the Sabbath. And their limited allotment of steps, they're following Jesus through a grain field, apparently.
But here they are watching and waiting for the next offense. And this time, the infraction and accusation is worse than ever. It's the severe charge of breaking the Sabbath. And the Sabbath breaking that they're charging the disciples and Jesus with doing is plucking heads of grain as they walked through a field. The crime, to be clear, is a snack.
And again, the Pharisees see the actions as going against their understanding of the law. Specifically, they're claiming that Jesus and his disciples are breaking the Sabbath through farming. Now the the Mishnah has, 39 categories of forbidden work on the Sabbath. Again, this is not, you you won't find this in the in the scriptures, but or from Moses or from the Lord. This is the collective interpretation and the oral traditions that were developed over time.
39 categories of forbidden work on the Sabbath. No planting, no plowing, no reaping, no cooking, no laundering, no combing, no trapping, no sowing, no writing, no construction, no starting a fire, no extinguishing a fire, no carrying. If there were 2 pieces that were stuck together, 2 pages stuck together, you couldn't separate them. If a guitar or some lute, some instrument was out of tune, you couldn't tune it, which really really make the worship services interesting. Right?
But on and on, these regulations would go. And so Jesus and his disciples, by plucking the heads of grain from the wheat and rubbing it together in their hands and then eating it, was tantamount according to the tradition to farming. They're breaking the Sabbath, the day set apart by God and commanded by God to be kept holy. Jesus responds to these accusations by reminding them of a story in the Old Testament. It's a story of King David, God's anointed one, eating in a manner that those traditions of the Pharisees, those regulations would have condemned it as sin.
Verse 25, Jesus says to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry? He and those who were with him? How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for anyone but the priest to eat. And also he gave it to those who were with him. Jesus responds in a way that positions himself as in this greater conflict with the Pharisees because he he's telling them this story of King David in the Old Testament, a story that we read and studied together not that long ago as we were looking through the life of David.
But he reminds them of this story, and in doing so, he's aligning himself with David. He says to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus says that not only is the Sabbath made for the good and the benefit of humankind, it's a gift from God to humanity. And Jesus asserts his supremacy over the Sabbath altogether.
He is the Son of Man who is over the Sabbath. In that, Jesus is saying that He is greater than David, He's greater than Moses, He's greater than the law. In this declaration of supremacy, Jesus is saying, ultimately, He is over everything. And so this conflict is no longer over plucking grain for a snack on a Sunday afternoon. It's not about breaking bread with tax collectors.
It's not about practicing fasting. This rabbi Jesus is claiming a supremacy, an authority, and an equality with God, and the Pharisees cannot tolerate this. And so now the sky has darkened. The storm is imminent and inescapable, which leads to the 5th and final conflict in this first section of Mark. Jesus walks into the synagogue.
In all the other conflicts that Mark has presented to us, Jesus has been clashing with the Pharisees in people's homes, and and on the roads, and in grain fields. But now, Jesus walks into the central location of the Pharisees authority and influence. And not only does Jesus walk into the synagogue, he walks into the synagogue on the Sabbath. And there in the crowd, Mark says that there's a man with a withered hand. The Greek there just means a hand that has lost its power or utility.
And the Pharisees are watching. They're watching Jesus specifically because they're looking to see if he's gonna do what they've now come to expect him to do. He's gonna walk in that room, see the place of need, and he's going to meet it. So they watch him. They suspect that Jesus will break the Sabbath in the synagogue by healing this man.
So the Pharisees wait and watch. And Jesus, knowing this scene set before Him, He changes the rhythm of the conflict. All along, it's been the Pharisees who have questioned Jesus after his unacceptable behavior. But this time, Jesus is the one who asks the question to the Pharisees. Let's look at chapter 3 verse 3.
Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, come here. And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill? Jesus is flipping the script. He directs the piercing question to the Pharisees.
This question from Jesus is an echo from the giving of the law and the way back in Deuteronomy 30. Deuteronomy 30 verse 15 and 16, it says this. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply. And the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
The law was given not to control the behaviors of the people of God, but to lead them away from harm and death and to good and life. The law was a gift and a guide to the people, to learn to walk in righteousness and to live in the blessings of God. But these Pharisees had so distorted God's law and had added their own traditions and regulations that they are now leading the people of God away from good and life. And when the author of life himself stands before them in the synagogue, they don't even recognize him. Jesus asks them.
He asks the Pharisees, the greatest minds of their day, concerning the law. And he asks them point blank, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or harm, to save life or to kill? And Mark records that the Pharisees sat there silent. The greatest scholars on the law, the authorities on law keeping and law breaking, the men seeking to trap Jesus and accuse him of sin, they are asked the essential, fundamental purpose of the law and they sit silently. Mark says that Jesus looked around at these men with anger.
Verse 5, Jesus looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. I appreciate that Mark isn't afraid to report the emotions of Jesus. This is the first time we've seen Jesus angry in Mark's gospel, and I believe that this is this is due to the retelling of these stories by the disciple Peter. Peter was certainly full of emotions, as as we've seen in the Gospels. And surely, he conveyed to Mark the emotions of each of these scenes.
Peter was in the synagogue that day. He saw the anger in Jesus's eyes. These so called leaders of God's people who would who could not answer if life and goodness were lawful on the Sabbath. Jesus was angry. And thankfully, Jesus' anger is explained further for us.
Mark says Jesus was grieved at their hardness of heart. This is an empathetic anger. It's an anger at the state of their hearts. Jesus' anger is mixed with grief. Jesus isn't just mad at these Pharisees.
He's grieved by how hard their hearts have become. These devout and disciplined Pharisees, they know law after law. They have interpreted and written new regulation after new regulation, and they are no closer to goodness or to life or to God. Jesus grieves the cold, dead state of their hearts. This is critical for each one of us to learn today.
Your acts of devotion and discipline, your upright morals, your good behavior will never be enough. The Pharisees had dedicated their lives to getting the law right, and they could not have been further from following Jesus. We so easily fall into thinking that the commands of God are mere rules rather than gifts, gifts that lead us to goodness and to life. If today you think that you are accepted by God because of your performance, your right choices, your rule keeping, your own righteous living, rest assured, you are not. And if today you think that you are irrevocably rejected by God because of your failures, because of your bad choices, because of your rule breaking, your own unrighteous living, rest assured you are not.
Through Christ and Christ alone, you are made acceptable to the Father. It is not by the strength of your obedience, it's not even the strength of your faith that will save you. It is only and will only be the object of your face of your faith, Jesus alone. He is your guarantee of the life and the goodness of God. No rule keeping or good behavior is ever going to be enough.
Jesus is your only enough, now and always. And these Pharisees, all of their piety, their knowledge of the law, when faced with the fundamental question of what does it mean to do good, these respected religious leaders were struck silent. Picture it. Jesus standing in the synagogue on the Sabbath, standing before these men whose aim is to trap him and accuse him of breaking the law of God. And Jesus, standing there, looks around the room at these men with anger in his eyes and grief in his heart.
Jesus is resolute and unwavering in his faithfulness to do the will of the Father, to usher in the new covenant promises of the kingdom. He says to the man, stretch out your arm. The man stretches it out and his hand is restored. Mark says immediately immediately after this miracle, rather than marveling at the power and authority of Jesus, rather than yielding to his sovereignty and supremacy, verse 6 says, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Jesus, how to destroy him. And so the storm begins.
The Pharisees are now conspiring to kill Jesus. He is a present threat to their power and their influence in Israel, and he must be destroyed. The Pharisees conspire with the Herodians, who were a sect of politically powerful Greek assimilating Rome supporting Israelites. And from here on, the plots against Jesus will intensify. The Pharisees will facilitate a plan to have Jesus destroyed.
But we know that that is not simply a plot of the Pharisees. No. It is the definite plan of the father for the son to be delivered into the hands of sinful and lawless men, to be crucified. And this series of 5 conflicts we've looked at today offer these insights into the definite plan of God and the coming storm of suffering. These five conflicts are history, and it's important for us to know salvation history, but they also reveal to us the unwavering mission of Jesus.
The anger of Jesus at the Pharisees was summarized as grief at their hardness of heart. Jesus' mission was to proclaim and usher in the kingdom of God. And the way he will accomplish this is through establishing the new covenant promises of God through the shedding of his own blood and resurrection from the dead. The new covenant promises, spoken by the prophets centuries earlier, will be established through the atoning blood of Jesus. 600 years before these conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees, the prophet Ezekiel spoke of the new covenant promises of the Lord saying, in Ezekiel 3626, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
These hard hearts that Jesus is grieving over in the synagogue, that's why he came. That is why he left his throne in glory to take on flesh and blood, to bleed his atoning blood, and thereby remove the hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. The anger and grief of Jesus is not the end of his response to hard hearts. In fact, it's only the beginning. Jesus will endure the very destruction that they are conspiring and through enduring that suffering, he will secure forever good news for hard hearts.
The storm of Jesus' betrayal, arrest, conviction, crucifixion, and death is coming. It is the Father's definite plan. And the path to the cross will require much more conflict that we will see as Mark's gospel unfolds. But that conflict will continue to reveal the mission of Jesus to seek and to save the lost. And that mission reveals that Jesus is far more than a rebel, far more than a revolutionary.
Jesus is our redeemer who through his sovereign authority and limitless grace removes our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh, new hearts to trust him, to obey him, and to love him now and forever. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, by your spirit, would you help us now to look upon Jesus? For those of us who have walked with Jesus for a long time or those who are new to following Jesus or those who maybe still feel like they stand off and are wondering who this Jesus is, what I pray that you would move in all of our hearts. Each one of us here this morning, that you would move in such a way that by your spirit, you would help us to see Jesus.
And in seeing him, surrendering all of ourselves, all that we are, body and soul and spirit, that we would follow him all the days of our lives knowing that we are kept by him. So, Lord, would you would you use this time in in the quiet of our hearts to help us to see Jesus? We pray these things in his name. Amen.