Mark #4

Continuing our walk through Mark

Thank you guys, and thank Kristi & Eloise for that wonderful music, but before we continue in our study of Mark, please join me in a word of prayer.

Last week in our walk through the gospel of Mark we looked at the first 17 verses of chapter 2. How Jesus healed the paralyzed man that was let down through the roof and how He forgave his sins, and also Jesus calling Matthew to be one of His 12 disciples. We also discussed how the Pharisees accused Jesus of associating with tax collectors and sinners with Jesus telling them “He didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners.” Tonight we’re going to dive into where we left of last week in chapter 2 verse 18 and continue through chapter 3 verse 6.

In this section of his Gospel, Mark has shown us 5 accounts to inform us of the growing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of Israel. We already discussed 2 of them last week: their reluctance to Jesuis’ authority to forgive the sins (2:1–12) and their disgust at his association with tax collectors and “sinners” (2:15–17). Tonight we’re going to look at 3 more conflicts and see how quickly they escalated.

The 3rd conflict and the first one we’re going to look at tonight, was over the Jewish tradition of fasting, found in verses 18-22. (Read the text)

The Old Testament Torah only prescribed fasting one day a year: and that was on the Day of Atonement, which is the 10th of July, as seen in: Leviticus 16:29.

Leviticus 16:29 (NKJV)

29 “This shall be a statute forever for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all,

Although other traditional fasts had been added on later by the Jewish religious leaders as Zechariah 8:19 tells us:

19 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:‘The fast of the fourth month,

The fast of the fifth, The fast of the seventh, And the fast of the tenth,

Shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts For the house of Judah.

But by the first century, the Pharisees made a habit of fasting every Monday and Thursday (Luke 18:12). Other occasional fasting was also common following personal loss, or as an expression of repentance, in preparation for prayer, or for anything else deserving praise.

Jesus and His disciples didn’t practice the traditional fasting of the Pharisees, or even of John the Baptist’s disciples. So a group of people asked Him about why they didn’t. Jesus responded to their question with a question of His own which was a common tactic in many of Jesus’s responses to questions. He would answer a question with a question.

And Jesus said to them in verse 19, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

In essence, Jesus clarified that there were appropriate and inappropriate times to fast. His appearance on earth was a special time; He was like a bridegroom at a wedding, and His disciples were like His guests. For them, it was not a time to fast, but a time to celebrate.

In this context, Jesus’ two short parables about the unshrunk cloth and the wineskins in verses 21 and 22 make perfect sense. The fasting of the Pharisees was not necessary, because it represented an old way of doing things. With the arrival of the kingdom of God on earth, certain things were going to change. The traditions of Judaism were like the old garment and the old wineskins. The “old” was not inherently wrong, but its time had passed. The old ways would not blend in smoothly with Jesus’ new teachings; they had to be replaced with something better. And the thing that was better, was the New Covenant that Jesus was bringing to Israel. And as you hopefully know today, in this age of grace, that the Church is no longer under Israel’s Covenant program. But that’s a lesson for another day.

The 4th conflict was the Pharisees legalistic idea of working on the sabbath as Mark describes in verses 23-27. (Read the text)

The Old Testament clearly outlawed work on the Sabbath.

Exodus 20:8-9 tells us: 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

But the scribes had so meticulously defined the term “work” that they had a list of 39 different things you couldn’t do on the sabbath. And the third thing on their list was “reaping,” which they were accusing Jesus and his disciples of in verse 23. Since Jesus’ followers were only feeding themselves, Jesus had a ready response for them. He told the Pharisees about the story of David in 1 Samuel 21, who used the “consecrated bread” out of the tabernacle to feed his men. He emphasized that the Sabbath was created for people to cherish, not to enslave them with legalistic restrictions.

If your not familiar with the Old Testament, Jesus’ example may confuse you more than clarify things for you. Twelve loaves of bread were placed in the tabernacle every Sabbath, most likely to symbolize God’s presence and provision:

Exodus 25:30 says: “30 And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.”

And Leviticus 24:5-6 says: “5 And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves with it. 6 You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord.

The bread was designated to be eaten only by the priests:

Leviticus 24:9 says:. “9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place;

Yet when David and his men showed up at the tabernacle, real hungry and with nothing else for them to eat, the priest used the sacred bread to feed them. Jesus’ point was, that human need should take precedence over ceremonial laws.

The 5th conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus, was over Jesus healing on the sabbath, as Mark records in chapter 3, the first 6 verses. (Read the text)

For the Pharisees, Sabbath observance was one of the most important elements in Judaism and a huge distinction between Jews and Gentiles. When Jesus began to challenge their long-held standards, they became angry. And when the conflict wasn’t quickly resolved, they even began a plot to kill Him.

On one particular Sabbath, Jesus and His disciples were in the synagogue along with some of the Pharisees. And so was a man with a shriveled hand. The Pharisees allowed healing to take place on the Sabbath—but only if a person’s life was in danger, which was certainly not the case in this instance. By now, the Pharisees were looking for any opportunity to accuse Him, so apparently they were more interested in watching Jesus, than in worshiping God. Again, Jesus appeared to know their thoughts, so He made a public display of having the man with the shriveled hand stand up in front of the whole crowd. His question in verse 4, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”, lifted the issue of Sabbath observance to a level above just a list of things not to do. His question suggested, that to heal on the sabbath is a good thing, and not to heal on the sabbath is the equivalent of doing evil. To Jesus, merely resting on the Sabbath was not enough when the day could be used to accomplish good deeds. And after the Pharisees remained silent to His question, He healed the man. Then He raised the comparison even higher by suggesting that failing to save a life would be the same as committing murder. And the irony of it here is that while Jesus was doing good on the Sabbath, His opponents were plotting to murder Him!

Something critical to remember here in verse 6, is that in all of ancient literature, the only time the Herodians are ever referred to is in three places of the Bible:

In the text we’re studying tonight in Mark 3:6:

6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.

And again in Mark 12:13

13 Then they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, to catch Him in His words.

And also in Matthew 22:16 where it says:

16 And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth;

These are the only three places in the Bible that mentions this group. The Herodians were a Jewish political party devoted to the Roman emperor and his deputy (Herod). Ordinarily the Pharisees would have nothing to do with such a group that submitted willingly to the government of Rome, but their common hatred for Jesus would unite these two parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Jesus became very angry to the fact, that these so-called religious leaders were so hard-hearted that they would object to the healing of a person in distress on the sabbath. The Sabbath was created for rest and relief, yet they used it to burden people. Jesus’ anger was directed at the insensitivity toward the suffering of people as well as the entire system of legalism, where the letter of the law’s given more weight than the needs of the people it’s supposed to help.

Mark provides this series of conflicts so we can see the tension that was developing between Jesus and the Pharisees. And this certainly won’t be the last of their disagreements as we’ll see in the weeks to come.

In this account we can see that Jesus did get angry, “so anger itself’s not a sin”. It was a natural response at the climax of a long series of conflicts. Yet Jesus didn’t lose control. Even while angry He kept His poise. Does your anger, like Jesus’, tend to be more in regard to offenses against God, or do you get upset, more often than not, at personal offenses, when someone does, in your opinion, something wrong to you? And how well do you keep your poise and stay in control like Jesus when you get angry with others? Something for us to think about.

Lets pray together !

We’ll stop here tonight in our study of the gospel of Mark and pick up next week in chapter 3 verse 7 where Jesus is teaching the multitudes and appointing the rest of His 12 disciples.

But now as Kristi and Eloise are getting ready for us to sing our last hymn tonight, and as we’re asking ourselves the answer to that last question of how well do we control our anger, and if you’ve never honored God by asking His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come into your heart and be your personal Lord and savior, this would be the perfect time to do just that. God has made that so easy for us to do. The Bible says that anyone, and I do mean anyone, who calls on the name of the Lord WILL BE SAVED. It doesn’t matter what your past might look like. Remember the apostle Paul, before the Lord saved him on that road to Damascus, how he persecuted the church, and had the Lord’s people put in prison and even executed. And remember King David who commited adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed in battle. Those two “Great men of God” commited terrible sins, and the Lord forgave them, and even chose them to do great things for Him. The Lord doesn’t care about our past, He just cares about our future. And He wants all people to spend that future with Him in eternity, in that place He calls heaven. Don’t wait another second. If you have any doubt at all about your eternal security, or what’s going to happen to you when you die physically, I beg you to get it settled right now. Don’t wait another second. Settle it now. Get it taken care of right now, right here,--- right where you’re sitting.---Just quietly, as the rest of us are singing, with your heads bowed, and your heart’s toward God, just pray a little prayer like this..............Just pray......

Please, if you need to, just pray that little prayer I mentioned as we sing.