A New Covenant | Mark 2:18-3:6

Bibles

Now last week I mentioned that we were gonna use that night and the following Wednesday to take a look at some of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees in Mark. Last week we took a look at two stories in the first 17 verses of chapter 2 where Jesus revealed the pride of the Pharisees, and tonight we’re gonna take a look at three more stories where Jesus interacts with these Pharisees except this time He is going to show the Pharisees and us that He is what the Law was pointing to. That everything the Pharisees were doing were pointing to Jesus. And we’re gonna see this specifically play out in the way the Pharisees saw the sabbath day.

And I want us to get an idea of how the Pharisees were misusing the sabbath day before we dive into our passage.

Have y’all ever used a pool noodle? Surely everyone in here has. As y’all well know, a pool noodle is meant to keep someone floating in a pool. You sit on a pool noodle in a pool, it keeps you from sinking.

Well, shortly after this helpful creation was made, children all over the world eventually found other uses for this device. For example, kids found out that if you put water in the pool noodle and you blow air on one side of it, you could quickly ruin someone’s day. Even the not so smart kids who never figured that neat trick out were still able to find a way to wreck someone with this flotation device. It’s simple. You just whack them with it. If you’re wondering if I was one of the smart kids or the not so smart kids, let’s just say I got in trouble many times when I was little for smacking my parents in the head with a pool noodle.

But that’s just a small example of a way a child can misuse something helpful to cause destruction. There are many much worse examples out there. People misuse power, money, resources all for the sake of making themselves feel better while causing destruction for others.

In our passage tonight, we see the Pharisees misusing the actual Word of God to cause destruction.

So let’s start with our first story…

Mark 2:18–22 NLT

18 Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?” 19 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can’t fast while the groom is with them. 20 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 21 “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. 22 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.”

This brings us to our first point of our discussion tonight which is…

1. A New Covenant (Mark 2:18-22)

So we don’t know how much time has passed since last week when Jesus was eating at Matthew’s house, we just know that we’re now in a time where John the Baptist’s disciples and the Pharisees are fasting. And some folks came up to Jesus and asked Him, why don’t your disciples fast like those guys? And Jesus gives three interesting parables in response.

He starts with a wedding. He tells the person that the guests at a wedding don’t fast while they’re celebrating with the groom. And that makes sense. Imagine you’re at a wedding celebrating with this guy who is about to get married, he offers someone some food, and they say, “Nah, I’m fasting right now.” That doesn’t make sense. Fasting was something often used as an appeal to God or an expression of grief. It was sometimes used as a way of worship to God, but even so that was a way of showing God that all they needed was God so they earnestly sought after Him through denying themselves of food. But Jesus was with the disciples. They didn’t need to seek God through denying themselves of food. They had Him right there!

He then uses these two analogies of mixing old things with new things. He says no one patches old clothing with new cloth because the new patch would shrink and cause the tear in the old cloth to get worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. When wine ferments in a wineskin, it emits these gases and causes the wineskin to expand and become hard and brittle. So you couldn’t put new wine into a used wineskin because it would cause the old wineskin to burst. You needed a new wineskin.

Now I gotta admit, I have read this passage many times throughout my life and it took me a WHILE to get it. Remember I whacked people with the pool noodle I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.

But what Jesus is trying to show us here is that He is here to make something new. He isn’t here to mix new things with old things, He is here to bring about something completely new. What is the new thing you might ask. Well as our point says, Jesus is bringing a New Covenant.

The Old Covenant God made with Israel wasn’t working. And it wasn’t because of God, it was because of Israel. Israel broke the covenant time and time again. And God meant for this to happen because He wanted to show us that man can’t earn their way to God. We are not righteous enough to earn our way to God. Every time we see the Israelites do something stupid in the Old Testament, if we were in their shoes, we would’ve done it too. Because all of humanity is sinful. And that was the purpose of the Old Covenant.

But now it was time for God to swoop in to save the day. Except it wouldn’t be a temporary fix like we see time and time again in the Old Testament, this time God sent Jesus to bring about a New Covenant with His people.

And this doesn’t mean the Old Covenant is useless. In fact, Jesus came to fulfill the Old Covenant. He followed all of the laws commanded by God in the Old Covenant. And the Old Testament is still very useful. It’s still the inspired Word of God and it shows us the goodness of God through creation and through His providence over Israel, His nation that He still loved despite their continued rebellion against Him. It shows us our need for Jesus. It shows our need for an eternal sacrifice for our sins. Our need for the New Covenant.

Going back to the wedding analogy. The Old Covenant was the rehearsal dinner. It was still needed because we needed to know what was going on, but now we’re at the wedding. Granted it’s a wedding that has lasted 2,000 years and running, but it’s still a wedding. And it’s a joyous time for God’s people because we know we have a relationship with God now through the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus. And one day the wedding will be completed when Jesus comes back and we’re gonna be in the longest, most joyous wedding reception for all eternity.

Now let’s move on in our passage. So we see now that Jesus is here to bring a New Covenant. Now we’re gonna see how that plays out. We’re gonna see the Old Covenant compared to the New Covenant in two stories about the sabbath. If you don’t know what the sabbath is, don’t worry we’ll explain it here in a minute.

Let’s move on to our next two stories…

Mark 2:23–3:6 NLT

23 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat. 24 But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?” 25 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 26 He went into the house of God (during the days when Abiathar was high priest) and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions.” 27 Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” 1 Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. 2 Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” 4 Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him. 5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! 6 At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus.

These two stories bring us to our next point…

2. A Different Heart (Mark 2:23-3:6)

If y’all don’t know, the sabbath day in the Old Covenant was on Saturday and God commanded that the sabbath day be a time of rest for Israel and that it be kept holy. God rested on the seventh day during creation to model how Israel should rest on the seventh day. So that’s what Israel did. They rested on the seventh day.

And the instructions for this sabbath are basically summed up as, “Don’t work. Rest on this day.” But the Israelites actually would go and make many other laws about what the Jews were not allowed to do on the sabbath. These were man-made laws based on tradition.

And so Jesus and the disciples are walking through some grain fields and the disciples are hungry. So they grab some grain and eat something. The Pharisees see this and tell Jesus they need to stop. Then Jesus actually uses this Old Testament story to refute the Pharisees. He tells this story where David was running away from Saul to this town called Nob. Here David goes to the priest with his hungry army and asks him to give David the consecrated bread that was reserved for the priests. The priest did it and we see no recourse taken against David for doing this. The priest was cool with it, God was cool with it, David wasn’t sinning by taking this consecrated bread.

Then Jesus says that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The consecrated bread from the times of David was made for the priests. It was made so they could approach God in purity. In the same way, the sabbath was made for man so they could rest.

So here we see a way that the Pharisees have used this holy thing God gave to His people in the sabbath and misuse it. And it gets worse with the next story.

In the next story Jesus goes into the synagogue and is about to heal someone. The Pharisees planned to accuse Him of working on the sabbath if He did it. And Jesus knew this so He asked the man to stand in front of everyone and asks everyone if the law permits good or bad deeds on the sabbath. They knew the answer was good deeds so they chose to not answer Him so they wouldn’t be proven wrong in front of the crowd. Then Jesus heals the man.

If it were up to the Pharisees, this man would not have been healed on that day. He would have remained with his deformed hand. So when everyone else went back to work after the sabbath, he wouldn’t be able to because of his hand. How cool is it that Jesus chose to heal him on the sabbath so he could work the next day and provide for his family.

And that’s the heart of what Jesus is trying to show us. All of these ritualistic laws given in the Old Testament were meant to be used for good. They were meant for revival and healing for the Israelites, not just so they could obey God.

Obeying God is good, but they were just obeying God out of fear that they would go to hell if they didn’t obey Him. They didn’t actually love God. They just saw Him as better than hell. But God calls us into a relationship with Him where we are joyful worshippers of Him. He wants worshippers that serve Him because of how much they love Him, because they know how awesome He is, not some ritualistic worshippers that are scared out of their minds of doing something wrong so they won’t get smited by God on the spot.

We see another example of this in Matthew 15.

The Pharisees taught that no matter what everyone has to give whatever possible to the synagogue. Even if that money could’ve supported someone’s parents when they’re going through a rough time. But Jesus responds that in saying this they’re using their own tradition to nullify the Word of God. The purpose of giving to the religious leaders is so they can provide for the poor, but if someone neglects the poor in the pursuit of giving to the religious leaders, they’re going against the very purpose of the commandment. That’s why if someone stops giving to the church because they’re now the primary caretakers for their parents and they can’t give, we’re not gonna condemn them. In fact, we’ll actually support them as they’re supporting their parents.

We need to take a look at our own hearts to make sure we aren’t living like the Pharisees. We don’t need to treat the Word of God as a set of rules to follow so we can look good in front of God and in front of other Christians. Anyone who views the Bible this way has completely missed the gospel. The purpose of the Bible is to show us that we’ll never be good enough, but Jesus is. And Jesus, who is God, was sent to this Earth to be a sacrifice for our sins. And this incredible grace that God has shown us through Jesus moves us to live in a way that glorifies God. We see the cross and say, “God loves me that much, so I’m gonna abandon my sin and seek after Him by serving Him and serving others.”

And this brings us to our last point for the night…

3. An Eternal Rest

The commandment to uphold the sabbath in the Old Testament has been ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. When Jesus died for us on the cross and rose from the grave, He brought about an eternal sabbath. Remember earlier how I said we’re in the longest wedding ever right now? That’s part of this eternal sabbath Jesus has brought. When Jesus did this incredible act of mercy for us, He began the eternal sabbath. Now those who put their faith in Him have the ultimate promise they will spend eternity with Him in heaven.

The sabbath in the Old Testament pointed to the ultimate sabbath Jesus would bring. This is something to rejoice about. WE HAVE SALVATION! And we live each day on Earth proclaiming the joy set before us. We live each day today in light of that day when we get to the wedding reception. And we just celebrate with God for all eternity.

Can’t you see? Can’t you see how awesome He is? Can’t you see how much He loves you? If you’re realizing this for the first time tonight, please come talk to me or any of the other leaders. We want to talk with you about who Jesus is and we would love to see you place your faith in Him tonight.