The Culmination of Conflict
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church on this first Sunday of a new year. Please take your Bibles and turn in them with me to Mark 3, Mark 3. After taking a break from this book for the Advent season, we’re going to be resuming our study of the book of Mark.
For some of those who may have missed or just to refresh all of our memories, lets look at where we’ve been. Mark doesn’t waste time introducing his point to his Gospel.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He tells us of the messenger who would come before Christ in the person of John the Baptist. We are given seats at court as Christ is crowned at His baptism and the Lord proclaims His love for His Son.
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.”
We then get to witness the demonstration of His kingship and power as He defeats temptation in the desert. Then Christ comes preaching His first message
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Jesus has some initial success in His ministry as we see Him call His first disciples on the Sea of Galilee and then He goes into the synagogue at Capernaum and teaches and heals a man with an unclean spirit. There are some more healings later that evening and then He embarks on a speaking tour throughout Galilee.
But it is not all success. Early in His speaking tour we see the healing of a leper that results in Christ not being able to enter into the towns. Shortly after returning to Capernaum, Jesus troubles intensify as we see a series of conflicts begin with the religious authorities. First we see the roots of the conflict as Christ puts Himself on the same level of God by pronouncing the sins of a paralyzed man forgiven and then, to prove that He has the power to forgive sins, He tells the man to pick up His mat and walk.
The face of the conflict emerges when calls the tax collector Levi to be one of His disciples and then is the guest of honor at a banquet at Levi’s home. There is a clash of traditions and their bearing on our religious practice as Christ is accosted regarding His disciple’s fasting practices. The He is challenged by the Pharisees regarding His allowing His disciples to eat grain on the Sabbath - and not so much in the eating but in the picking and rubbing the grain between their hands it was considered work according to Sabbath regulations that had been put in place by the Pharisees.
So now we come to this morning’s text and we’re going to see the continued conflict between Christ and the religious leaders of the day. A significant difference in this conflict versus earlier conflicts is that Christ actually precipitates this conflict. We must understand before we come to this text that His motives for initiating this conflict were not sinful as ours often are but instead motivated by His righteousness and desire for people to understand the true nature of God’s plan for their salvation rather than the perversion that the Jewish system had become. So with all of that background in mind - let’s turn in our Bibles and look at what this text has to reveal to us about the character of Christ.
Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand.
In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath.
He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.”
Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.
After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.
This morning we’re going to see the culmination of the conflict through the participation of three characters - the surprised subject, the sympathetic Savior and the sinister
Christ’s claims force us to make a decision - and we will either love Him or we will seek to kill Him.
The Surprised Subject
The Surprised Subject
This passage starts out in the original Greek saying “and entering again into the synagogue” hinting that this conflict sequence that we’ve been looking at will now come full circle back at the synagogue in Capernaum. Christ returns to the location where He had previously taught with such power and healed a man with an unclean spirit without the outrage and protest that His later actions had caused. And to the location where the conflict had kicked off as a result of His pronouncing the sins of a paralyzed man forgiven - placing Himself in the role of God and offending the religious leaders.
This particular morning there was a man in the synagogue with a withered hand. Just a simple statement about an anonymous man who woke up that morning to attend synagogue just like he had on so many mornings before. But this one would be decidedly different.
The Greek word for shriveled here is ξηραινω and it was used to describe dead plants that have dried up and wasted away. This suggests that his hand was neurologically lifeless or incapacitated in some manner. Tradition tells us that this man was a stone mason and because of this malady was unable to work. So most likely he was a beggar and at the end of his rope socially, financially, emotionally. The only place he might have felt normal, the way that he once had, and where his injury wouldn’t have impaired him was at Synagogue. So he had woken up that morning and headed off to the synagogue just for an opportunity to feel normal again.
Unlike the people who had crowded outside the door of Peter’s home or the leper that had fallen at His feet, this man did not come seeking to find Jesus. Mark doesn’t tell us that he asks to be healed. He doesn’t even speak at all in any of the narratives of this event. Some commentaries intimate that he may have been a plant, sent in by the Pharisees to accomplish their own purposes but I don’t see any indication of that from our text. In most other cases where the Pharisees send someone to challenge or to try and trap Jesus the Gospel writers let us know that tidbit of information, so I think it unlikely that this is the case here.
Whether he was just there as he normally would have been or he had been planted there he was about to have an encounter with Christ that he wasn’t expecting. But there was a group of people there who were very anxious to see what Christ would do.
How unlike the four men who brought the cripple to Jesus and ripped open the roof of a house so that they could get him in front of Jesus, these looked on with a more sinister motive.
They were just lying in wait for Jesus to act. Mark tells us that they were watching Him closely to see whether He would heal the man. Luke tells us more about their motives
The scribes and Pharisees were watching him closely, to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they could find a charge against him.
After all they had probably been witnesses to what Christ did on that first day of teaching in the synagogue when He cast out an unclean spirit. And these were not light matters that they were seeking to charge Him with. When He pronounced the man’s sins forgiven in Mark 2:5 they charged Him with blasphemy. Now they are seeking to find Him desecrating the Sabbath observation. Both of these were capital offenses in ancient Israel.
Observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Whoever profanes it must be put to death. If anyone does work on it, that person must be cut off from his people.
When a man is found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day
“But the person who acts defiantly, whether native or resident alien, blasphemes the Lord. That person is to be cut off from his people.
He will certainly be cut off, because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken his command; his guilt remains on him.”
While the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.
Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the entire community.
They placed him in custody because it had not been decided what should be done to him.
Then the Lord told Moses, “The man is to be put to death. The entire community is to stone him outside the camp.”
So these men were lying in wait to catch Jesus and be able to have enough to accuse Him. They are like the wicked ones spoken of in Psalm 37:32 and Jeremiah 20:10.
The wicked one lies in wait for the righteous and intends to kill him;
For I have heard the gossip of many people, “Terror is on every side! Report him; let’s report him!” Everyone I trusted watches for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we might prevail against him and take our vengeance on him.”
Those who should have been the first to recognize the Messiah and should have been leading the people to Him instead are at least laying in wait for Him or at worst laying a trap for Him so they can condemn Him.
Even though He knows their hearts and the reasons behind their actions, Christ initiates the confrontation.
The Sympathetic Savior
The Sympathetic Savior
Jewish synagogues were set up with benched around the walls and mats on the floor for people to sit on. So when Jesus says to this man “Stand before us” He is literally making him the center of attention. Imagine how uncomfortable it would have been for this man with this disability to be pulled up in front of everyone - he just wanted to come to the synagogue to feel normal and fit it for a while and he’s being singled out for his disability. This is a good demonstration of how Christ will sometimes put us in uncomfortable situations to make a point - and that point may not even have anything to do with us but instead it may only be to reach another person. And we may not even know who it is.
Christ could have healed this man after synagogue or He could have just sat down next to Him and healed him quietly. But Christ chose not to do that. This story is not about this man. His benefits are ancillary, his healing supports the primary action to challenge and expose the false views and system put in place by the Pharisees. They, as much as the Romans, held the nation of Israel captive. The held them captive to a rigid system of religious practices that required strict obedience to measure up to their self-imposed standards. That was oppressive in nature and was designed to guarantee the continued power of the Pharisees because they maintained the rules and set the standards. In fact they were worse than Rome because this was a captivity of a spiritual nature. They focused on the outward actions and appearances rather than the heart. This was completely contrary to the way God looks at man
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”
It was a standard that they couldn’t even maintain or bear
Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
And it wasn’t enough to provide for ultimate justification and satisfaction
For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.
And so here is the moment they have been waiting for. Jesus has set this man out in the middle and appears ready to heal him. He stands him out in the middle for everyone to see. They couldn’t have planned it any better. He was going to give them everything they wanted. But instead of healing him, Jesus turns His gaze on them.
It must have been incredibly frustrating to try and trap someone who was always one step ahead of them. Christ knew their hearts and knew what they were trying to do so He turns it back on them.
Matthew’s rendition of this story has the Pharisees asking Jesus the question
There he saw a man who had a shriveled hand, and in order to accuse him they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He replied to them, “Who among you, if he had a sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, wouldn’t take hold of it and lift it out?
A person is worth far more than a sheep; so it is lawful to do what is good on the Sabbath.”
Jesus responds with a stellar argument. When I was young I spent many days on my uncle and aunt’s farm in rural Ohio. They raised cows - and there was very little that wouldn’t be done to help a sick cow. And here Christ asks the Pharisees whether they wouldn’t do the same for a sheep. And the thing was that their standards for the Sabbath allowed for a person to help their livestock out of a pit even if it were not a life threatening situation but they would not allow one to raise a finger to help a sick or destitute person unless they were in mortal danger. And assistance rendered to a person would be considered work. Jesus exposes that in the Pharisee’s view the treatment of livestock was more important than the treatment of a person.
Mark has Jesus posing the question to the Pharisees and having done so He throws them on the horns of a dilemma. He asks “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?” The Pharisees knew the law of the Old Testament very well and they knew that it was never lawful to do evil or to kill. But is it evil to know the good that you should do and withhold it because of a manmade tradition on a certain day? James would later clarify this principle in his epistle
So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.
By the Pharisee’s definition and traditions it would be sin to know the good thing and do it. They would actually be guilty of transgressing the Old Testament law by knowing the good thing and failing to do it. Jesus taught, and James later clarified, that love, compassion and sympathy for neighbor should compel one to act in spite of manmade tradition.
The Pharisees were indicted by this question on an even deeper level. Here they were faced with the woeful condition of this human being and rather than seeking to alleviate it they were seeking to manipulate and twist it to their own machinations as they sought a way to accuse Jesus. They were willing to overlook this man’s pain and suffering in order to use that pain and suffering for their own purposes as the plotted against the Messiah.
And so there is no way they could answer the question in the affirmative - that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath without losing face before the other people in the synagogue as well as losing their tightly held traditions that kept everything in line. They also couldn’t answer the question with any form of honesty as they were, at that very moment, planning evil and murder in their hearts.
And so they do the only thing they can do - they remain silent.
What a sad state of affairs to live bound more to a system than the truth. In their desire to maintain religious purity the Pharisees had forgotten the fundamental truths of the very religion they sought to protect. In Isaiah 1:11-13 the Lord proclaims this to the nation of Israel
“What are all your sacrifices to me?” asks the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats.
When you come to appear before me, who requires this from you— this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing useless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of solemn assemblies— I cannot stand iniquity with a festival.
Why - why had their sacrifices and offerings become useless? He illuminates them in verse 17
Learn to do what is good. Pursue justice. Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.
Hosea 6:6 also sheds light on this
For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
This love was not simply to be directed at God but also at those He had treasured and created - the fatherless, the widows, the oppressed. And it was these that the Pharisees most overlooked in the way they practiced their religion. James is again helpful for us in understanding this
Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
And so it is easy to understand the next statement from Mark. He says “after looking around at them with anger” - now stop there for a second. We need to understand that Jesus was as incapable of unrighteous anger as we are sometimes incapable of righteous anger. Hear that again - Jesus was as incapable (always incapable) of unrighteous anger the same way that we are sometimes incapable of righteous anger.
What I mean by that is that often when we are angry we are sinful in our anger - Jesus was never that way. His indignation here, his anger was over the treatment of one of God’s creatures, one of His Father’s treasured children whom He had desired and chosen to place His name on, and He was righteously angered. It is the same type of anger that we should feel toward those who promote and try to further the wicked practice of abortion but not the same type of anger that we feel toward the person who cuts us off on Sprague or jumps in front of us in the grocery store line.
And there is also a significant qualifier here that can help us to gauge our anger responses with respect to righteous versus unrighteous anger. Christ is grieved by their hardness of heart. Oftentimes when we exhibit unrighteous anger it burns so white hot that the emotion of anger is all we can feel. There’s no room for anything else. Yet here even as He is angered by the Pharisees response to the suffering of this man - and that’s really what angered Him not that they were using this to plot His demise or to seek to accuse Him but that they were so coldly, calloused to the pain being experienced by one of their own countrymen - He is grieved. This word is from the Greek verb σθλλαπεω and it occurs only here in the New Testament. It carries the sense of strong grief or sorrow.
Christ is in a sense cut to the heart by the hardness of their hearts because He knows the certain future that awaits them. So even in His anger He feels grief - that’s the difference between our unrighteous and His righteous anger. He is able to grieve the individuals causing His anger because He knows their eternal state. Are we capable of the same thing? Do you look out at the world, at all the things that happen in the world and feel only anger or grief? Did you look at the picture of the gunman who invaded that church in Fort Worth last weekend, that was splashed all over social media, and only feel outrage and anger toward the shooter or did you feel grief for a man who was so obviously lost?
Christ had before Him many different people in many different states that day. Physical, emotional, spiritual. And so He takes action to force them to make a decision regarding Him. He looks at this man with the same sympathy that He always looked on the destitute with. The same sympathy that He had for the woman with the bleeding issue who reasoned if she could just touch His cloak she would be made well so she reached out and grabbed it. He didn’t respond by smacking her hand but instead gave her the assurance that she needed that her faith had made her well. Here, he looks with sympathy on this poor man who had come to the synagogue that day just seeking to feel normal.
He had previously stated that the Son of Man was the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28), now He demonstrates that that principle applied even to this particular Sabbath. He looks back at the man in the middle and says simply “Stretch out your hand”. Just like the man on the mat in the beginning of Mark 2, He doesn’t reach out and touch him or take his hand. He merely speaks and forces the person to act in faith by either stretching out his hand or not. This man doesn’t hesitate - he stretches out his hand and it is completely restored. There was no question of the power that had been exhibited. There was no question that a miracle had been performed.
By that action Jesus forced a response on the part of His audience. But sometimes even the light can only make the darkness darker.
The Sinister Solution
The Sinister Solution
How can light make the dark even darker. The brighter a light shines on an object the darker the shadow that object casts. Christ had directed the light of the truth directly onto the Pharisees and as a result their dark hearts are revealed in the worst way. Because darkness is always willing to partner with other darkness against the light - no matter what strange bedfellows it may require.
Mark says that immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting - with the Herodians. There is little known about this group of people. In fact, in ancient literature they are mentioned only here and later in Mark and a corresponding passage in Matthew. Even the Jewish historian Josephus never mentions them directly but instead refers to a group known to be “of Herod’s party”. It seems that these men were not a religious sect like the Sadducees and Pharisees but instead a sympathetic political group that favored the reign of Herod and worked to keep him in power. But their positions were completely antithetical to those of the Pharisees.
It’s hard to describe a modern day equivalent. It would be like the LGBTQ movement conspiring with the Muslims to achieve a common goal all the while continuing to hate one another.
And here is the ultimate irony of the Pharisee’s reaction to Christ’s miracle. Mark says immediately - that same Greek word ευθυς that comes up so often in Mark’s Gospel - immediately they went out. That very same day. The Sabbath. Those who were so opposed to the doing of good on the Sabbath in the saving of a life went out and plotted evil on the same Sabbath in the devising of the death of Christ.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Everyone left the synagogue that day - much the same as everyone here will be leaving in a few minutes. One left completely restored. His hand healed. His spirit healed. Many others left still condemned in their sins but feeling justified and secure in their adherence to a religious system. This is a true story and not an allegory and so I can’t stand here and ask who you identify with - do you identify more with the man with the withered hand or with the Pharisees. But one thing is sure - the same Jesus who stood before them and took action to force them to respond to Him, took action that forces a response from us as well.
He carried a heavy cross up a windswept hill, his body broken and bleeding from scourging and blows to His face and head. His beard ripped out. A crown of thorns thrust down over His brow. He surely winced as the nails were driven home into His hands and His feet and felt the sharp twinges of pain as the crossbeam was raised and dropped into place. The agonizing pressure that built up in His chest as the fluid built up and drowned Him. But worse than that was the stain of sin that descended upon Him for the first time and the searing white heat of His Father’s wrath being poured out on Him as a result.
It forces a response. There were many responses on the hillside that day - there have been many responses since. There have been some who responded in faith and love. There have been many who have responded by seeking to kill Him. Even now their voices echo down through the halls of history, yelling in favor of His crucifixion. Some even who feel justified and safe within their own religious convictions. The question today is what response have you had to Him.
Many of you probably saw this quote on Facebook recently but it is a great summation of all that is being said. Charles Spurgeon once said this
You may think you can live fine without Christ, but you cannot afford to die without Him.
If you’re here and you are feeling the call to respond to Him in faith and love there are plenty of people here who would love to spend time with you talking about that. If you are watching online and you need to reach out please call us at (509) 926-0575 - we would love to talk with you as well.