Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: The Compassionate Provision of Christ: Part 2

And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him.

(Mark 8:11 LSB)

And sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek a sign?

Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

(Mark 8:12 LSB)

And leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side.

(Mark 8:13 LSB)

And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them.

(Mark 8:14 LSB)

And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out!

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

(Mark 8:15 LSB)

And they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread.

(Mark 8:16 LSB)

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive or understand?

Do you have a hardened heart?”

(Mark 8:17 LSB)

“HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR?

And do you not remember,”

(Mark 8:18 LSB)

“when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?”

They said to Him, “Twelve.”

(Mark 8:19 LSB)

“When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?”

And they said to Him, “Seven.”

(Mark 8:20 LSB)

And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

(Mark 8:21 LSB)

Last week we saw that if we are Christ’s disciples, He gives us what we need to serve others, but it is meaningless if we do not have the compassion Christ also has for those who are lost.

Along with Christ’s compassion, we see in our text today we must have His focus.

Thesis: If we are Christ’s disciples we must have the focus of Christ, if we are to have the compassion of Christ.

Intro: We continue through the Gospel of Mark and this “series within a series” concerning the Compassionate Provision of Christ.

We will close this short series out in part 3 next week, but as for now we look at this week’s text.

This is a portion of Scripture that easily can be taken and twisted, meant to mean something that it does not mean.

It might make for a better speech, but it would be a flawed sermon, full of prooftexts and eisegesis and if you don’t know those terms ask someone who was coming to class this past Spring on Wednesdays.

If we aren’t careful, as we navigate our way through it, we may lose our focus - like the disciples - and become concerned with what doesn’t matter over what should.

And this is something we must constantly keep in check, as we follow Christ, ensuring we keep our eyes on Him, our focus on Him, as we follow after Him.

Let’s just dive into the the message this morning

To begin in our text we see that our focus must be on who Christ is, not what we want Him to be.

And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him.

(Mark 8:11 LSB)

The Pharisees must have been waiting on Jesus.

If you recall, He only just got back to town, and they come swaggering up ready for a rematch.

Last time Jesus interacted with them, Jesus obliterated their legalism around the washing of hands - back in chapter 7 (Mark 7:1-13) - and likely humiliated them somewhat in the process.

Their oral traditions were no match for His knowledge of the Law.

So now the come up for another round of debate.

But they don’t want to debate logic, philosophy, or the Law.

They come to Jesus much in the same way the devil did.

In fact, the word Mark uses for “testing” here, he has only reserved for the Pharisees and for Satan himself, when he tempted Jesus in Mark 1:13.

It’s testing, or tempting, in order to trap.

That’s what the original Greek word peirazo (πειράζω) means, and that’s their intention here.

So they demand a sign, and not just any sign, they’re demanding a sign from heaven.

This means they want to see something performed either from Heaven or to Heaven.

From God, or to God.

It will, once and for all, confirm Jesus’ claims such as being Lord of the Sabbath, or His treatment of the Law, it will explain where His power comes from.

If you recall, in chapter 3, the Pharisees accused him of getting his power from the devil (Mark 3:22), so they’re coming to Him here, basically saying, “Fine, if you really are who you say, then show us a sign, do this or that, prove it.”

Who does that sound like?

“And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

(Luke 4:3 LSB) So we see why Mark chooses his wording so carefully.

Many Jewish people were looking for God’s intervention in history - if you recall, the Pharisees believed they could bring God along to their cause if they just followed all the Law, and followed it perfectly.

So it is likely, and Second Temple period literature confirms, that they believed when the Messiah would finally come, He would confirm Himself with some miraculous, heavenly sign.

Some show of power that confirmed God was on the side of the Jewish people, acting powerfully, as He had when He rescued them from Egypt.

Well, in Jesus’ life where do we see such heavenly signs?

As He is being mocked by the Scribes and the chief priests, the day He was crucified, Mark tells us they get their sign: “And when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.”

(Mark 15:33 LSB)

By the way this darkness is recorded all over the world - there are some historical records from as far East as Japan and as far West as Greece - all cultures with a written language of that time seem to have some record of it.

And it was during Passover, a time where there would be a full moon - so it’s not an Eclipse, it’s a heavenly miracle.

The Pharisees will have their sign, but it will be much later than their demand for one this day.

Lest we forget, their demand is not one of a sincere heart, anyway.

They are only asking in order to trap Him, were there some sort of sign at this time, it would not be something that would lead them to worship, but only to further harden their hearts against Him.

Jesus knows this, that’s why He replies like He does.

And sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek a sign?

Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

(Mark 8:12 LSB)

We have to remember, in the flow of this story, asking for a sign is kind of what the disciples were doing last week when we saw Jesus feed the 4,000.

If you recall, Jesus implied the disciples should begin feeding the crowd, and their response was, in a sense, “Why don’t you do it?

Will you feed the Gentiles as you fed the Jews?”

Because you if you remember Isaiah’s promise about the suffering servant, if you recall anything about the Old Testament prophecies about the Christ, or the “root of Jesse” who is also an offspring of Jesse’s household...

“Then it will be in that day, That the nations will seek the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a standard for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.”

(Isaiah 11:10 LSB)

Or later in Isaiah when he writes: “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul is well-pleased.

I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.”(Isaiah

42:1 LSB)

We can understand Jesus’ frustration with the disciples that we’ll see in this text - they should have gotten this before anyone.

Yet they were still wanting confirmation - just like the Pharisees.

This is why He sighs deeply, the Greek is anastenazas (αναστεναξας), and again it’s a groan of weariness and despair, not of frustration or anger.

The disciples had hard hearts, and this caused them to be unable to focus on Christ as He was, as they should see Him.

The Pharisees didn’t have a bad focus, they had a spiritual blindness.

They’d seen Jesus heal diseases, cast out demons, even raise the dead, but they were convinced He did it all with the help of the devil.

They’d seen enough they should have reached the only possible conclusion - He was the Messiah - but they refused to believe it.

So Jesus refuses their request.

To do anything else would be to contradict Himself, as He had already warned His disciples about such things.

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”(Matthew

7:6 LSB)

Jesus isn’t going to waste another moment with these Pharisees.

He’s not giving a sign to them - or to anyone.

He says “Truly I say to you” and this alone is a shortened Greek form of the Hebrew phrases, “If I do such a thing may I die.”

In other words, in the harshest way He can, Jesus is telling these guys He isn’t going to do what they want Him to do.