Mark 2:23-3:6
Introduction: You may remember the story of the
pastor who found the roads impassable one Sunday morning, but…
The river was frozen so he decided to skate on the river to get to
church. When he arrived the deacons of the church were horrified that their
preacher had skated on the Lord's day. After the service they held a meeting to
rebuke his worldly behavior. The pastor explained that it was either skate to
church or not go at all. Finally, one deacon asked, "Did you enjoy
it?" When the preacher answered, "Well no, not really" the board
decided it was all right.
One of the great temptations facing
fallen humans is to define spirituality in terms of what we don’t do! Nowhere was that tendency more
evident than in the Sabbath regulations of first century Judaism. The
background of course was what God told Israel as he gave the Ten
Commandments…
8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do
all your work, 10 but the
seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work,
you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant,
or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh
day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy… (Exod 20:8-11).
The Sabbath Commandment was stated
again, 40 years later as Moses wrote Deuteronomy for the new generation which
was about to enter the Land. This time, rather than pointing to what God did in
Creation, Moses refers to the Exodus…
12 “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God
commanded you. 13 Six days
you shall labor and do all your work, 14
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do
any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female
servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner
who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may
rest as well as you. 15 You
shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your
God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day…” (Deut 5:12-15).
God embedded “rest” in the Creation
order, as He himself “rested” on the seventh day. In Deuteronomy, for the new generation, for
whom the deliverance from Egypt was not a recent memory, the Sabbath was an
ongoing reminder of where they had come from, and as they had experienced
God’s gracious deliverance they should extend grace toward their servants and
the sojourners among them. “Rest”
was a blessing intended for all humans. God had set apart this day for rest. It was also an expression of
faith. To rest from labor meant trusting that God would supply, as He had in
the wilderness.
Six days were enough for work. But what is “work”? That was
where the rabbis went to work! That question seemingly took over the
thinking of the rabbis in the centuries leading up to the coming of Christ. The
traditions of the “fathers” would later be written down in the Talmud. Twenty-four
chapters of the Talmud dealt with Sabbath regulations! What was intended to be
a blessing had been turned into a burden! The disciples had probably broken at
least a couple of Sabbath “rules.” For one, the traditions said Jews were
allowed only to walk only 2,000 minus one, 1,999 paces on the Sabbath. (Some of
you aim for 10,000 a day!). It may be that in getting to the grain field they
exceeded that limit. “Harvesting” also
was prohibited, as well as threshing. Remember
the context of these stories in Mark’s Gospel…
The two scenes described in these verses are the 4th and 5th
in a series of five controversies between Jesus and the religious establishment
that began in chapter 2. The first three dealt with 1) forgiveness
(2:1-12), 2) fellowship [eating with sinners!] (2:15-17), and 3) fasting
(2:18-22). The two here have to do with 4) Feeding themselves from the
field (2:23-38), and 5) freeing a man from his physical infirmity
(3:1-6) [OK, I went too far on the alliteration with the last two!].
Jesus was speaking and acting,
and making claims, that didn’t seem consistent with what a first century rabbi
should be doing. How could He speak with such authority, even claiming
to forgive sins? And where did He get the power to heal? Why did
He associate with tax collectors and sinners? And now, how could He allow
his disciples to break the traditions regarding the Sabbath? Mark continues
to write a Gospel that encourages evangelism and discipleship, still drawing
the reader (including us!) to consider his answer to three questions: 1) Who is
Jesus? 2) Why did He come? 3) What does it mean to follow Him? In Matthew’s
gospel, immediately before his account of this same scene, Jesus offers
“rest” to those who labor and are heavy laden, if they will come to Him. We
read
in Matthew 11:28-30,
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. 29 Take my yoke upon
you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. 30 For
my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
The BIG Idea: The spirit of the Sabbath is
resting in Him, free to experience the grace and life that only Jesus can
provide. We’ll consider three questions once again, 1) Who is Jesus? 2) Why did
He come? 3) What does it mean to follow Him?
I. Who is Jesus? Lord of all… GOD the Son (2:23-28)! The
initial conflict focuses on His disciples casually picking some grain to
satisfy their hunger as they walked through a field. Once again, the Pharisees were there, watching
and waiting.
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made
their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying
to him, "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the
Sabbath?" 25 And he said
to them, "Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was
hungry, he and those who were with him: 26
how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and
ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests
to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?" 27 And he said to them, "The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even
of the Sabbath."
First of all, notice the
setting for this scene. It is the Sabbath, and as the disciples passed through
a field they began to pluck heads of grain, rub them between their hands, and
eat as they went, in order to satisfy their hunger. Were they “working” in so doing? According to
Alfred Edersheim (a Jewish believer in Jesus from the 19th century) the
Talmud later had added 24 chapters on Sabbath Law to the command to sanctify
the Sabbath day, many of these were likely oral traditions already. The idea
was to have such a “hedge” around the Sabbath that no one would be guilty of
violating the commandment. Some of the rabbinic prohibitions may sound a little
silly, for example…
“Baths could not be taken for fear some of the water might spill on to
the floor and “wash” it. Chairs could not be moved because dragging them might
make a furrow in the ground, and a woman could not look into a mirror lest she
see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out… If a person became ill on the
Sabbath, only enough treatment could be given to keep him alive. Treatment to
make him improve was deemed work, and therefore forbidden…”
You get the idea? The rabbis had gone far beyond the Scripture and had
lost site of the spirit of the Law. The Sabbath was not intended by God to be a
burden. It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise, a picture of the “eschatological
rest” for which we were created. The Scribes and Pharisees had lost sight of the
spirit of the Sabbath commandment. And so Jesus turns to a scriptural example,
a “case study” that would show that the Sabbath Law, as God had given it, did
not preclude people from satisfying their hunger. Basically He is asking them,
“Haven’t you read your Bible?” He points them to the story of David and his men
eating the “Bread of the Presence” in 1 Samuel 21:1-6,
Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet
David trembling and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one with
you?" 2 And David said
to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has charged me with a matter and said
to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with
which I have charged you.' I have made an appointment with the young men for
such and such a place. 3 Now
then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is
here." 4 And the priest
answered David, "I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread-
if the young men have kept themselves from women." 5 And David answered the priest,
"Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition… 6
So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the
bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by
hot bread on the day it is taken away.
There was no indication either of the disapproval of the priests or the
rebuke of the Lord. Jesus is showing
that we can understand from Scripture that the Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath! So, He is teaching
the Pharisees.
Jesus left some room for His
hearers to exercise “hearing with faith”. First of all, Jesus chose to use a
potentially ambiguous messianic title, “Son
of Man.” Secondly by using the title in the third person, there could have
been some question about to whom He was referring. For example in John 12:34
we read,
“We have heard from the Law that the
Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who
is this Son of Man?”
Only Jesus used that title for himself, and the ambiguity was
intentional. Jesus had a plan which included three years of ministry with His
disciples, teaching and preparing them, before culminating in the unfolding plan
of God. The conflict with the leaders would culminate in the passion, but not
yet, His day had not come. For those with “ears to hear,” the title “Son of
Man” would evoke the passage in Daniel
7:13-14…
13 I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there
came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was
presented before him. 14 And
to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations,
and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which
shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
Who is the Son of Man? Jesus. And He is Lord of the
Sabbath. The Sabbath was intended as a blessing, not a burden. And it looked
forward to the “rest” that He would offer in Christ. The spirit of the Sabbath means
resting in Him, free to experience the grace and life that only Jesus could
provide.
II. Why did He come? (3:1-5)? To reveal the truth and the
(only) Way to Life.
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered
hand. 2 And they watched
Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might
accuse him. 3 And he said to
the man with the withered hand, "Come here." 4 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. 5 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.
We have two different lines to the
story to consider at this point: 1) a confrontation with the religious leaders
that exposes their depravity, and 2) a miracle of healing that both vindicates
Jesus and looks ahead to what He came to do. There is irony here as the leaders
are “watching” Jesus, not to hear
what He would say or do that might enlighten their understanding of who He is,
but rather that they might witness something that would give them grounds to
accuse Him. This word implies watching critically and closely, ready to
spring a trap. The same term is used in Acts 9 to describe the men who had
taken an oath to kill Saul (Paul). They were waiting for him at the city gate.
It is clear that the religious leaders, as they watched Jesus with critical
eyes, viewed this as a trap, and the man with the withered hand was the
“bait”! The word “accuse” has legal ramifications;
the idea was to bring a charge against Jesus for violating the law.
Would Jesus do the “work” of
miraculously healing the man and so violate the Sabbath? We see the emotion of
Jesus, He is angry, grieved by their hard hearts. We see Jesus teaching the
Pharisees. And He shows compassion on the man. The Lord of the Sabbath does
“good.” This healing was temporary, provisional. And it pointed ahead to the
New Creation He would bring. The Pharisees soon will be plotting evil against
Jesus! The spirit of the Sabbath is resting in Him, free to experience the
grace and life that only Jesus could provide.
III. What does it mean to follow Him? Take up your cross (3:6)!
6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians
against him, how to destroy him.
That of course points ahead
to what Jesus had just spoken about in the preceding context: the day would
come when He would be “taken away”
from them… as Isaiah 53:8 said. Now the
reader gets an ominous indication as to how that would happen: the leaders of His
own people, the Jews, were already plotting to kill Him! The context
anticipates what Jesus later said in the upper room: don’t be surprised if
the world hates you, remember it hated me first! It seems that Mark is
writing to a community of believers that are experiencing persecution.
Remember, we are pilgrims, and yes, we live in a fallen world.
The corollary to the
suffering of Christ is the suffering of His disciples. It is explicitly
addressed by Jesus after the confession of Peter (Mk 8:29) and before the
Transfiguration (Mk 9:2-8). In that
context, as He speaks to the crowd along with His disciples, He says,
“If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. 35 For whoever
would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and
the gospel's will save it…” (Mk 8:34b-35).
What does it mean to follow Him? He is the Way,
but know this: If Jesus was hated by the world and suffered, so will those who
follow Him. As Peter said in his first epistle,
“6 In this you rejoice,
though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various
trials, 7 so that the tested
genuineness of your faith- more precious than gold that perishes though it is
tested by fire- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the
revelation of Jesus Christ…” (I Pet 1:6,7).
God has a plan, and it will culminate in true rest, eternal life
in intimate fellowship with God, the abundant life, unencumbered by sin, for
which we were created!
What is God saying to me in
this passage? The spirit of the Sabbath is resting
in Jesus, free to experience the grace and life that only He could provide.
What would God have me to do
in response to this passage? It is possible that we have a
breadth of views regarding the application of the Sabbath in our lives (Is it 7th
day, Sunday, or every day consciously dedicated to the Lord?). It seems pretty
clear the principle predated the Law and ties into the Creation order. Debates about
the application go back to the early church. Paul said in Col 2:13-17 (cf. Rom 14:5,6)…
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our
trespasses, 14 by canceling
the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set
aside, nailing it to the cross… 16
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or
with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things
to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath! Jesus said, “Come to
me… and I will give you rest.” That rest is, and will be, ours in Christ.
We have the Spirit as a seal, a down payment on our inheritance. Jesus will
return, and we will fully enter our “rest.” That is our sure hope! For now we
are “on assignment,” but even now we have rest in Him. Setting a special day
aside for physical rest and refreshing our souls seems to fit the Sabbath
pattern God established in Creation. But we should not be Pharisees about how
that applies now in each other’s lives! The best is yet to come! AMEN.
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