Mark 2:1-3:5
It started off as an unbelievable email, but that story about shooting dead chickens through windshields is actually true. NASA developed a gun to launch dead chickens nineteen thousand miles per hour at windshields of space shuttles to test their strength. Britain borrowed the gun to test it on their high-speed trains. When they fired it, the chicken smashed the windshield, ripped off the engineer’s backrest, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin. The British went to the Americans and asked, “What went wrong?” The American scientists simply replied, “Thaw the chicken.” NASA spokesman Mike Braukus confirmed the story is indeed true. He said, “That happened a year ago (1999).” We all know the drill . . . “when all else fails read the directions.” With God’s Word, we demonstrate wisdom by reading the directions first so “all else” won’t fail.
Houston Chronicle, Feb. 6, 2000, p. 20A
There is something that often happens to people who become Christ followers in the early days of their walk with Christ. It is very easy to pay so much attention to the doing of things that we forget the being. In other words, we get so wrapped up in the performance of duties and disciplines that we let our relationship with Christ diminish. We become a slave to our duties and disciplines. We have a closer relationship with them then we do with Christ.
A vibrant relationship with Christ is always changing. It is new each morning. It is not static nor does it get into a rut.
When Jesus came to this earth the “church” was in a very predictable place. They were steeped in traditions, rules and restrictions, many of which were far from the teaching or even the law of the Bible. These man made rules had taken the people far from anything resembling a living fresh relationship with God or the reality of God.
What kind of relationship do you have with Jesus Christ?
A “Joyful son” – a developing relationship = God’s truth
A “dutiful soldier” – a “righteous rules keeper” = man’s tradition
Are you in an exhilarating relationship with God that is fresh and new or have you become a dutiful servant over the years with very little life or strength?
Personal Evaluation – Where is your focus?
Left to ourselves we tend to always move away from grace. We move from the spirit of the law to the letter of the law. We move from devotion to duty. We move from a dynamic love relationship to keeping rules. This sermon is all about breaking free of religious strait jackets. If we are not careful we can become so entrenched in our own ways, methods and preferences that we miss where God is going. Our goal is to understand the times and the moves of God as He moves around the earth. It is natural to struggle with this.
Mark 2:1-3:6 – The Road to Freedom: In a very unusual move Mark takes five stories from the life of Jesus and places them together. They did not happen chronologically in the way he puts them together. Remember, Mark is on a mission to communicate the message of Jesus Christ and who He was. He is also telling the story of Christ relationship with the disciples and with the religious world of His day.
Mark places these stories back to back to make one major point.
He gives us 5 historical snapshots.
He gives us 5 major controversies (truth vs. tradition + law)
Two major players: The religious leaders of the day. The disciples.
Two major purposes for writing in this way:
1. To reveal truth. The truth about God and why He came. He wants to reveal Himself
2. To expose error. He wanted to show how just following religion can lead you away from God and smother you. . Error about how keeping rules will never leave you into what God has for you.
Remember these are five stories that certainly deserve more time than we can give it this morning. There is no way we can do justice to all five of these stories in twenty five or thirty minutes. We are going to open up our Bibles and try to see the big picture of what Mark was trying to say and communicate with these five stories.
THE FIRST OPPOSITION
A. Healing (feet) Controversy (2:1-12)
1. Indoors – house (2:1)
2. Jesus forgives paralytic’s son
3. Scribes reason in their heart - “only God can forgive” (2:26)
4. Jesus’ works validate His words - heals man, walks out (David)
5. Key issue = authority: identity of Christ “spirit vs letter”
6. Question = Who is this man?
7. Response = positive, amazement
B. Eating Controversy (2:23-28)
1. Outdoors – grain fields
2. Problem = Work on Sabbath
3. Biblical law violated – Why?
4. Jesus cites OT example
5. Key Issue = Purpose of the law
6. Question: What relationship do you have to the law?
C. Fasting Controversy (2:18-22)
a. John’s disciples fasting (18a)
b. Pharisees’ disciples fasting (18b)
c. Bridegroom “taken away” (apairo, 19-20)
d. Unshrunk patch on old garment (21)
e. New wine into old wineskins
B. Eating Controversy (2:13-17)
1. Outdoors – seashore
2. Jesus teaching – calls Levi
3. Eats with sinners (party)
4. Rabbinic law violated (2:16)
5. Disciples questioned
6. Jesus answers with proverb “help the sick”
7. Key issue: Why did you come?
A. Healing (hand) Controversy (3:1-6)
1. Indoors – synagogue
2. Man with withered hand
3. Religious leaders looking for excuse
4. Jesus angry, asks question
5. Key Issue: Man’s tradition or God’s truth
6. Heals man, hearts hardened
7. Question: How can we kill him?
This starts with a healing controversy and ends with a healing controversy there are two eating controversies and then he ends it with a bull’s eye picture of the whole concept right in the middle
A. Healing (feet) Controversy (2:1-12)
1A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. (He was right on target.) 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
New Testament homes were made of sod or dirt and often the roof would have grass growing on it. Animal would even graze on it sometimes. These guys dig down and lower the man. Up until this time Jesus has cast out demons but now something else happens. It is very significant that Jesus looked at the man and said, Son, your sins are forgiven.” Look at what the teachers who were there thought.
6Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Their theology is perfectly correct. There is no one who can forgive sins except God. Jesus is coming and asking people to follow Him. His goal was to reveal truth. He is showing people truth and truth is He is God.
8Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'?
Verse 10 is critical. The issue is the identity of Christ and His authority.
10But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
Jesus is upping the ante. He is moving beyond a few miracles to demonstrate His power. He is now messing with their theology. If you were a follower this would have been encouraging. If you were a religious leader of the day you would have been folding your arms and becoming very defensive. They believed that Jesus had crossed lines that were not supposed to be crossed.
B. Eating controversy
13Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
The theme of the book is following Christ.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
Jesus calls Levi and he throws a little evangelistic party so that his friends can get to know Jesus. His friends are some of the most despised people of that day and to eat with someone in this culture is to be intimate with them. Not sexually but you are suggesting that you identify with them and who they are. The rabbinical law said that if people were unholy and you ate with them you would become unholy. Jesus is mixing it up with sinful people.
16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
He is going off the chart in breaking our traditions. We don’t understand this. Jesus answers them in a parable: 17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
He is making a claim to forgive sins as God and He is making an attempt to reach people who have no hope and feel rejected. This would be almost everybody you know and the religious leaders would have known this if they had been honest.
Let me ask you a question, how many unbelievers do you know? I mean a real sinful unbeliever that when their life is cracking up they would call you or me. Do we have those kind of relationships with unbelievers? Jesus did. Statistics have shown that in our country after two years of being a Christian we have zero close friends that are non Christians. We completely lose our ability or drive to befriend or spend time with unbelievers in their environment. Let’s move on.
C. The Fasting controversy:
These were not religious leaders but average people with an honest questions. This is the only one that turns out not to be a controversy. It really is a time of teaching.
18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
This is an honest question. They know by law that they have been told to fast, when to fast and how long to fast. Fasting is not an option for them. The heart of Jesus teaching is coming in this section. He uses two illustrations to make the point of this passage.
19Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
He is saying have you ever been to a wedding. It is a time of celebration and great happiness. Do you weep and mourn when two people come together in love? In the same way what’s the purpose of fasting. It is a way in a time of distress to express your need of God and to draw near to Him. You deny yourself and focus your time and energy on Him. Jesus is saying my disciples don’t need to fast because they are with me. That just makes sense but He gives them another illustration.
21"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. (Why) If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
This is the only one that has no controversy. Leather will stretch when it is new and you put wine in a new wineskin so that it will stretch when the wine expands and ferments otherwise you lose the old valuable wineskin that has hardened and lost it’s elasticity. He is giving a very simple illustration of a principle: Practice must always follow purpose. Form must always follow function.
You must always remember why you are doing things because if you don’t you will start doing things that don’t make any sense.
What’s the reason behind it?
Let me give you some practical examples of how this is lived out today.
Worshipping on Saturday instead of Sunday: Saturday night worship is what is being planned at Real life Community. We used to have a Saturday night worship service and we may again some day. There are people who get very weird about that. You just can’t understand that from your backgrounds and the way you were raised. What’s the purpose of a worship service? Isn’t it to enter in to the presence of God and to be taught and transformed and to take it out to the streets? If you need more room to give people the ability to do that or if Saturday night works better for the community you are ministering to I don’t think for a minute that God cares about weather you worship Him on Saturday or Sunday. I don’t think He’s uptight about it. Our practices must always follow the purpose. There are people who walk in here or Real Life and ask, Where are the pews? We can’t worship without pews can we? For the life of me I can’t understand why you would take a functional room and put furniture in it that can only be used for one purpose and that is sitting. (Something the church doesn’t need any help in.) All across this country there are these big rooms that sit empty six days a week with nothing. It’s bizarre. Someone got upset at me one day about getting rid of the pews at Real Life. When I saw 160 people coming into that room few months ago where there was food being given out in Jesus name I couldn’t help but think that we did the right and sensible thing. You see we have this unbelievable something inside of us as humans that makes us latch onto and grasp at traditions and doing things the same old way. We love to say, we have never done it that way before.
When you get the purpose down lots of changes will be demanded. We get very stuck in our traditions. Jesus is saying that I have come from God to change some things. I am the new wine and the new revelation. The new revelation will demand new forms. How open are you and I to change? Jesus is the most ruthless with one group of people in the New Testament and that was the religious leaders. Did He not like them? No, he loved them. He said your traditions have nullified the truth of God. You have let the form get in the way of knowing being and doing the will of Christ. He violated rabbinical law and now He moves it up another notch. Now He violates the Sabbath and all hell is about to break lose.
D. Eating Controversy 2
23One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
The disciples were walking through the fields and “harvesting the grain” as they walked. Jesus is taking it head on. Other Sabbath rules included, You could only walk 3800 feet because to do more would be a burden. Kids couldn’t play on stilts because to lift them up would have been work. You could not build a fire on the Sabbath because building a fire on the Sabbath would be work. They were so involved in their rules that they missed the whole point. Jesus is about to teach them that the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law.
25He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
These religious leaders know this story. (1 Sam. 21:6) He is telling them a true story from their past. Only a priest was allowed to take this food from the altar. David knew and Jesus knew that the law of human need is greater than the laws of human ritual. That is the point! That is the point of Jesus coming to this earth. It should be the point of our church and ministries. Jesus is saying, “You have dropped the ball or your ball is in the weeds.” Jesus is saying that He came to have relationships. He came to give life and to have a relationship with people that they might have freedom and live. These Pharisees and others was a bunch of righteous rule keepers. They had no love, they had no joy, they had no care for those who weren’t exactly like them. For many of us we view God’s law as restrictions instead of gifts.
Examples:
Giving off the top to God by faith.
Your thought life.
Responsibility.
Giving 100% at work.
Absolute Honesty
Morality
Do you view God as a kill joy or do you see Him as a loving God that puts principle in your life through His word that keep you from going off the deep end of life? The are like guard rails that keep us from greater trouble. The Pharisees thought of God as a restrictive dictator God that loved to make them miserable. Do you know why God included a rule like not looking on a woman to lust after her? Why we teach from the Bible that adultery is wrong? Why sex outside of marriage is wrong? It’s not to make you miserable it’s to keep you from excruciating misery. There are dozens of people probably in these services today that could stand and testify that the moment of sexual impurity or adultery was not worth it. God put his law in place so that we would have a patter to live by that would promote the best possible life we can have on this earth. Read Proverbs 7 and you will see that God plainly spells out the results of having an adulterous affair.
He is trying to establish His authority with God. The natural question is what relationship do you have with the law? 27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." I am Lord of the Sabbath. We created the Sabbath to give you a gift that would bring you a day to rest and reflection and worship. Jesus is saying I am above the Sabbath rules, I created the Sabbath. Believe me something is about to happen. The friction is building. Mark 3
E. Healing Controversy 2
1Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
4Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"
He is back to teaching that practice follows purpose and function follows form. He is exposing the purpose of the Sabbath. He is cutting through the traditions turned rules. When God starts messing with our comfortable ways it becomes very uncomfortable. We are such stubborn hardhearted people that we would rather stay with our traditions than follow God and follow the truth.
They knew the answer to His question but the Bible says, “But they remained silent.”Now look at what happened next. It is incredible and shocking.
5He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.
In this presentation by Mark we have been given the text a question and an answer. Look at this with me.
Now here is the final question in Mark 3:6, How can we kill Him?
6Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
This passage is built in a unique chiastic fashion or structure. When we think of a logical argument form like a lawyer might use today it is premise followed by four reasons why and a second premise with three reasons why. That is a Greek way of logical or western thinking. Often in Hebrew thought they would use a form where the most important point would come in the middle or a chiastic structure. Notice how this was laid out. Think about a set of bookends.
Healing controversy about feet.
Healing controversy with the hands.
Right in the middle is his main point: The Bridegroom is here.
Eating controversy with sinners.
Eating controversy with his disciples.
New wine demands new wineskins
Truth demands change.
Truth makes us uncomfortable
Truth is the only thing that brings freedom.
Prayer and prayer list
Giving
Fasting
Remembering the Sabbath
Memorizing scripture
Reading the bible
All of these things are means not the end. We read His word because we want to get to know the Father. We pray because we want to know God in an intimate way. Church is not an end it’s a means. I have a feeling that some of us are in about the same shape as the people Jesus was dealing with. We have turned our relationship as joyful sons and daughters of God into dutiful little soldiers and we are miserable about it. There is no joy. Your family knows it, the people you work with know it, and your dog probably even knows it.
Do you know what Jesus was saying through all these stories? Listen closely we are about to end this service.
Where is your heart? I want to be with you today. I want to love you today. I want you to follow me today. Will you join me today. He is saying this to people so bound by traditions that they responded to Jesus and His invitation with actions that in essence said:
“We would rather kill you than respond to the truth.” How do you respond to truth? Jesus is the Truth. How are you responding to Him?