Confronting Jesus

Good evening! Let’s pray some more:

Heavenly Father, thank you for this gospel, this living word of yours that brings us to Jesus Christ your Son. Help us now, by the work of your Holy Spirit, to meet with Jesus now, and to learn more of what it means to put our faith in him. In his name we pray, Amen.

Page 838 in the Bibles is where we need to be for this next part of Mark’s Gospel. We’re looking at Mark 2.23-3.6 and the two incidents recorded there, and I’ve called this ‘Confronting Jesus’. Now, as I was thinking about this, two things came to my mind; the first was a musical – Les Miserables. Do you know it? Apparently over 130 million people have seen it in 53 countries and 438 cities, in 22 languages, and it’s the longest-running musical in the world. My daughter is getting close to being a superfan, so I’ve seen it multiple times. At the centre of it are two contrasting characters who are in a long-running and ultimately fatal conflict. One is the police inspector Javert, a self-righteous man with an obsession for enforcing the law as he understood it. The other is the thief and convict Jean Valjean – repentant and saved by grace. As my daughter always says, Javert doesn’t get grace. And he comes to hate Valjean with a passion. Watch it yourself if you don’t know the story and you want to know how what happens. The other thing that came to my mind was a question. I asked it of myself, and now I’m going to ask it of you. Is your heart full of self-righteous hatred, or is it grace-filled and at rest? Or maybe a bit of both? I found it a searching and uncomfortable question, because there is stuff that goes on in my heart that I wish wasn’t there. Maybe there is in your heart too. But as always, Jesus gives us hope. So don’t have a shrivelled hating heart. Let Jesus restore it and give you rest. Why does this section cause those thoughts? Well let’s get into it.

Jesus, remember, has burst onto the scene after his baptism by John. He has been travelling around, teaching, preaching and healing on such a scale that, in the words of Mark 1.28:

…his fame spread everywhere

With the result that (Mark 1.45):

…Jesus could no longer openly enter a town…

And people were saying (Mark 2.12):

“We never saw anything like this!”

But not everybody liked it. We’re only in chapter 2, and already Jesus has been accused of blasphemy, and of keeping bad company unfit for a man of God. So things are already hotting-up, and now the stakes get higher still. I have five observations – five things for us to take note of as we look at what happened here.

1. Two confrontations take place between the Pharisees and Jesus

Here are two encounters between Jesus and the highly religious Pharisees with an obsession for enforcing their forest of traditions that had grown up around God’s law in the Scriptures. Last week we saw their concern for fasting. This week the presenting issue is how they thought the Sabbath should be kept if the no-work-on-the-Sabbath rule was to be followed properly. The first encounter is in an agricultural setting, we might say, and the second encounter was in a religious setting. Look at Mark 2.23-24 for the first, agricultural setting:

One Sabbath [Jesus] was going through the cornfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck ears of corn. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

At first that could sound quite non-confrontational – though certainly questioning, as if they’d like a seminar on Sabbath-keeping with Jesus, the new kid on the block, so they could set him right on a few things. But it quickly becomes clear that in fact the atmosphere between them is getting much more hostile than that. So look at the second encounter in its religious setting, there in Mark 3.1-2:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

Now it occurs to me that there is one good thing going on here, for all the uncomfortable nature of these confrontations. And that is, that the Pharisees are encountering Jesus. The stir that Jesus has created has provoked them to go to him, and to watch what he and his followers are up to, and to ask him questions. That is something we want to try and make happen in all our own varied contexts. Let’s encourage encounters with Jesus, even if we do feel it’s going to be uncomfortable. Let’s take every opportunity to bring people into the orbit of the church, which is the fellowship of the followers of Jesus today. Maybe some sparks will fly, but people need to meet with Jesus. One tool for that is the Word One to One material that Pete’s been encouraging us to try out. The whole point of that is precisely to try and get people who don’t yet know or understand Jesus to meet with him in the pages of the Gospel of John, and to see what happens and what questions are thrown up – hostile or otherwise. So, two confrontations take place between the Pharisees and Jesus. That’s the first thing.

2. The Sabbath was made for us

There is more going on here than just questions about how to keep the Sabbath appropriately, to be sure. But nonetheless, we can be grateful that Jesus takes this opportunity to set out what we might call The Sabbath Principle, from which we can learn much. It’s there in Mark 2.27:

And [Jesus] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

The Pharisees’ forest of Sabbath regulations was such that the Sabbath, instead of being a blessing, had become constraining and oppressive, and was failing to fulfil God’s good purpose for it. It was as if they had become slaves to the Sabbath. No plucking of ears of corn in a field. No helping a man with a withered hand. And Jesus challenges their whole approach to the Sabbath work-free day of rest. So in the field, in Mark 2.25-26, he draws their attention to this fascinating Old Testament example in the life of David. Here it is:

And [Jesus] 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: 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?”

The point surely is that these ritual, ceremonial laws should be applied with some flexibility when there is an urgent need. And there’s another dimension here too, it seems to me. Here is David (God’s anointed King) who at the time has had to flee from King Saul who is trying to kill him. He needs food, and David claims the right to use the holy bread – not only for himself, but also (as Jesus says) for those who were with him. God’s anointed King (the messiah, the Christ) can do that. So it is here with Jesus, God’s anointed King of kings, the Messiah, the Christ. He has every right to be flexible in his application of the Sabbath law when the need arises, for him and for those who were with him. Similarly in the second confrontation – so look at Mark 3.3-4:

And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to [the Pharisees], “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was not given by God to oppress us. It was lawful to do what was necessary and what was good on the Sabbath. But the Sabbath was made for man says Jesus. The Sabbath Principle is a fantastic blessing from God to all humanity, and we should learn not to ignore it but to apply it to our lives, and indeed our culture as we can – with proper flexibility, but without neglect. Ramzi was talking very helpfully to our staff team about just this the other week. Among other things, he said we should:

…recognise what a day of rest is for, in a positive sense, and enjoy the freedom from our weekly toil to rest and worship our Creator and Redeemer.

So let’s be serious, sensible and joyful about the Sabbath Principle. The Sabbath was made for us. That’s the second thing.

3. The Pharisees reject the word of God for the sake of their traditions

That’s what is really going on here, and that’s why it’s so serious. It’s not that the Pharisees are just being a bit too rigid in the way they are applying the Sabbath law. Rather, their forest of man-made traditions and regulations so surrounds God’s law that they’ve lost sight of it altogether. All they now care about is their own regulations and man-made laws. Jesus is crystal clear about that at a later confrontation with them, a few chapters further on in Mark 7. There, Jesus applies a prophecy of Isaiah to them (Mark 7.7):

…in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. [And then he says to them] You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

And he warns them (Mark 7.13) that they are:

…making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.

In the end the Pharisees end up not only rejecting the word of God in the Scriptures, but the Word of God made flesh in the person of Jesus. That’s how serious this is. So we must be very careful not to fall into the same trap. Religion can cause us to reject the living God.

Can I say a word to you if you are a Muslim here today – perhaps interested in finding out more about Christian faith? We’re so glad you’re here. Let me ask you a gentle question. Could it be that your religious traditions are in fact serving to block your path to Jesus, who is the Son of God who gave his life for our sins? Please don’t let them lead you to reject him. The lesson is for every one of us. We should saturate ourselves in the Scriptures, the living Word of God – and submit all of our traditions to the test of its supreme authority. The Pharisees reject the word of God for the sake of their traditions. That’s the third thing.

4. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and the Pharisees

Mark 2.27-28 – in the cornfield:

And [Jesus] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man [that’s Jesus] is lord even of the Sabbath.”

And then Mark 3.5 – in the synagogue, where that man was with the withered hand:

And [Jesus] looked round 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.

Do you see Jesus? Here is the divine Messiah, with all authority, whose word is the command of God, and whose commands are always for our good. Here is our Saviour, full of compassion for the suffering of the man with the withered hand, and with divine power to restore him. Here is the Lord who is angry and grieved at the hardness of heart of the Pharisees who will not listen to him, and so are turning away from the only one who can save them. As Tim Keller puts it:

Why does Jesus become angry with the religious leaders? Because the Sabbath is about restoring the diminished. It’s about replenishing the drained. It’s about repairing the broken. To heal the shrivelled man is to do exactly what the Sabbath is all about…[The Pharisees’] hearts are as shrivelled as the man’s hand.

Although they are confronting Jesus, they will not come to him. In Matthew 11.28-29, Jesus says:

“Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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.”

There is a sense in which Jesus is not only Lord of the Sabbath – he is the Sabbath. We find our rest in him. That is what the Pharisees so tragically would not see. We must be different. We must not confront Jesus with hostile intent. We must surrender ourselves to him. He understands our weariness. He knows the burdens we carry. He is gentle and lowly in heart. He is ready to give us rest. We must not harden our hearts against him, and close our ears to his voice, as the Pharisees did. That way lies only the withering of our souls, and the anger and grief of the one who is Lord of all. Don’t fight against him. Don’t flee from him. We must have soft hearts, open ears that learn from him, and feet that come to him, follow him, and stay close to him. Then we will find rest for our souls. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and the Pharisees – and us. That’s the fourth thing. Then finally and:

5. The Pharisees set to work to destroy Jesus

Such is the hardness of their hearts. Look at Mark 3.4-5 again, and then Mark 3.6:

And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees], “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked round 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. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

This is where the real agenda of the Pharisees here is exposed for all to see. It is an astonishing and rapid descent into darkness across these two encounters. At the start of the first, the disciples of Jesus pluck some ears of corn. That’s it. But the Pharisees’ thinking is so distorted that it twists into sheer evil. And they determine to destroy the Lord who is gentle and lowly in heart. And they plan to do it in collaboration with the Herodians –irreligious compromisers with the culture and the political elite of their time. What a terrible irony that is. They have become ravenous wolves, wanting to devour the Lamb of God.

We live in the same world. We must not be naïve. Wolves have ravaged the church in the west for a long time now, and naïve believers have let it happen. We must not be under any illusions about the intentions of the wolf. The Pharisees set to work to destroy Jesus. That’s the fifth thing. But thank God it is not the end of the story. Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, we’re sorry when we grieve you. Thank you that you went to the cross to die to rescue us from the consequences of your righteous anger. Help us to hear as a word to us that word you spoke to the man with the withered hand: “Come here”. Thank you that you are the Lord of the Sabbath, and in you we find rest for our weary and burdened souls. Soften our hearts when they are hard. Open our ears when they are closed. Help us to keep in step with your Spirit and to stay close to you. Amen.