Please turn with me to Mark, chapter 2.
We are on week seven of our walk through of Mark’s Gospel account. What we’ve seen so far in the series is an action two chapters. We see three primary things:
First, we see Jesus comes onto the scene and is declared to be the long-awaited rescuer of humanity, God’s promised Messiah, prophesied in the OldTestament, and now here on the scene with a message for mankind: “Good news! The kingdom of God is here!”
Second, we've seen Jesus perform four miracles, proving his authority over sin, death, and the devil.
Third we’ve seen three confrontations with the Pharisees, the religious elite of the day. And they have these conflicts because Jesus does not fit with their man-made religious traditions.
In our passage today we get to see a fifth miracle, once again showing Jesus’s power and authority, and a fourth and fifth confrontation with the Pharisees.
This time the conflict is over what is appropriate to do on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is one of the two most major aspects of Judaism that set them apart from the rest of the world. A day of complete rest from all work. We’ll define Sabbath in a little bit and talk about its significance, but what we’re going to see today is Jesus telling the religious elite of the day that the reason his ways don’t fit their system is that they are thinking about the Sabbath in a fundamentally incorrect way. And that a more important problem is that they are thinking about Jesus in a fundamentally incorrect way.
So today as we study, we will have the opportunity to examine ourselves: whether we are thinking about our religious performance correctly, and whether we’re seeing Jesus correctly.
Let’s read.
Mark 2:23–3:6 (CSB)
23 On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry—26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence—which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests—and also gave some to his companions?” 27 Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
1 Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand. 2 In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.” 4 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. 5 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. 6 Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.
Not lawful on the sabbath?
Let’s take a look at the first confrontation. Jesus and his disciples were headed to worship at the synagogue on the Sabbath, very similar to going to church. Along the way as they were walking, they reached over and plucked some grain to eat.The Pharisees, who apparently were also on their way to synagogue, saw them do this and called a foul. “You’re breaking Sabbath law!”(Notice they weren’t saying the disciples were breaking the law, they just said they were breaking the sabbath rules.)
Now, the Sabbath rule they were worried about probably had to do with harvesting grain. But notice how super-picky this accusation is. Like a referee who is out to get a player or a team, calling a very touchy foul. The Pharisees were looking for a reason to throw a flag on Jesus, and this shows you how little they had to go on.
But what Sabbath rule were they referring to? I’d like to “double-click” on this idea for a second and show you. Because there’s really no Bible verse that the Pharisees were referencing.The biblical commands for the sabbath are essentially that you must worship, rest, and do no work on it.
The Biblical Commands
12 “Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the resident alien may be refreshed. Exodus 23:12 (CSB)
14 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. 15 Work may be done for six days, but on the seventh day there must be a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Anyone who does work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. Exodus 31:14-15 (CSB)
The Pharisees (“separated ones”) were a sect of Jewish leaders who were very concerned about keeping the law perfectly. At the risk of over-simplifying things, they thought that by leading the nation of Israel toward perfection in keeping God’s law, they could hasten the coming of the Messiah.
Jewish Tradition, the Mishna and the Melacoth
So they were especially concerned with things like the Sabbath, but here’s the problem: “what defines work?” What, specifically, can you do or not do on the Sabbath? Eventually they came up with something called “The Mishna” - which was a written collection of the oral traditions of the rabbis from the first century. It was basically like a a compilation of case law. Specifics about what is permissible and what is not permissible according to the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). The Mishna contains 39 categories of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath, or the 39 “Melachot”.
There’s even a cool chart, like the periodic table, you can find. Some highlights: anything to do with cooking. Anything to do with farming (which is what they were calling out here.) Anything to do with hunting. Anything to do with sewing or mending. Anything to do with writing. (Sorry, no note taking in synagogue.) Anything to do with building (sorry kids, no Lego!). And finally “moving anything from one place to another…
I heard a story from a former member of our church visiting Israel for work. He was heading to a hotel with several Jewish members of his team. They were staying on an upper floor of a high rise building. Because of certain interpretations of these Mishna rules, the Jewish coworkers were not allowed to use the elevator. Pushing a button to complete a circuit to activate the elevator counts under one of the categories. So, in order to avoid doing work, they had to walk up multiple flights of stairs. You see the problem.
The thing about the Mishna that is relevant for us in our passage today, is that it was still under development in Jesus’s time. They hadn’t totally settled on the categories that would be included yet. and so what we see in these two scenes is Jesus weighing in on the debate. And he does so in a surprising way.
He does not argue that they were not, in fact, breaking the law. He argues that the Pharisees are not the ones with authority to decide the case. He is.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath
Verse 25 starts off with my favorite question Jesus asks the Pharisees. “Have you never read?” - Of course they have! The Pharisees are the experts in the Bible. They likely had it memorized.
Jesus cites part 1 Samuel, where the narrative of King David fleeing from Saul is recorded. And Jesus makes an argument in two ways, first he argues the greater to the lesser. If it was okay for David and his men to eat the holy bread, stuff reserved only for priests, in a time of need. How much less of an offense is reaching over and plucking a little bit of wheat that is right by the path.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He then makes an unexpected “lesser to greater” argument. “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” In other words, if it was okay for David, lowly David, to make a call about the holy bread, how much more okay is it for The Messiah, The Son of Man, to make a call about what is right and wrong on the Sabbath. I can only imagine their dropped jaws.
In verse 28, Jesus is saying “you don’t understand who you are arguing with.” In verse 27, Jesus is saying “you don’t understand what the Sabbath is about.”
In all their debate about what constitutes “work” that is forbidden on the Sabbath, they have completely missed the heart of the Sabbath command. “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.”
The next scene illustrates this.Look at chapter 3. Jesus and his disciples go in to the synagogue, and the Pharisees were waiting for an opportunity to accuse him. Their minds were already made up about him, and this blinded them to what would otherwise be the most freeing, life-giving, beautiful opportunity to learn from their creator. They could have settled their petty legal debates, trying to define specifics of case law around what is allowed on the Sabbath day once and for all. Jesus shows them…
It is Always Lawful to do Good on the Sabbath
Chapter 3 opens with what I can only imagine is a very tense scene. I’ve wondered if it were a little like a showdown in a Western. The hero of the story walking into the town, with all the bad guys placed around main street. Everyone is quiet. The onlookers are hiding behind barrels, peeking out of windows and doorways, to see what is going to happen. A tumbleweed rolls across the street…
Jesus asks a man, probably one he knows, (he’s in his home base in Capernaum), who has a paralyzed hand, to stand in front of everyone. The Pharisees tense up, is he going to do it? Is he going to violate our precious rules and heal this man? No compassion for the man at all, just concern that the letter of their law is followed.
Jesus asks a question that is impossible for them to answer. He turns their trap back on them. “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? To save life, or to kill?” That is an impossible question for them to answer. If they say “it is not lawful to do good…”, they end up revealing their heartlessness. If they say it is lawful to do good, then they have nothing to accuse Jesus for.
Their rules failed them. It was against their rules (not against Bible, but their rules), to heal on the sabbath. But Jesus turns it into an either or. If you aren’t doing the good you can do, you are doing evil. If you have an opportunity to do good and you don’t, you are doing evil.
They refuse to answer, and this makes Jesus angry. But please notice the flavor of the anger. Not rage. Not violence. Grief. He sees this man’s suffering, has compassion on him, and sees how the stubbornness of the religious elite is prolonging that suffering, and he also knows how they are going to react when witnessing this miracle. In unbelief.
Then Jesus heals the man, without even violating the Pharisees rules! He does no work! It doesn’t say “he healed the hand.” It says “the hand was reinstated to its proper state.”He exercises his authority as creator over the broken creation, disease and the hand is immediately whole. So he doesn’t even violate their made-up rules and they still find him guilty. It’s a very frustrating grief-filled, angering situation, isn’t it?
Then they go to plot with the Herodians, which is a whole other topic. Basically the Pharisees were the religious elite, and the Herodians were the atheistic political elite. Typically enemies, but in this case they teamed up. They see Jesus and the way of His Kingdom as an existential threat to their political and religious power, and so they want him dead and they go to figure out a way to make that happen.
So what are we supposed to do with all this?
Are we like the Pharisees?
1. Making up our own rules and judging others by them.
We also have traditions that go beyond what is explicitly written that we hold dear. Some of them can be good and hopeful, but when we require them as at the same level of scripture, “do this or you are less christian”, we stray. Or when we say “if you behave in this way God will love you more”, we stray.
Maybe it is insisting on a certain amount of bible reading every day. Maybe it’s insistence that a true Christian will always vote one specific way.
Anything that you insist on beyond the clear meaning of scripture and good and necessary logical consequence of it is problematic. It is adding to scripture, potentially adding to and therefore distorting the gospel message.
Reading your Bible is good and important and you should absolutely do it. Politics are important and our voting is a crucial part of our faith. But if you start to rank yourself as more or less Christian based on your performance, then there is a problem:
These extra traditions can blind us to Jesus’s full teaching, and cause us to miss important parts of following him.
2. Thinking we will find our rest and peace in our accomplishments.
“Once I just do _______, then I will finally be able to take a break… then I will finally be happy…” “My child has the opportunity to accomplish so much in this activity, and won’t have peace if I don’t let them pursue that…”
“Adulthood is saying, “But after this week things will slow down a bit” over and over until you die.”
Remember the purpose of the Sabbath:
12 “Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the resident alien may be refreshed. Exodus 23:12 (CSB)
Looking to anything other than Jesus for peace and rest will always fail. We are designed to find our rest in him.
3. Looking for an opportunity to accuse God of wrongdoing.
The Pharisees minds were already made up about Jesus. They were convinced he was not their friend. And as a result they totally missed what was standing right in front of them. True rest. Healing. Mercy. Love. Compassion. Desire to Heal and restore.
If that’s you….
If you are trying to put on a good religious show so that everyone will think well of you. If you are trying to find your significance and worth and rest and peace in your accomplishments. If you are convinced God is out to get you and you are constantly looking for an opportunity to prove yourself right….
Be at peace. Drop your burden of keeping up appearances and of guarding your soul. Cease your striving. Put away the skepticism. Stop looking for opportunities to accuse.
The word Sabbath: it means “cease” - and it is Jesus’s call to all of us: In Matthew’s account of our same passage today, Jesus says:
28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28–30 (CSB)
Come to Jesus, and find your rest. That’s what the Sabbath is for. Let’s pray.
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