I’m going to try to cover three events today in the ministry of Jesus which spans two chapters in Mark. That’s maybe an optimistic goal for me to accomplish in the time I have. But I think all three of these events have a common theme as I hope to show you. And what they have in common is Jesus’ dismissal of ritualistic, ceremonial laws which purport to have their basis in scripture, that purport to be the proper exercise of religion, but in fact are man’s additions to the law of God.
The first event is found starting in chapter 2 vs 18; “John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, ‘Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?’
It’s not clear from Mark’s gospel who is asking the question here. Matthew’s gospel though indicates that it is the disciples of John who come to ask Him. Whoever asked it is not really the point though, rather the question is why are they fasting? The law of God only prescribed one fast per year, and that is found in Leviticus 16, which is a fast on the Day of Atonement. So the law didn’t require fasting other than that day. But over time, fasting began to be practiced on other occasions and for other purposes. By the time of Jesus’ ministry, the Pharisees boasted of the fact that they fasted twice a week.
In regards to the disciples of John fasting, we are not really sure why they are doing so. It may be that they had adopted the fasting practices of the Pharisees, or they might have been fasting in conjunction with their prayers about John the Baptist, who was imprisoned. But the bottom line is that we are not told why. One thing we do know, the Pharisees fasted to be seen of men. They put dust on their faces and clothes to draw attention to the fact that they were fasting, because they wanted to be seen as holy and righteous people.
It just so happens that we are in the middle of the season of Lent. And it is customary for some churches to practice that. One of the things they traditionally do is mark their forehead with ashes in the sign of a cross so that people will know that they are fasting. Of course the Bible speaks nothing about Lent or 40 days of fasting. They somehow associate Lent with the period of testing that Jesus went through in the wilderness where He fasted for 40 days. But the scripture never tells us that we are to do that.
However, what Jesus does teach about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount is in direct opposition to the way most churches are practicing it. Jesus said in Matt. 6:16-18 "Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites [do,] for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you.”
So I am not opposed to fasting if it is done as Jesus spoke of it. But I am not interested in practicing Lent which I think has as it’s only basis the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. And I for one do not want to follow their lead in regards to fasting or practically any of their religious traditions.
But notice Jesus’ answer to their question. Vs 19 And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”
Jesus compares His presence with His followers as being like a wedding feast. Again and again the scriptures compare the relationship between Jehovah and His people, or Christ and His church with that of the relationship between a bridegroom and bride. The idea that the friends of the bridegroom would be fasting while the the wedding feast was in progress is simply incongruous. In the same way, would it not be ill-fitting if the disciples of the Lord were to be mourning while He is with them, performing miracles of deliverance and granting salvation? This is a time for joy, for celebration, not for mourning.
But, Jesus says, the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. When Jesus died on the cross, when He was taken away from them, then in those days fasting would be appropriate. But as Jesus said in John 16:16, that would be but a little while.
The comfort that we can find in this saying is that for those who are saved, there is not a sense of sadness, of sorrow that we are to embrace, but a sense of joy. There should be no greater joy than knowing that your sins have been forgiven, that you have been betrothed to Christ, and that you are going to inherit the kingdom of heaven. And furthermore, the greatest joy should be in knowing that the Spirit of Christ is in you, dwelling with you, and He will never leave you. So joy and not sorrow should be the hallmark of our faith.
Now to further illustrate His point, Jesus uses two metaphors. In the first, He says in vs 21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.” Pretty clear picture, but what does it mean? Well, the second metaphor means the same thing. Vs 22 "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins [as well;] but [one puts] new wine into fresh wineskins.”
The meaning is this; that the new life of salvation which Jesus was bringing was out of line with joyless fasts. Old wineskins cannot contain the new still fermenting wine without bursting. It must be put into a new wineskin. The old covenant of rigid ceremonial laws and rituals cannot contain the new wine of salvation. This new wine must be in new wineskins, or not trying to patch over the old with a new piece of cloth, but a whole new cloth. So all things have become new, as we are told in Heb 10:19-20 “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh; let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.”
Now let’s look at the second event, in which Christ deals with another ritual, another law that had been added by the Pharisees. Vs 23 “And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads [of grain.] The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’”
Mark’s not necessarily following the historical events as they happened in chronological order here, but he is showing a connection in subject matter. And as I said, this is another case of the Pharisees adding to the law, and observing and practicing something that seemed religious, but was in fact in opposition to the truth. Commentators tell us that the Pharisees had taken the law of the Sabbath and broken it down into 39 principle works, and then subdivided them into six minor categories under each of the 39. All of that to determine what could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath. And they had extrapolated it out to ridiculous extremes.
And what they were saying about the disciples is that they were reaping, by pulling off a head of grain as they walked through the grain fields. And they were accusing Jesus of breaking the Sabbath because He was allowing or condoning what His disciples were doing. Of course the original law said nothing against plucking the grain with your hands. That was permissible. But the law did prohibit putting in a sickle to harvest grain on the Sabbath.
But Jesus wants to address the root of the question concerning the Sabbath, not just argue about some branch off the main trunk. So in vs25 He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar [the] high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for [anyone] to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?”
At first glance that seems that what Jesus said has nothing to do with the Sabbath, does it? But the application of the law is what Jesus is addressing. What Jesus is saying is that the law regarding the shewbread was able to be put aside in case of need. David and his men had nothing to eat. They were starving and suffering from the effects of a long, forced fast. But the shewbread was supposed to be eaten only by the priests. But Jesus indicates that the need of David and his men was more important than the restrictions upon the shewbread.
So in the same way, was not Christ, who is the antitype of King David, able to set aside a regulation due to the hunger of His disciples and which was actually a totally man made regulation misapplied to the Sabbath law?
And to that point of Jesus being the fulfillment of the promise that the Messiah would be the Son of David, He says in vs 27 "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Not the Sabbath was made first but man was created first. The Sabbath was instituted to be a blessing for man, to keep him healthy both physically and spiritually. So the Sabbath wasn’t made to be a curse, but a blessing.
Of course, Jesus is the One who ordered the Sabbath. He was the Creator of all things, according to John 1, and without Him was not anything made that was made. The Creator of the Sabbath is without question the Lord of the Sabbath. The sovereign ruler of the world, is rule of the day that He designated as a time of rest.
But in that response, we are reminded of Hebrews 4:9-10 which says, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” The Lord of the Sabbath came to give us a rest that is greater than the rest that was portrayed in the Sabbath. He came to give us a rest from our works, a salvation that is by grace through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. That is the rest from our labors, the rest from the condemnation of the law, that Hebrews is speaking of. And I believe Jesus is speaking of that same Sabbath rest that comes through Him. Thus He is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the Son of David, the Messiah, who ushers in a new way into the holy place.
One more event which is related to the law is found in chapter 3. Once again, it has to do with the Sabbath. Ch. 3:1-2 “He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. They were watching Him [to see] if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.” The reference to “they” which Mark speaks of is the Pharisees. They are always hanging around, looking for something that they could criticize Jesus for, something to condemn Him for.
And it’s the Sabbath day, and Jesus and His disciples follow the practice of the Jews and worship God in a local synagogue. The practice was that when a visiting Rabbi was in attendance, He was given the opportunity to teach. We can assume that Jesus was teaching, and the Pharisees were watching and listening to see what they could find to accuse Him over.
And Mark says there was a man there with a withered hand. That might be an indication that something had happened to the man’s hand, maybe mangled in some accident. I think the cynical side of me can’t help but suspect that the Pharisees had brought the man themselves to see if they could get Jesus to break their Sabbath restrictions. But that’s supposition on my part.
In Matthew’s account, he says that the Pharisees asked Jesus, “is it right to heal on the Sabbath?” They had actually taken the Sabbath laws so far as to say that you could not even heal a person on the Sabbath unless they were in immediate danger of losing their life. I remember reading some time ago about the Orthodox Jews in Israel debating whether or not it was lawful to call 911 if someone’s house was burning. I think I remember the story correctly. I’m not sure what they decided. But how ludicrous is that kind of reasoning? And Mark indicates that it got Jesus angry as well.
So in vs 3 He said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward!" And He said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
When Jesus asks them is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill, He is saying that because He knows their hearts. Their heart is not compassionate towards this man. And they are actually planning harm against Christ, even to the point of killing Him, as we will see in the next verse.
I don’t like to always jump back and forth between Matthew or Luke’s accounts in order to fill in the blanks, but I really like something that Jesus said in Matthew’s account that Mark did not mention. Matt 12:11-12 And He said to them, "What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Jesus is saying that the Pharisee whose sheep had fallen into a pit would be more concerned about his profit in the sheep than a restriction of the Sabbath. Sheep were their income, and so they were going to make sure that nothing interfered in that. But Jesus says that a man is much more valuable than a sheep. He uses the word valuable because that is the metric of their concern. A sheep is valuable to them, it’s the source of their income. But a man who is disabled, he means nothing to them.
Jesus could have told the man to come back tomorrow and skirted the whole issue. But He knows that they will not be satisfied until they find something to accuse Him of. Furthermore, He is not going to acquiesce to their false doctrine. And so it says that He looks at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart. I think their hypocrisy is what angers him. That they care for a sheep because they see it as valuable. But they don’t value a human life. And He is grieved because their heart is hardened. As I have said before, I think they already had enough evidence to know that Jesus was the Messiah. But they would not have this man rule over them, not even if He was the Son of God. They wanted a Messiah of their own making, and Jesus was not what they wanted.
Well, the cure was instantaneous and complete. The man’s hand was as good as new. I’m sure the man was overcome with joy that he had been healed. But the effect it had on the Pharisees was not one of joy, but only served to make them hate Him even more. Vs 6 “The Pharisees went out and immediately [began] conspiring with the Herodians against Him, [as to] how they might destroy Him.”
The fact that a handicapped man was cured of his infirmity did not affect them at all. They cared not for this man, and cared even less for the Healer. Jesus had not only healed the man in opposition to their law, but He had also discredited them in public. He had exposed their hypocrisy and their hatred.
And so Mark says they immediately went out and started scheming how they might destroy Him, and in that scheming they chose to partner with the Herodians who were known for their worldliness and sacrilege. What an odd coalition. It reminds me of the adage, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Herodians were lovers of the political status quo, of the political party of Herod, and they saw a threat in Jesus and His followers and His talk of the kingdom of God. They wanted to perpetuate the kingdom of the Herods. And the Pharisees were the party of the religious status quo, and they saw a threat in Jesus as overthrowing their authority and privilege and religious power. And so they conspire together as to how they might catch Jesus in something that they can use to put Him to death.
Isn’t that ironic? Jesus came to usher in a new way to be reconciled to God, to be forgiven of your sins, to be set free from the captivity of sin, given a new life, a life of joy and freedom. And the Pharisees and Herodians wanted to keep the people under a system of bondage and despair, a system that could never give them rest, but only condemnation.
Thanks be to God that though it seemed in the short run that the enemies of Christ won when they crucified Jesus and put Him to open shame, yet on the third day He arose from the dead, testifying that God was satisfied with His sacrifice, and because He lives, we can also live by faith in Him, and receive everlasting life, fullness of joy, and an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. I trust that by faith in what He accomplished, you know the joy of your salvation, the freedom of new life in Christ, and have committed to follow Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath.
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