In this 2nd chapter of Mark, the gospel writer gives us four stories. Each one
shows how Jesus overturns our expectations. And each one points to Jesus as the
Messiah.
The first story begins with a packed house. We can see some
of the difficulties produced from the last chapter. Jesus warned the man healed
of leprosy to tell no one about it, but he does the opposite. Jesus’s fame
spreads, and now the house he is preaching in is so full that people can’t even
get in. A group of guys try to get their paralyzed friend into see Jesus, but
they can’t even make it in the doors. Not to be stopped, they climb on the roof,
tear a hole in it, and lower the paralyzed man down into the room. Jesus
commends their faith.
This is where things get interesting. Jesus sees their faith
and then forgives the man’s sins. Do you think that was why the man had come?
We aren’t really told, but I have to imagine he came to be healed. This causes
the religious leaders in the room to get upset. They are offended that Jesus
would say this. Who does this guy think he is? Only God can forgive sins.
And they are right. At least partially. God alone truly can
forgive sins. Remember David, after he sinned with Bathsheba told God, “against
you, and you alone, have I sinned.” (Psalm 52:4) How is that? He stole Uriah’s
wife and had the man basically murdered. He broke the seventh and ninth
commandments. But who had given those commandments? They were given by God. It
was God’s law that he had broken, and it was God he was ultimately responsible
to. We can forgive other people for sins they commit against us, but we cannot
forgive them beyond that. God is the judge, and only he can forgive sins.
Jesus goes on to prove his power to forgive sins by healing
the man.
So, what are we to make of this story? Jesus does what only
God can do. Mark leaves the conclusion up to us.
In the second story,
Jesus calls a tax collector named Levi to be his disciple. Now, tax collectors
in those days had a pretty bad reputation. They would cheat people and we
considered collaborators with the occupying Romans. A dinner is held that
evening, and it is filled with tax collectors and other sinners, presumably
Levi’s friends. Again, the religious leaders are offended. Why does Jesus eat
with tax collectors and sinners?
The implication is that he is a sinner himself, or that he is
making himself unclean by associating with them. Jesus responds by saying
“those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I come
not to call the righteous but sinners.”
Again, the expectation is overturned. Why is this prophet ignoring
the “righteous” and focusing on sinners? The reader is forced to ask which
group do I fall into? Am I the righteous Pharisee or the sinful tax collector?
I think we would all like to be the righteous person. We
tend to downplay our own faults and magnify the faults of others. We are good
people, right?
But the fact of the matter is we don’t live up to God’s
standard of perfection. The scripture says that all have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and all our righteous acts are like
filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).
And, if we do uphold our self-righteousness, we run the risk
of missing Jesus. “For this judgement I have come into the world, so that he
blind will see and those who see will become blind.” (John 9:39).
Self-righteousness blinds us to our need for him. If instead we acknowledge our
sickness, we get the good news. Jesus came for us. Our past doesn’t scare him.
He is not put off by our sin. He came to heal it. And he meets us where we are.
Jesus here claims to be the answer to our problem of sin. He is the great
physician and the only one who can truly deal with the sin in us.
The third story centers are around fasting, and Mark gets
right to the point. Why don’t your disciples fast?
Fasting (the practice of abstaining from food for spiritual
purposes) in ancient times had several purposes: mourning, repentance, aiding
prayer, worship, and experiencing the presence of God. Fasting was a common
practice in ancient Israel, and Mark tells us that the disciples of John the
Baptist and the Pharisees both practiced the discipline. The idea was to draw
near to God, whether for comfort, forgiveness, or communion.
So, why don’t your disciples fast? The answer Jesus gives is
astounding. He basically says, fasting is all about me. “How can the wedding
guests fast when the bridegroom is with them?” The reason fasting is done is to
get close to God. The disciples couldn’t get any closer because he was already
there with them. Again, the implication is that he is God. He has claimed so far
to be able to forgive sins, he is the cure for sin, and now he is the very
thing we seek.
As a side note, notice he says his disciples will fast when
he is taken away. Fasting is a normal part of the Christian life. If you have
never tried it, I would encourage to do so. But do your research first, you
need to make sure you are doing it in a safe way.
The forth story centers around the Sabbath. The fourth of
the ten commandments said that no work was to be done on Saturdays. It was to
be a day that was holy to the Lord. The Jews were very strict about this. Jesus
and his disciples were walking through a field one Sabbath and they started
picking some heads of grains as they walked and eating them. The Pharisees are
again offended.
Why do your disciples do what is unlawful on the Sabbath?
Jesus replies with a story from life of David. David and his
men were running from King Saul who wanted to kill them unjustly. On the way
they went to a priest and asked him for bread. The only bread he had was holy
bread. It had just been taken from the temple, and it was meant for the priests
only. David and his men ate it. Jesus’s implication seems to be that the
Pharisee’s hyper-legalism follows the letter but not the spirit of the Law. The
Pharisee’s did not understand the purpose of the law in the first place.
Jesus goes on to say, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath.” God’s law was not meant to hurt us, but to bless us. A day of
rest and worship is a very good, necessary thing. The Pharisee’s had turned it
into a burden.
Then he says something that must have been shocking. “The
son of man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Let me insert a note here about this phrase, the Son of Man.
This was Jesus’s favorite designation for himself. He called himself that 80
times in the gospels. This is sometimes confuses people into thinking he was
claiming to be divine. That is not he case at all. He is fully man and fully
God, so he certainly can refer to himself that way, but there is something
deeper going on here. Jesus is referring to prophecy.
In Daniel Chapter 7, Daniel has a vision, and it goes like
this:
13 “In my vision at night I
looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds
of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory
and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his
kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
This “Son of Man” is given authority over the whole world and his
kingdom never ends. When Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, he is identifying
himself as this Messiah.
He says that the son of man has authority even over the sabbath.
He is greater than the law, because he is the creator of the law.
The claims that Jesus has made in this chapter are expansive. He
claims to have authority to forgive sins. He claims to be the answer to our sin
nature. He claims to be the end goal of our devotion. He claims to have
authority over the law. He claims to be the Messiah. These require a response.
Who do I think he is? What claim does he have on my life?
We are left with the question that Pilot faced the day of Jesus’s
crucifixion. Matt. 27:22 – “What shall I do with this Jesus?”
