Shownotes:

Opening / Hook

• Previously in Mark 2 (Challenging Religion):
• Jesus interrupts his teaching to heal a desperate paralytic. The point: Jesus is greater than toxic religion
• Two kinds of people in the world: those who know they are sinners (Tax collectors) and those who think they are righteous (Pharisees)
• Jesus challenges the “religion police” of his day. Faith always expresses itself in certain activities (like fasting), but toxic religion uses this as a litmus test to police the spiritual life of others.
• Today: finish by talking about the Sabbath. Before we get to the text, we should do some review of the concept of the Sabbath.

KEY QUESTIONS: 

What pleases God?

Keeping the rules? (Law)

Caring about people? (Love)

Two errors: Distorting Law - Distorting Love

Note: we’re not advocating for “anything goes”

The deeper question: why did God give us the rules? Why does God set boundaries?

In religious mindset → it’s about giving us a way to prove ourselves to him

But what does Jesus say about that?

He’s going to turn religious thinking on its head

Sabbath Keeping

Let’s take some time to explain the Sabbath law.

Exodus 20:8-11 (ESV) “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The key principle: you have six days to do your work

The seventh day → don’t do any work / don’t make your servants or family members work

It’s a time for rest

More particularly → freed up from work = a time to focus on God

A day dedicated to the Lord (Ex 31:15)

Bible offers some specific guidelines

Don’t light a fire (Ex 35:3)

A man punished for gathering wood on Sabbath (Num 15:32)

Israelites rebuked for doing business on Sabbath (Neh 13:15)

Pharisees were well-known for adding extra rules to barricade themselves and others from breaking the law. They did this to the point that loving and caring for others took a backseat to religious duties. 

Analogy of a fence around a yard by a busy road and then add little fences everywhere in the backyard so as to not even get a chance to enjoy the yard. 

Examples: (note that different rabbis and Jewish communities differed in details)

Drawing water

Don’t walk more than 1000 cubits (⅓ mile)

Can’t carry anything from inside the house to the outside, or vice versa

Can’t assist in the birth of an animal on Sabbath

Trans: Now we’re ready for the story, and we’ll focus on two complaints that the Pharisees have about how Jesus views the Sabbath.

Harvesting Grain

• Complaint #1: breaking Sabbath by harvesting grain
• Mark 2:23-24 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat. But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”
• First off: the charge of “harvesting grain” is ridiculous

If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.

Deuteronomy 23:25 ESV

Do they even read their Bibles? Bad interpretation comes from legalistic, prideful hearts. 

• The disciples weren’t doing labor / weren’t out working their fields
• Bringing in a crop to sell
• They were hungry → picked a few kernels of grain for a snack
• Two problems with the Pharisees’ approach
• First: when we elevate our applications to equal level with God’s word itself
• Bc by doing that, we have in effect diminished God’s word to the level of our opinions
• The Pharisees did that
• Second: when keeping the rules is more important than the welfare / well-being of people
• More on this in a moment

• Jesus’ response to complaint #1
• Mark 2:25-28 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went into the house of the God (during the days when Abiathar was high priest) and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests were allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”
• Jesus could have quoted Deut 23:25
• But he didn’t just want to debate the letter of the law
• He wanted to point them to see the heart of God’s law
• So instead, he related an incident from OT about King David 
• King David was a great hero of Judaism
• Jesus tells a story about a time king David broke the OT Law
• Found i 1 Samuel 21
• Loaves of bread were kept in the tabernacle
• They were sacred bc they had been set apart for God’s use alone
• When something was set apart → not allowed to be used for any common usage
• David and his companions ate that bread
• They were on the run from King Saul → feared for their lives / feared being caught
• They were starving → the only food available was that sacred bread
• In the story: there was no censure implied
• They weren’t vandalizing the tabernacle
• Didn’t go in with attitude of dishonoring it
• In fact, it was the high priest himself who gave them the bread
• Implication: this story lands bc the Pharisees would not have condemned David
• And the OT did not condemn David
• From that story, Jesus derives an important underlying principle about Sabbath
• It applies to any of God’s commandments
• “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath”
• Jesus: the purpose of the Sabbath is human welfare / thriving
• Sabbath made for people, not other way around
• Commandments are made to help people thrive in a broken world
• For example: Bible prohibits sexual activity outside of marriage
• Bc God is a prude? Fun-sucker?
• No, it’s for human well-being
• Children raised by whole families / 2 parents
• People are not stricken with various diseases
• Not abused / heart-broken by shallow, fleeting affairs
• Etc
• Sabbath commandments give people rest they need
• Etc. Make a list of all the benefits to man:
• Rest, worship, family time, obedience, etc. 
• If religious rules are used in any way that places the rule itself above the needs of people → it’s off base
• Yet so often, in toxic religion → what was intended for human thriving
• Actually becomes a heavy burden that crushes people
• BTW, what right did Jesus have to dictate the true heart / purpose of Sabbath?
• Was this just another rabbinic opinion?
• NO: “The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath”
• Son of Man a title Jesus used often to refer to himself
• Maybe we’ll have time to dig into the meaning of that title at another time
• For now → Jesus is declaring himself to have authority over the Sabbath!

TRANS: 

Healing a Hand

• Complaint #2: breaking Sabbath by healing
• Mark 3:1-2 Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. 
• Everyone here has noticed this man with a deformed hand
• Jesus’ opponents are thinking: I hope Jesus heals that guy
• Not because the man was suffering → they would rejoice for him
• But because they wanted a reason to condemn him
• As someone who violates God’s law
• Often religious ppl will do anything to discredit ppl who aren’t under their control
• Or ppl who undermine their man-made authority

• Jesus’ response to complaint #2
• Mark 3:3-6 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it? But they wouldn’t answer him. He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus.
• Jesus decides to draw out the secret heart attitude of the Pharisees → expose it
• So he brings the man with the deformed hand up in front of whole crowd
• Asks his critics a question
• Gist of the question → what is the purpose of the Sabbath?
• Same question as before, only in a different setting
• Is it a day for doing good, or for doing evil?
• Implication: they are the ones breaking Sabbath
• Bc of the evil intention of their plan to discredit Jesus
• Of course, they refused to answer him
• As we’ve seen, gospel of Mark gives us an intimate picture of Jesus’ humanity
• Here we see his emotions → he’s angry!
• At the way religion can be so hurtful to ppl
• When religion kills compassion → Jesus gets mad!
• He’s also sad
• Deeply saddened by the hard hearts of these leaders
• Jesus didn’t hate these people → although they might have hated him
• He loved the religious hypocrites too
• He wanted them to see what God was doing
• Surrender to it → embrace the King / Messiah
• But their hearts were hard
• So Jesus went ahead and healed the man → his hand was restored!
• Jesus’ point was made → Pharisees had no response
• What could they say?
• Jesus had discredited them rather than other way around
• So in their hardness of heart, instead of rejoicing in the miracle or acknowledging Jesus → they plotted to kill him
• Religious elites will do what it takes to hang on to their power
• For many it isn’t about serving God
• God & religion are a means to an end
• The real goal is power / control
• A warning to religious ppl and leaders in America
• Be careful lest our faith becomes a means to an end
• Lest it becomes a way to retain cultural / political power

CLOSE

• So what pleases God?
• Yes, it pleases God when he obey what he says
• Keep his commandments
• I think it pleases God especially when we embrace the good that he has in mind for us
• Not just obey blindly or grudgingly
• But it also pleases God when we are compassionate
• We care about people and their needs
• The two don’t have to be in conflict
• But in religious systems, they often are
• You might think your strict religious observances are really making God proud
• The problem: they might be making YOU proud
• But they only make God angry / sad
• When - for all your scrupulous religious activity - you don’t love people

Tie in the Sabbath to final (eternal) rest and the Gospel. 

They want to murder him and they did. They didn't know he was dying for them to know the truth. Literally. He taught, they did not listen. 

Sabbath mentioned over 50 times in NT but never is it told how to live it out in practice. Yet, there are rebukes about being legalistic about it. 

Law over love - Love over law