Mk 2:23-3:6
Key Verse: Mk 3:5....  " He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out you hand.”  He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored."

Good morning!  Last Sunday we were reminded to make every effort to enter through the narrow gate.  There are two gates and two roads.  One road leads to heaven and one road leads to hell.  To get on the right road, we must first find the right gate.  When I was an atheist, I was looking for the right road, but I could not find it.  The entrance seemed to be hidden.  But when I made an effort to find the gate, Jesus revealed himself to me as the very gate that I was looking for.  When I entered through him, then I could get on the right road to have a meaningful life.  If any of you have not found the right gate, I hope that you too will make every effort to enter through the narrow gate.

Today’s passage, however, is the continuation of the message 2 weeks ago, when we studied Mk 2:13-22.  There we learned that new wine must be put into new wine skins.  Old wineskins are stiff and worn out.  They cannot stretch to accomodate the new wine, rather they will burst open and the wine will spill out.  One of the characteristics of the old wineskin person was “unteacheable”.  In today’s passage, the Pharisees will reveal themselves to be old wineskins, by their refusal to learn from Jesus’ teaching about the Sabbath, and through their stubborn hearts.  But the disciples are new wineskins.

Let’s read the key verse.  “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out you hand.’  He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.”

Part 1  Jesus Defends his Disciples’ Cause

Look at chapter 2 verse 23.  “One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.”  Jesus’ ministry was always on the move (Mk1:38) and as he travelled, he was passing through an area of grainfields.  His disciples were hungry, so they took the opportunity to enjoy a snack.  Such an activity was allowed for in the law (Dt 23:25), the trouble arose only because it was done on the Sabbath.  I couldn’t visualise what exactly the disciples were doing.  Then I found out that when Missionary Maria Park was a child, she used to do this too.  She told me that you rub two or three heads of grain in your hands for a minute and then you blow away the chaff.  You can get maybe two tablespoons of wheat.  Would this activity be called work?  It’s debatable, but it might; to the Pharisees, however,  there was no question about it- it was work!  As the disciples were eating their tablespoon of tasteless raw grain, suddenly they heard rustling among the stalks.  Out jumped two under-cover Pharisees, “Aha!  Caught you red handed!”  They said to Jesus, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

The one good thing we can say for the Pharisees is that they were zealous for the law.  But their zeal was not based on knowledge (Rom 10:2).  They were very careful to keep all of the external requirements of the law.  Without any question, the greatest of all the ceremonial laws was the Sabbath law.  It was so important to the Israelites and to God, that God wrote it as the fourth commandment, in Ex 20:8-11, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and everything in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”  In fact, the penalty for breaking the Sabbath was death! (Ex 35:2, Num 15:32-36)

So the Pharisees, to their credit, were very careful to keep the Sabbath.  In order to keep the Old Testament Sabbath, they had to know what is work and what is not.  The Bible is vague about this.  It tells us that collecting firewood is work, but that eating a meal is not.  Then where do you draw the line?  Is what the disciples are doing called work?  To the Pharisees, in their zeal to keep even the tiniest letter of the law, they interpretted work in the most broad manner.  They said that if you carry more than an ounce in your pocket, then you are working.  (Everyone here who has a wallet in their pocket, therefore is working.)  You also could not walk more than a quarter of a mile.  The kept the minutest detail of the law.  By comparison, Jesus’ disciples looked like law-breakers.  And it looked badly upon Jesus also, that he didn’t teach his disciples better.

But how did Jesus answer? Lets read verses 25 and 26.  “He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat.  And he also gave some to his companions.’”  The Jews and the Pharisees loved David, as their greatest King, and as the ancestor of the coming Messiah, and as a man after God’s own heart.  Yet in 1 Sam 21:3-4, David appears to break a major ceremonial law, bigger than breaking the Sabbath. David was fleeing from Saul, and he went to the high priest and asked, “What do you have on hand?  Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find.”  But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here--provide the men have kept themselves from women.”  What was this consecrated bread?  It was the Bread of the Presence, which was commanded to always be before the Lord, in the temple: twelve loaves of bread, arrange upon 12 gold plates, on top a solid gold table.  It represented a gift from the 12 tribes, and signified that God sustains his people.  When this bread was replaced with fresh bread, the previous week’s bread was given to the high priest’s family as their portion.  Lev 24:9 calls it “the most holy part of their regular share of the offerings made to the LORD by fire.”   The point is that this was not just any loaf of bread, like you can buy at the store- 2 for a dollar.  This bread was very holy and was only meant for the high priest and his family.  The priest was not free to share it with others (Lev 22:10).  And yet, in 1 Sam 21, we find the high priest giving to David and his companions the bread which it is only lawful for the priest to eat.

Through David, Jesus is showing the Pharisees that there are times in the Bible when the rules were bent. This is because there are times when the spirit of the law and the letter of the law do not match.  In these cases, the spirit of the law should be our guide.  According to the absolute letter of the law, there is no way to justify David’s action.  If these letter-of-the-law Pharisees had been with David, they would have condemned him, just as they now were condemning the disciples.  But God did not condemn David; he showed compassion to David in his time of need, protecting him from a murderous king and giving him food to eat, against the letter of the law, but according to the spirit of the law, and according to God’s merciful and gracious nature.  This is because, beyond what the law says is what God meant by it.  God never meant the ceremonial law to cause his annointed king to starve to death.  That was not the spirit of the ceremonial law.  If the high priest had been a Pharisee, he would have sent David away empty-handed.  This is not acting in love.  This is not the character of God.  Now if the Pharisees have a learning mind, then they will accept Jesus’ words  and begin to live according to the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law.  But the Pharisees did not accept, because they were like old wineskins, stiff and unteacheable.  They had decided that they knew it all, they had the right interpretation: you can’t pick a handful of grain on the Sabbath, you can’t heal on the Sabbath.  End of discussion.  Never mind whether this interpretation makes sense or matches scripture, the Pharisees have spoken and that is that!  They do not have a learning mind.

Some people are too rigid and legalistic; they follow the letter of the law so rigidly that they loose sight of God who made the law.  They can only see the law.  Then the law becomes a burden.  Then the law becomes a weapon for judging others.  Then they are miserable and make others miserable.  Although we in the new testament era are under the law of Christ and not the old testament law (1Cor 9:20-21), still we too must watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees, which is legalism and judgementalism.

On the other extreme, are people who are too liberal.  They believe in situational ethics which denies any absolute truth.  To them, this passage, with its examples of David and the disciples proves that, if you are hungry, all rules go right out the window.  Many secular humanists believe in situational ethics today.  In Jesus’ day, the Herodians are probably a good example of liberals with no absolute value system.  Although the Pharisees hated the Herodians, they will conspire with them by the end of the lesson, because too-strict people and too-loose people are more similar than different-- they have both missed the mark.

But Jesus teaches that God’s law is absolute.  However, it is the spirit, not the legalistic letter of the law which is absolute.  The passage of David is one of many examples in scripture (Ps 32:2).  In the parrallel passage from Mt 12, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”  So Jesus defended his disciples as innocent.  Actually, he is protecting the disciples from the infectious, old-wine skin mentality of the Pharisees.  Sacrifice without mercy is another way of saying letter of the law without spirit of the law.  To the disciple of a Pharisee, not picking a few heads of grain on the Sabbath was everything.  But to Jesus, he did not care about that.  He was concerned about rising his disciples to have a personal confession of faith.  We also need to stand up for our sheep and protect them from the wolves.

Now Let’s read verse 27.  “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’”  How is it different that the Sabbath was made for man, rather than man for the Sabbath?

The distinction is most easily understood by analogy.  Those things which were made for man, are God’s blessing.  So the Sabbath was God’s gift to man.  Now consider some of God’s other good gifts.  One of them is food.  In the Garden of Eden, every tree that was pleasing to the eye and good for food was there.  We can enjoy all kinds of delicious foods, because God has blessed us.  So food also was made for man.  But what if we reverse the sentence?  “Man was made for food.”  This means that food is Lord of man, that his purpose in life is to live for food.  Such men are described in Ph3:19: “their God is their stomach.”  What a difference it makes to reverse a sentence!  Also, in Gen 2, God, made mariage for man.  It was God’s blessing.  But if we reverse the sentence then “man was made for marriage” and so man’s point in life is just to be a family man.

But we know that, although many good things have been made for man, man was not made for them but rather man was made for God-- to glorify God, bear fruit for God, worship God, and obey God.  So when the Pharisees thought that man was made for the Sabbath, then they lost focus on God, and centered on the Sabbath.  God does not want anything to subtract from our attention to him, not even his own law.  We sometimes sing a praise song before service, “I’m coming back to the heart of worship; I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it; When its all about you, all about you, Jesus.”  The center of worship, the center of the Sabbath, the center of our very lives should be God.  But we have a tendency to make worship into something else, just as the Pharisees turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a burden.

But the Sabbath was originally meant to be a day of rest.  God knew that man was weak and couldn’t work non-stop every day.  So he blessed man with the Sabbath,  a time to rest.   More importantly, although man was busy during the week,  he could at the minimum, at least spend the Sabbath in fellowship with other believers and with God, also so that man could meditate on the creator who made the world in 6 days.

The Sabbath was made for man as a chance to rest.  Everyone loves to have a time of rest.  This weekend is the beginning of Spring break.  Many students went to Florida to have a time of rest and to party.  But when they come back from Spring Break, they will be even more tired than when they left, because of all of their partying.  Sometimes I went on a vacation, maybe a day at the beach.  When I get home, I go right to bed because I am so tired after my day of rest and relaxation.  This is what rest in the world is like.  But Jesus said in Mt 11:28-30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

God wanted man to have this real rest.  The Sabbath was meant to be a day to look forward to.  But, when the law is interpretted too legalistically, then the Sabbath becomes a burden.  For instance, modern orthodox Jews are still very careful about keeping the Sabbath.  They will not drive a car, or take a bus, or even prayer certain prayers which are thought of as work.  Modern technology required many new rules.  Is it lawful to take an elevator on the Sabbath?  They decided that it was lawful to ride in an elevator, but it would be work to push the elevator button.  Therefore, on the Sabbath, elevators in Israel automatically run all day Saturday, stopping on every floor.  Can you imagine it, and empty elevator, all day long going up, up, up and down, down, down.  Or a man who wants to go to the 25th floor, waiting while the elevator stops on 1,2,3,4,5,6, even though there is no one else on the elevator.  They work so hard at not working!  Can this be what God meant by not working on the Sabbath?  Obviously not!  Since the Jews turned away fom God, they have been living without God, follow an empty, meaningless, and even abolished law.  To justify themselves, they define ever more restrictive laws.  They can convince themselves that with all of this “religion”, God must be in it somewhere.  In this way, the law becomes a burden.  In this way, they will look forward to the sunset on the Sabbath so that elevators run normally.

As Christians, we can be legalistic too.  We can get lost in religion and forget all about God too.  One man sees fellowship meeting and Friday Bible Study and Sunday Worship as a burden.  Such a man complains, “There are too many meetings!”  You can be sure that such a man is feeling like man was made for meetings instead of meetings for the benefit of man.  He cannot find any joy, because he does not have the spirit of the activity, just the law of it.

Who is the law breaker, the disciples, who joyfully enjoy the Sabbath, or the Pharisees who keep the Sabbath in every external way, and yet inside, they don’t worship God on the Sabbath, nor do they enjoy the Sabbath, since they have made it a burden to themselves and everyone?

Let’s read verse 28.  “So the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”  What does it mean?  First, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath.  Some Christians see Sunday as the new Sabbath, but even so, it is not the same legallistic, do not work, Sabbath of the Jews.  The Old Testament Sabbath law was described many times as a sign to the Israelites.  It was a sign that we cannot come to God through works, but rather through grace.  And yet the Jews turned not working into a work.  But Heb 4:9-10 says, “there remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rest from his own work, just as God did from his.”

Since Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Sabbath as the Lord of the Sabbath, we can come to church joyfully.  We can drive our car to church without wondering, “Is that work?  Should I be driving?”  Some of us even go fishing before Sunday Worship.  Surely this is work.  But it is a good work.  In fact, the Lord’s day is not even Saturday anymore.  But when come together as the new testament tells us, then we can have fellowship and rest too.  In fact people who have been studying for years, sometimes start to grow when they begin coming to Sunday worship, because this meeting is an important part of Christian life.

But more importantly, that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath means that Jesus is the Creator God.  Gen 2:3 says, “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”  Therefore, God himself formed the Sabbath.  If God blessed it, on the basis of his own act of creation, then no man could claim to be the Lord of it.  But only the creator of the Sabbath is the Lord of the Sabbath.  Therefore, Jesus was with God at the creation.  In fact, he was active in the work of creation, just as the father was.  And, on the seventh day, he, just like the father, was resting from all of the work of creating that he had done, too.  John 1:3 says of Jesus, “through him all things were made.  Without him nothing was made that has been made.”  Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and creator of the Universe.  As author of the Sabbath, he is therefore, the authority to interpret what the Sabbath means.  And if he declares his disciples innocent then they are.

Part 2 Jesus Heals a Man with a Shrivelled Hand.

The Pharisees legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath went beyond picking grain.  They also taught that it was unlawful to heal on the Sabbath.  But Jesus did many healings on the Sabbath. He appears to have healed more people on the Sabbath than on any other day.  By healing on the Sabbth, he proved in a practical way that truly was the Lord of the Sabbath.  Look at Ch3 verses 1 and 2 “Another time he went into the Synagogue and a man with a shrivelled hand was there.  Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.”

Here we find the account of a man with a shrivelled hand.  His situation was pitiable.  He had been born with a grotesque deformity, one of his hands was normal, but the other hand was twisted and useless.  He probably hid it in his pocket.  Imagine having such a hand.  I mean, for something as simple as if the barber gives us a bad haircut, we are embarressed and wear a ball cap until it grows out.  But more dificult for the man was his physical difficulties.  So many things that we do require two hands.  This man could hit a hammer, he could hold a nail.  But he could not hold a nail while hitting a hammer.  So he could not be a carpenter.  Nor could he dig a hole.  In a modern world, he could be a computer programmer, but in the ancient times of manual labor, he could do very little.  So he was probably poor, and probably felt inferior and ashamed.  When people saw this man most people felt pity rising in their hearts.  They wished that there was something that they could do for him, but they could not heal his hand.

But when the leaders saw him, they despised his weakness.  They also saw his illness as an oportunity.  Jesus would be coming later, and if they could get this man to Jesus, they just knew that Jesus would heal him, and then they could accuse Jesus of violating the Sabbath.  They would use the man to trap Jesus.  So the made sure to put this man n the front row.  Look at verse 2 again, “Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.”  Notice what they knew about Jesus.  They knew that Jesus had the power to heal.  They knew that Jesus cared for the sick.  Therefore, they decided to accuse Jesus, based on his power and his compassion.  What an evil heart.  If they know that Jesus has the power to heal, then why don’t they believe him.  How can they have such stubborn hearts to not make the connection?  It is because they are the old wineskins and simply cannot stretch their minds even an inch.

Of course their hearts are evil.  As leaders, they should pray for this man’s healing.  But instead they view him as less than an animal.  As Jesus says in Mt 12:11, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?  How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!”  And as Jesus says in Lk 13:15, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall an lead it out to give it water?”  Then shouldn’t people be set free on the Sabbath from what binds them?  Jesus’ logic is flawless, but they were not willing to learn from him.  Here we see that the Pharisees treated their animals better than they treated the Israelites under their care.  While they had compassion for their donkey, they had no compassion for this man.  They only used him, like a hunter might wound a sheep in order to trap a lion.

When Jesus entered the synagogue, he knew their wicked hearts.  He knew that murder was in their hearts.  He also knew about their trap.  So he could have avoided their trap easily by just telling the man to wait until sundown.  Or he didn’t even have to wait until sundown, if he just did it secretly, so that the Pharisees did not know about it.  But look at verse 3, “Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’”  Jesus wanted to heal the man very publicly, so that he would not have to be ashamed any more.  The healing would also prove to the Pharisees that God wants people healed on the Sabbath; the Sabbath is a day to do good.  Jesus did not avoid trouble for himself.  He helped others, even when he knew it would lead to a plot on his own life.  He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

When Jesus told the man to stand up, the Pharisees hearts leaped.  Everything was preceeding according to their plan.  They were not ready for Jesus next words.  Lets read verse 4, “Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’  But they remained silent.  The Pharisees said that the issue was, should man work on the Sabbath.  But Jesus asked them a different question, should man do good or evil on the Sabbath?  Should he save life or should he kill?  They refused to answer.  But let me ask you, is the Sabbath a day to do good or to do evil?   Which day of the week is the day to do evil or the day not to do good?  I couldn’t find that day on the calendar.  Not even the leap day.  If every day is a day to do good, then how much more the Sabbath that was declared holy by God in Gen 2:3?  If the answer is so clear,  then why wouldn’t they answer?  It is because they knew the answer, but they didn’t want to say it, because it would expose their problem and ruin their carefully prepared trap.  So they said nothing.  They claimed that they were keeping the Sabbath and that Jesus was a Sabbath breaker, but here was Jesus savng lives, and here were they with murderous thoughts on the Sabbath.

Lets read verse 5.  “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out you hand.’  He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.”  We are always surprised when we find Jesus angry in the Bible.  Often we picture Jesus with an angelic peaceful face.  But what has made Jesus so angry, ans so deeply distressed?  It is their stubborn hearts.  What is a stubborn heart?  Stubborn is when you know what you should do, but you refuse to do it, because you just don’t want to submit.  The Pharisees were stubborn, because they knew the answer to Jesus’ question, but they stubbornly refused to say it.  Because they knew that it was wrong to kill, but they were going to kill Jesus anyway.

We see bumper sticker which proclaims, “Jesus loves you!”  In the right context, this is true.  For instance, in the last lesson, we saw in Mk 2:14, that Jesus called even the worst sinners like Levi the tax collector.  There were ex-prostitutes and all manner of sinners among Jesus’ followers.  Jesus loved them all.  He did not despise even the worst sinner.  Rather he came to call sinners.  But Jesus does not love everyone; he does not love these murderous Pharisees.  He is angry at them.  How could Jesus love public sinners, but not the seemingly righteous Pharisees.  That’s because Jesus did not judge on outward appearance, but his eyes penetrated right through them, to expose their stubborn hearts.  Jesus loves any sinner who is willing to repent.  But if we have a stubborn, unrepentant heart, then we cannot expect the love of God, but the anger of God.  Is God’s word speaking to you, but you have blocked it off?  soften your heart and repent!

Now let’s look at the second half of verse 5.  Jesus “said to the man, ‘Stretch out you hand.’  He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.”  Why did Jesus make such a public spectacle of this man.  Forcing the man to stand up in front of everyone, and the n forcing the man to pull his ugly, shameful hand out his pocket and hold it up for everyone to see.  It looks very insensitive of Jesus.  It probably hurts the man’s feelings.  It took faith, for the man to overcome his shame and reveal his hand for everyone to see.  He might have worried that the children would look at him as a monster, and then everyone would think he was ugly.  But by faith, he stretched out his hand for all to see. And miraculously, when he did so, his hand was not ugly anymore.  Once he held it up his hand was restored.  The key word of verse 5 is the word “restored”.  Jesus had him hold up his hand, not to be ridiculed but to be restored, even though the Pharisees were watching.  Jesus wanted this man to be restored into normal society and not to be ashamed to stand in front of people.  He wanted this man to have a clear testimony of his healing.

Last week we heard 8 testimony sharers.  Often, when people share their testimonies, they bring out ugly, dirty sins.  Some people are offended, “Why is she bearing her soul to strangers like that?  She’ll wish she hadn’t said that to everyone.  They’ll judge her.”  Or they think, “Why is he telling us that horrible thing, I don’t want to know about that.”  Usually, if we have 8 sharers, at least one will cry.  Why then do why share deep testimonies?  The answer is found here.  It is not to dredge up muck, it is not to put ourselves down.  Rather it is to get healing from Jesus.  When we hold up our misshapen sins before God, suddenly our lives are restored and are not misshapen anymore.  James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”  Sin is like carrying a block of lead with you all day, and confessing your sin is like being set free from your heavy burden.  But when we have a sin problem, the natural instinct is to hide it, keep it in, don’t let anyone see it, like this man with his shrivelled hand.  Then sin becomes a barier between us and God and between us and each other, like at the fall of man.  We have to overcome our shame in order to dredge up our painful sins.  But the truth is that, even those who hide their sins have a day of great shame approaching.  This is judgement day, when everything that was hidden will be shouted from the rooftops.  Mk 4:22 says “whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.  When I think about my past, when as a young man, I used to sneak into my brother’s room and look at his pornography that he had hidden, but I had found, I don’t want to bring it out.  I want to hide my ugly sins inside.  At the time, my absolute greatest fear in life was getting caught with the pornography.  That is why I never had any of my own, but always used my brother’s and he always got caught.  I can think don’t want to know that anyway.  But 1 Jn 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithul and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Look at verse 6 “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”  Although they did not answer Jesus question with their mouths, their actions clearly show their answer.  They think that the Sabbath is a day to kill.  Through their action, they show their real motives.  They didn’t care about the man, while everyone else was celabrating God’s mllik and giving glory to God, the were angry.  They also didn’t care about the Sabbath, because of how they dishonor it.  Rather, all they cared about was their position, and Jesus was a threat to their status.

In today’s passage, we learn to not be legalistic but have spiritual incite.  We also learn that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath is a day to do good.  Let’s read the key verse.