Earlier in the Gospel of Mark we witnessed a series of controversies that Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees. One arose as a result of Jesus’ failure to instruct his disciples to fast for the return of Israel from Exile and the restoration of God’s presence to the land. When asked about this, Jesus is quite blunt with the Pharisees. “Why would I fast for God to act,” He essentially asks, “when God is in the middle of acting?” I am the Bridegroom come to the wedding, the Bridegroom predicted long ago by the prophet Isaiah, come to rescue my bride from her exile. So why would my disciples fast while the bridegroom is with them? This is the time for celebration not contrition.
While announcing He has come as the Bridegroom of Isaiah, as the One appointed by God to rescue His people from exile and bring them back into fellowship with God and with the land, He introduces a subtle twist that no doubt put the disciples in somewhat of a quandary – asking themselves – “Huh? What does that mean?” Jesus remarked – “The time will come when the bridegroom is taken away, and then my disciples will fast in those days.”
The bridegroom taken away? Such a comment would have thrown Jesus’ hearers into a tizzy. What does that mean? What does he mean taken away? When the bridegroom comes, he just comes! The Kingdom comes, the enemies of God are routed, Jerusalem is exalted. It all happens lickety-split.
But Jesus clearly rejects this understanding of the Kingdom and implies that everything does not happen lickety-split. Well, how then does it happen? What is the nature of the Kingdom of God? How should we understand it? It is these questions that Jesus sets out to answer today in the two parables of the growing seed and the mustard seed.
We are often tempted, sometimes instructed, to think of parables as homey stories whose point was immediately obvious, as evidence that Jesus was such a great teacher because he used these illustrations that everyone could understand. But this is simply not the case. The truth is that while Jesus’ parables are easy to comprehend on a surface level, their point is not always obvious. Indeed, read commentators and you will see how little consensus there is on the meaning of some of the parables even now. Jesus tells us today – that obscurity is not by accident. The purpose of parables was both to reveal – to unfold the nature of the kingdom – and to conceal – to foil those with other agendas for Jesus. This was especially true of the parable of the sower. For the parable of the sower is the key to the other parables establishing the necessity of listening to the Word of the Kingdom and not passing it over or letting it be crowded out by other concerns.
In the text today, two accusations are leveled against Jesus by the Pharisees. First, they assert that Jesus “has Beelzebub.” In other words, they argue that he is possessed by the evil one. Second, they maintain that by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons. Jesus is a traitor, pretending to advance the Kingdom of God while really advancing the kingdom of the evil one. Jesus responds to these accusations in reverse order. The second accusation he reveals to be absurd and simultaneously unfolds the real nature of his work – a work of plunder and rescue. Jesus responds to the first accusation by warning the Pharisees that they are in danger of destruction – their obstinacy to the things of God is inexcusable. The interchange helps us understand the true nature of Jesus’ work and the necessity of embracing Him as our only hope.
Again and again Mark wants us to see Jesus as the Greater David, the Son of David, the Anointed One, who has arrived to set up his kingdom. He accomplishes this by organizing the early portion of his narrative around the life of David. Hence, we see Jesus doing many of the same things David did and suffering some of the same trouble as David. In particular, Mark reveals that just as David faced a number of false accusations that were leveled against him as he set up his kingdom so too did Jesus. But even as David was vindicated in the course of his life, Jesus was too. In vindicating himself from the first accusation brought by his family, Jesus reveals the true nature of the family of God and the joy of being His children.
As Jesus has gone about setting up his Kingdom, He has called various men to follow Him. He has called Peter and Andrew. He has called James and John. He has called Levi the tax collector. In chapter 3 the heretofore somewhat informal relationship with these men becomes much more formalized – and others are added to the mix whose names we see for the first time. In chapter 3 Jesus appoints the Twelve Apostles.
There are two issues that must be addressed in dealing with the establishment of the Apostolate. First, why Twelve Apostles? Why not three or four or fourteen? Why twelve? Second, why these particular men? Were they the only men available or did Jesus have some reason for choosing these men?
Answering these questions will lead us to one of the most important issues in biblical theology. What is the relationship between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God in the New? In other words, what is the relationship between Israel and the Church? While answers to this question vary considerably among Christians today, the New Testament is quite clear. And the clarity shows up in all kinds of unsuspecting spots, helping us to understand why we still print our Bibles with Genesis through Malachi attached.
Given that the Sabbath, via the Lord’s Day, is still binding for the people of God, we are in a position to appreciate more fully the controversy that our Lord had with the Pharisees over the Sabbath. Was the Pharisaic understanding and application of the Sabbath to life fundamentally correct or fundamentally askew? Answering these questions will help us to apply the Sabbath commands in our own day more faithfully.
Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees begins with the action of the disciples and the question of the Pharisees and culminates in the question and subsequent action of our Lord. This controversy, like the three preceding it, highlights the authority of Jesus as the Son of Man (cf. 1:22, 27; 2:10) and vindicates His authority over against that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is the leader of Israel whom we should follow. How do we know this is the case? Because, in the same way that Jesus vindicated his authority to forgive sins by healing the paralytic, he now vindicates his authority to regulate the Sabbath by healing the man with the withered hand.
Mark takes up the whole issue of the Sabbath in two stories – the first of which addresses the identity of Jesus and His relationship to the Sabbath itself and the second of which addresses the nature of Sabbath observance and how the Sabbath laws are to be applied according to the Lord of the Sabbath.
The last number of Sundays in the Gospel of Mark we have seen Jesus in three separate conflicts with the religious leaders of the day. In each instance Jesus’ ministry is questioned and then vindicated. This pattern of conflict followed by Jesus’ vindication of his ministry continues in two more vignettes that both revolve around the same topic – the Sabbath. Already in his Gospel, Mark has given us a picture of what a typical Sabbath day in the life of our Lord looked like. But now he reveals that Jesus’ observance of the Sabbath didn’t quite fit the Pharisees’ notion of what was acceptable – Jesus didn’t fit into their expectations of Messiah and so conflict ensues once again.
But before we get to a survey of this conflict and Jesus’ triumph, it would be prudent to spend this Lord’s Day discussing the relationship between the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Should we believe that the command to observe a weekly Sabbath continues in the present age? And, if so, in what form does it continue? Answering these questions will help us to profit more fully from the story of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees because knowing whether or not Sabbath observance continues to be required of the people of God will affect the points of application that we draw from the conflict. So to ask again, should we believe that the command to observe a weekly Sabbath continues in the present age?
In the text today, the disciples of John and of the Pharisees ask Jesus why his disciples are not fasting. On the face of it, the question seems rather simple. John’s and the Pharisees’ disciples were fasting – presumably because John and the Pharisees instructed them to do so – but Jesus’ disciples weren’t. So they come to ask a question – what’s up Jesus? Why aren’t your disciples fasting? Why aren’t you teaching them to do so?
The problem that this simple reading confronts is twofold. First, Jesus himself fasted. During his time in the wilderness we are explicitly told that he fasted and we also presume, as a good Jew, that he fasted yearly on the Day of Atonement (cf. Lev 16). The second problem this simple reading faces is that Jesus did teach his disciples to fast. In the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, he instructs the disciples to be unlike the hypocrites when they fast and, instead, to anoint themselves with oil so that they fast to God and not to men. In addition, later in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals a boy with a mute spirit whom his disciples were unable to heal. When they inquire, “Why couldn’t we heal him?” Jesus responds, “This kind only comes out with prayer and fasting.” This leads us to conclude that not only was Jesus himself fasting (since he did cast out the demon) but that he expected his disciples to fast likewise. We must conclude, then, that the question that Jesus is being asked is not about fasting in general.
If it’s not a question about fasting in general, what is it? We’ll find that the question being posed to Jesus is about a specific series of fasts that were being held in Israel at the time. That this is the type of fasting being considered is evident from Jesus’ response. But in order to understand Jesus’ response, we need to consider the historical background that sets the stage for the question of the disciples of John and the Pharisees. Why was Israel fasting at this time in history? And why weren’t the disciples of Jesus joining in?
Jesus came to earth to deal with sin. But in order to deal with sin, you simply must deal with sinners. What we see in our text is that immediately after substantiating his authority to forgive sins, Jesus proceeds to call sinners, notorious sinners, into his service. Making reconciliation for iniquity and bringing in everlasting righteousness, the things Daniel anticipated that Messiah would do, entails doing something with sinners. And there are only two options. You eliminate sinners either through judgment – destroying them – or through conversion – changing them. In our story today, Jesus shows the primary mode he is interested in – conversion. The purpose of his ministry as the Great Physician is to heal the sick, to call sinners to repentance.
