The Book of Mark #13 pt. 2 chapter 3:1-6
The Book of Mark
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath, Part 2
Mark 3:1–6
 
We began last Wednesday night a section of Mark 2 and 3 that deals with Jesus activities on the Sabbath.  Just to have the whole thing in mind, let’s read from
 
Mark 2:23-3:6
 
The desire the leaders of Israel had to kill Jesus from early on in His ministry is very hard to understand, especially when you consider what He had done.
 
Primarily, He was guilty of healing and casting out demons and helping people in general.  Couple that with His offer to forgive sin and promise people eternal life and that about wraps it up.  From a Jewish perspective, that was everything that had every hoped for.  In fact, it was direct fulfillment of prophecy.
 
So why did they hate Him? Well it was for none of those things. It was what He said that made them hate Him, not what He did. And what He said was that He was God.  God the Son had put on flesh and come down from heaven. And what really caused the rub was His claim to be their Messiah.  And even though He could back it up through His power over disease and demons and sin, they refused to accept Him.
 
And what should have been the answer to their prayer and the best news they could have ever received, it became this tremendous barrier.
 
In particular, they hated Him for His resistance to their form of religion.  They were proud of their Judaism and what Jesus taught seemed to undermine everything they taught.  That was especially true regarding the Sabbath.
 
The Sabbath was their time to shine. After all, God had instituted the Sabbath and given that day to His people as a day of separation.  And by the time Jesus arrives, what God had intended was so twisted and perverted by their man-made additions, it had become a burden, rather than a blessing. 
 
So when He returns Sabbath observance back to its original design, they take it personally and seek to get rid of Him.
 
Then to cap it all off, as we see in verse 28, He declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath. That is a shocking statement and beyond comprehension to the Jews because God was Lord of the Sabbath. So if He says He's Lord of the Sabbath, He's saying He's God.
 
By the way, just as a footnote, Jesus is Lord over the Sabbath, and He abolished the Sabbath. After His death and resurrection, there is no more Sabbath. The seventh day of the week disappears from all religious calendars. We now meet on the first day of the week, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 
Like all other types and pictures of the Old Testament, the Sabbath was a shadow.  We now have the reality in Christ. Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 say Christ is our rest.  We have entered into the rest    the Sabbath pictured for us.
Christ is that rest, therefore we don't need the shadow.  In fact, the Apostle Paul said to the Colossians in 2:16 and 17, “Don't let anybody hold you to a Sabbath.” The Lord of the Sabbath has nullified the Sabbath, it's gone.
 
Well Jesus is attacking it in the text before us. He says the Sabbath was never intended to be restrictive, the Sabbath was made for man, for man's benefit, verse 27, to be a time of rest and blessing and joy and refreshment. It was not man who was made to conform to some ridiculous restraints on that day. And the Lord of the Sabbath would demonstrate a proper Sabbath observance and it happens through two primary events.
 
They very likely happen on two consecutive Sabbath days.  We looked at the first one last week as they criticize the followers of Jesus for picking and eating grain on the Sabbath.
 
The first 6 verses of chapter 3 record the second event.
 
First, let’s see
 
1. The Context
 
Verse 1
 
He’s in a synagogue somewhere teaching and a man was there whose hand was withered. Luke says it was his right hand, just to be specific.  We don't know anything about the affliction or how he got the affliction.  All we know is that his hand was withered and the Greek term that is used refers to atrophy.
 
This would be a very serious problem. He couldn't do the things you need to do earn a living and that’s the point of the story.  Very simply put, here was man with a serious need.  He would have difficulty earning a living, to provide for himself and his family.
 
Now, having said that, it must also be said that it's not a life-threatening injury. He's not on the brink of death. It's not terminal. Jesus could have waited until Monday.  He could have scheduled an appointment for sometime next week.
 
This healing doesn't have to happen on the spot. Why does He do it then? He does it for the purpose of breaching the Sabbath. It is an opportunity to oppose the traditions of the Jews.
 
And that’s where verse 2 becomes critical.
 
This is intensive observance. This is not casual observance, this is sinister scrutiny. They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath.
 
Isn’t that ironic?  They want the Sabbath to remain holy, but they are hopeful He will break it so they can use it against Him.
 
Now remember, they have added all these extras to the Law.  There is nothing in the Old Testament about not helping people on the Sabbath. All it requires is no work.  You still could do a lot of other things including preparing food and visiting relatives.  You just didn’t work like you did the rest of the week.
 
But to make sure everyone observed the Sabbath, all these traditions had been added including classifying the efforts of a physician as work.  That included relatives as well.  The rabbis decided that helping someone on the Sabbath was work.
 
They did provide one exception and that was if the person was threatened with imminent death.  You could stop the bleeding, so to speak.
 
Now Jesus messed with their laws because as far as we know, they never had to deal with a miraculous healer before, therefore there were no laws regarding healing in that manner.  After all, He didn’t exert any effort.  He healed with a word or a touch.  But because it constituted helping someone, they put it in the category of violating the Sabbath.
 
That's the context.  Then comes
 
2. The Question
 
verses 3-4
 
Now notice, the man hasn't said anything. The man hasn't asked for a healing.  Jesus just calls him out of the crowd. Now Luke tells us that Jesus knew what the religious leaders were thinking.
 
So as He is teaching, He reads the minds of the Pharisees and the scribes, stops His teaching and brings the man up to initiate a confrontation.
 
Now according to Matthew’s account, they asked Jesus if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath and Jesus answers with an analogy.
“Would you rescue a sheep on the Sabbath if a sheep was in danger of being wounded or injured?”  Of course they would because a sheep has a value. “If you would”, and He knew they would and did in that culture, “would you not help a person?”
 
Then He turned the question on them in verse 4. “He said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?'” You asked Me if it was lawful to heal, let me rephrase t he question and put it to you. “Is it lawful to do good or do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or kill it?”
 
This time they are silent.  That question is so loaded because they were wanting to kill Him and, believe me, they would have killed Him on a Sabbath if they could have, and He was wanting to do good.
 
What does He mean “Is it lawful?” Is it according to the Law of Moses or the Law of God? What does Old Testament Scripture say? Does Old Testament Scripture have anything to say about doing good?
 
They knew the answer. They were experts in the Scripture. Their minds could have gone to a hundred different references to answer.  They would have thought of Isaiah chapter 1 which basically says, “I hate your Sabbaths. It's all hypocrisy. I want you to do good, to seek justice...verse 17...reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
 
Ruthless people need to be reproved. Orphans need to be protected. Widows need to be cared for. That's what I want. I want you to do good. I hate your hypocritical Sabbaths. That's all the way back in Isaiah's day. They knew that.
 
They knew what the Old Testament law said. The question is the obvious question...is it lawful to do good? Of course. “To do harm?” No. “Is it lawful to save a life?” Of course. “To kill?” No.
 
What are they going to say? If they say it is lawful to do good and save a life, then they would be unable to accuse Jesus of any violation and they would affirm His act of healing as good and right. They don't want to do that. They want Him to be seen as a blasphemer, not one who does righteously. But on the other hand, if they say it is lawful to do evil and to kill, they would reveal their own hearts.
 
So they did the only thing they could do, end of verse 4, “They kept silent.”
 
And then He did something for effect.
 
Verse 5
 
You can just imagine the dramatic silence in the place.  They aren't saying a word. The air is thick.  Nobody is breathing. And Jesus stares them down eyeball to eyeball, His eyes filled with anger.
 
That's very interesting. This is the only explicit mention of Jesus being angry in the New Testament. Was He angry at other times? Sure, we see Him cleanse the temple at the beginning of His ministry, as well as at the end.  But this is the only time it actually says Jesus was angry.
 
Angry at what? It is their unbelief, rejection of Him and religious pride.  The severest of sin's expressions is to reject the gospel and grace and goodness.
But notice the anger is followed by grief.  He is “grieved at their hardness of heart.”  He was furious. But it also says He was grieved. That means to feel sympathy.
 
Does that not capture the heart of God as He looks at the rebellious unbeliever and is angry and grieved at the same time?
 
. Grieved at their porosis..porosis. It's a word translated hardness. It's used of marble, hard-hearted. By the way, it's used to refer to the disciples in chapter 6 verse 52 and chapter 8 verse 17, so there are times when even His disciples were hard-hearted. But here it's a settled, permanent condition and it both makes Him mad and angry and sad. He is angry at their unbelief and their rejection and He is sad at the consequence, the necessary condemnation that is to come.
 
We then see
 
3.  The Confrontation
 
verse 5
 
Everybody there could see the healing. There must have been a tremendous buzz in that place when that hand returned to perfect shape and usability.
 
You would think any reasonable, sensible person, even a Pharisee and a scribe, would say, “You know what? I think I need to rethink who this person is. Maybe I need to go back and take a look at this again.
 
Instead, Luke 6:11 says this, “They were filled with rage.”
 
The word carries the idea of being filled with madness.  They lost their minds.  They were void of understanding.  They were at their wit's end. They went over the top.  They were out of control and it was driven by their hatred of Jesus' teaching.
 
Now we're just into the third chapter in Mark and already we have the official response to Jesus. “Kill Him.
 
So the context is set, the question is posed, the confrontation occurs. And the final word in the story is in verse 6, we'll call it
 
4.  The Conspiracy
 
The synagogue must have exploded with wonder over the miracle. They're mad with rage. They start to talk about how to kill Him.
 
Destroy is the operative word here.  It means to utterly destroy, kill. They want to destroy Jesus. They want to obliterate Him.
 
Now what about the Herodians?  Herod the Great was an Idumaean petty king who ruled at the will of Rome in the land of Israel. And when he died, he divided up Israel into four sections and gave a section to four of his sons.
 
The Herodians were Jews in Israel who had no interest in religion.  They were politically-driven secularists who had attached themselves to the cause of Herod the Great and his progeny.
And it rather ironic that every time the Herodians appear on the pages of the New Testament, it is in alliance with the Pharisees against Jesus. They had nothing in common. They were basically enemies, one very religious while the other was very secular.  They had no common ground except that each saw Jesus as a threat, the Pharisees to their religious system, the Herodians to their political rule.
 
So they came together to gang up on Jesus. The Jews are now going to pull everybody together because they're going to have to have full cooperation to get Jesus to an execution.
 
So the storm clouds have begun to gather on the horizon over the head of Jesus. They will break on Him on a hillside outside Jerusalem called Golgotha where He will give His life. But even in death, He triumphs, paying the price for all our sin, rising from the dead for our justification.
 
Let’s pray.