We must know what God is really about. Often God is not about what we think He should be about. We think God should take care of our physical needs but God feels we should be about His word and He should be about forgiving our sins. We may try to live a ‘good life’ and get near to God but God exposes our ‘good life’ as full of pride and hangs out with the sinners. We think we understand the purpose behind religious observances and ritual only to discover we’ve got it backwards.
Such is the story in Mark 2. The religious scribes are drawn to Jesus but question His actions and values because they go against their tradition. They looked to Jesus to help them patch up what they already thought was a pretty decent life. What they didn’t understand is that God is not about patching old lives but about creating new ones.
STUDY NOTES: verses 1-28
2.1-2: And again He entered Capernaum… Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them… and he preached the word to them
When Jesus chose to venture back into the city the crowds continued to flock to Him. Filling the house where He was staying and lining up outside the door. It’s significant that Jesus did not begin healing without first preaching the word to the people that had gathered to see him. The healing displayed the power and authority of Jesus. The preaching of the word communicated the reasons behind the healings. The word had the power to heal the souls of all who would listen and not just the few who received physical healing.
Jesus did not let the culture He was in direct His action. Jesus did not seek the crowds but rather they sought Him and when they came He preached the word to them. They came for the healing of worldly ailments but Jesus came to heal their souls.
In 2 Tim 4:2 Paul exhorts Timothy to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching”. As followers of Jesus we must be ready and eager to preach the word whenever given the opportunity. I doubt many of us have ever had crowds so large gather at our homes that they lined up outside the door but we’ve all likely had somebody over for dinner or shared lunch with a co-worker. We may not have been gifted to heal worldly aliments but we can all be used in healing a person’s soul.
In these situations do we always take the chance to preach the word or do we relegate these situations to merely a social gathering in which God has no part and save the preaching for Church?
In v. 1 the phrase ‘in the house’ can also be translated ‘at home’. As leaders of our households how can we turn our homes into a place where the word is preached and the world is welcome to line up outside our door to hear it?
2.3-12: Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men… When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven”
In this passage of scripture there are at least two streams of thought that we can draw lessons from:
- The Persistence of the Four Men
- The Primary Purpose of Jesus was To Forgive Sin
The Persistence of the Four Men
How far would you go for a friend? When the four men arrived with the paralytic to see Jesus they were greeted to the sight of a large crowd backed up outside the door of the house where Jesus was preaching. Many might have found this scene daunting and discouraging, many may have simply gotten in line hoping they made it to the front before being turned away. Perhaps some may have left hoping to try and come back tomorrow. But these men were not daunted and instead of being discourage they were determined and found another way to bring the paralytic to Jesus. They dug through the roof!
Do we care so much for people that we would dig through a roof to see them healed? In your life what would it look like to ‘dig through a roof’ to help out a friend?
One of the most precious and rare commodities we have today is our time. When we get busy does it take an extreme act like digging through a roof to get our attention?
The Primary Purpose of Jesus was To Forgive Sin
In this episode we see that Jesus was not content to simply address and heal physical needs. As hard as it was for those around Him to accept, the physical healings He performed where secondary to His real purpose of coming to redeem and forgive the sins of man. As the people gathered around the house Jesus preached the gospel to them. In the healing of the paralytic He made it clear that healing was a supporting action to His higher purpose of forgiving sins (v. 10)
The scribes’ reasoning was rooted in a misunderstanding of the purpose of God. How would the reasoning of the scribes have changed if they had understood that the real purpose of Jesus’ life was to forgive the sins of all mankind instead of simply heal the bodies of a few?
How does a proper understanding of the purpose of God for your life affect the way you live?
2.13-17: Then He passed by, He saw Levi… And He said to him, “Follow Me.” And so he arose and followed Him… And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."
Levi leaves his post and chooses to follow Jesus. As a tax collection Levi was a very rich man but he was also dishonest and despised by the moral segments of Jewish society. Levi is an example of the businessman who steps on everybody to get to the top or the street hustler who would take the last dollar from your grandmother. Tax collectors were not generally nice people and not the sort of people you would want in your Bible club or home fellowship group. Why then would Jesus call such a person into His inner circle?
While the calling of any individual into ministry is given solely by the pleasure of God there are lessons we can draw from the calling of Levi:
- Jesus does not consider the disposition of those whom He calls. Levi lived a rotten life but was called in spite of the life he lived
- Once called Levi is then used to reach and introduce Jesus back into Levi’s culture. The saved are not called to become monastic and retreat from the world but, like in the case of Levi, there are often called to return to the world they came from and share Jesus with others who were just like them. A former drug addict is often the best witness to an addict just as a former workaholic professional is often the best witness to a workaholic. We must not flee from our past but rather embrace it as a symbol of God’s power and love for us. Levi eventually left his old culture behind and became a full time disciple of Christ but not after he had related is experience with Jesus to his peers.
- The most scathing lesson is given to the religious elite who questioned Jesus’ choice of dinning guests. In this question and answer we are shown the depth of their pride. Like most people who like to question the actions of others the scribes did not ask their question of Jesus directly but rather of His disciples. Jesus came to help those who need help. Not only does this reason justify Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners but the scribes must now consider why they have been observing Jesus in the first place. If these men where as holy as they claimed to be and could not admit that they too were sick then Jesus had nothing for them. If they could not admit that at the core they too were depraved and burdened - if they could not accept the message and at least come to repentance - then there was nothing for them to find in Jesus.
To come to Jesus we must all admit that we are a sinful people. We must first accept the message of John the Baptist and come to repentance. How many people want to play the tough guy and never admit that they need help even from God?
If you walked into the doors of this church or into this bible study and won’t admit that you need help then there is nothing here for you. In Jesus the scribes wanted to hear a new teacher who would validate their already held conclusions and maybe give them some new insight into the scriptures. But Jesus came not to grant us some new intellectual insight or to validate our religious practices but to call us to repentance and turn to Him for healing. If you didn’t come to change you didn’t come to look for Jesus.
The scribes wanted the doctor to tell them how healthy they were but Levi changed his whole life to follow Jesus and gave up his career and lively hood. Are you coming to Jesus with a mind open to change or are you just hoping Jesus will confirm what you already think you know about yourself? In other words, in your own spiritual life are you coming to Jesus with a willingness to change?
2.18-22: Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? ... no one puts new wine into old wineskins.
“Why are you like everybody else?” That’s the real question being asked here. “John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast but you don’t? Shouldn’t you be more like them if you want to get ahead?” The answer Jesus gives is great because He doesn’t attack the Pharisees or John’s disciples for fasting but points to something all Jews could understand, a wedding celebration. A wedding was to be a time of rejoicing, a time when everything was forgotten and replaced with celebrating. In verse 20 Jesus reminds His disciples that the celebrating will not last forever. There will come a day when the marriage celebration is completed and the new life for the bridegroom and bride will begin. At that point work will resume and fasting will take place.
The wedding celebration is a celebration of a new beginning. Bachelor parties are thrown before a wedding because on the day of the wedding life as the bridegroom knows it will die and be replaced with a new life with his bride. On the day of a wedding the lives of the bridegroom and bride change forever. If either the bridegroom or the bride refuses to die to their singleness then their marriage will not work out. Something old must die and something new must begin.
In verses 20 and 21 Jesus takes this thought further with the patched garment and the new wineskins. The point that Jesus is trying to make is that He is trying to start something new. Jesus did not come to patch up Judaism. Believing that by adding another few teachings or principles He would be able to fix all that was wrong. No like an old wineskin the old law and traditions had to move to their rightful place and make room for a new reality.
New wine is wine that is still fermenting, still growing and still expanding. New wine needs a new wine skin that will expand and grow along with it. An old wineskin is a wineskin that has become brittle and hard. Place new wine in an old wineskin and the wineskin will not able to expand and grow like the fermenting and expanding new wine inside it demands.
Jesus did not come to fix a sinful life but to start something new and He does not come to us today desiring only to patch up the undesirable and broken parts of our lives. Rather He comes to replace our old lives with a completely new reality. Like an old wineskin our old, broken and brittle lives are incapable of containing the growing and expanding new life that Jesus desires to place inside us.
How has your life been an example of either trying to patch up the old life or of accepting the new life that Jesus desires to give us?
2.23-28: The Sabbath is for Man, not Man for the Sabbath
“Human need trumps religious ritual.” The Christian existence can be summed up in the phrase “Love God and love people”. Anytime we get so wrapped up in our religious exercises and experiences that we lose sight of the needs of those around us we are in danger of loosing sight of Jesus Himself.
The Sabbath observance of rest is not designed to be an additional burden placed upon an already busy people. Rather the Sabbath is designed to free us from the burdens of this world. The intention of the Sabbath is not to sacrifice a day of our week and thereby prove our holiness but to give God a chance to work in our lives. By resting we exercise faith and display a dependence on God to provide for us in 6 days a week instead of continually striving to get it all done ourselves in 7. It is this rest that allows us to give God the glory and make it clear that our successes are God’s doing and not our own.
Our mantra is too often work harder, work longer, and get ahead. Keep pushing until you reach your goal. God asks work hard and then rest. Work hard and then let me work for you. Our world and our culture will take every minute and every ounce of energy we will offer to it. In fact it is constantly demanding more than we can possible physically give. What an affront to the values of this world to stop once a week and say “NO! Today I rest! Today I let God work for me! Today I’m showing a dependence on God to provide! World, today you can’t have me! Today I demonstrate that God’s values direct my life not yours!”
What causes you to work long hours or work through a weekend? What are you trying to receive from those efforts that God can not provide in a better way?
Conclusion
Jesus consistently asked the religious people of His day to reevaluate their assumptions about what it truly meant to follow God. In this study we’ve been given examples of this with regards to associating with sinners, fasting and the Sabbath. The scribes values and comments where results of the legalistic religious culture they were part of. Jesus made them uneasy by putting into question the values their culture had given them and by offering them something new. Then and now Jesus desired not to fix lives that were broken but to replace broken lives with new ones.
We must be willing to let the truths of God’s word and His Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we can let go of the broken life we value and accept the new life God desires to give us. This is an exciting proposition but it can also be a little scary. It’s very likely that just like the scribes we hold on to values and traditions that are counter to what God is about. These values won’t go away easy but they will be replace with something new if we allow God the opportunity.