Bible Study on Mark - Part 6, Mark 2:18-3:6

Last week we heard of two conflicts Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, Jewish religious leaders of His day, about His authority to forgive sins and his willingness to associate with sinners.

In today’s readings we hear of three more conflicts. The first is over "fasting.” Fasting simply means abstaining from eating food or certain foods for a period of time. In Mark 2:18, people came and asked why Jesus’ disciples did not fast, while many others did.

John the Baptist’s disciples may have followed John’s very strict lifestyle and ways, and now that he had been thrown into prison, they may have combined prayer with fasting for his release from prison. The Pharisees had added many ritual requirements and new laws, including more fasting, for one to be really good and acceptable to God. See what the Pharisee says about himself in Luke 18:11-12.

In the Old Testament, the only required day for fasting according to Mosaic law was on the Day of Atonement, when God’s people were to confess their sins and receive forgiveness through animal sacrifices and other priestly activity (predicting what Jesus would finally do for us Himself on the cross). See Leviticus 16:29 and 23:27-31. The words “afflict yourselves” are literally “afflict your souls,” which included doing fasting. See Psalm 35:13-14, where David says he “afflicted himself with fasting” along with other outward signs of sorrow and concern when people were sick.

Later in the Old Testament, leaders fasted and called upon others to fast during times of national disaster or trouble. See Nehemiah 1:2-4, Joel 2:12-13, and Ezra 8:21-23 as examples. However, fasting often was not done rightly, when people were not really repentant or wanting to go the right ways in their lives as they fasted. See Isaiah 58:3-7 and Zechariah 7:4-5 and 8:16-19, where the Lord encourages seasons of joy and gladness in Him and seeking to do right things instead of times of fasting.

In the New Testament, Jesus fasted when He was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:2), and as a good Jew, he surely fasted on the Day of Atonement, as clear Old Testament law required. In the sermon on the mount, He taught people not to fast to impress others, but to fast privately, in relationship with the heavenly Father (Matthew 6:16-18). Otherwise, Jesus never mentioned fasting, other than in what we will hear in this passage in Mark. In the rest of the New Testament, we never hear again of fasting, except in Acts 13:2-3, when early Christians prayed and fasted as they sent out Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:2-3) and in a passing reference to “the Fast” (the Day of Atonement fast) in Acts 27:9, to identify the time of year when voyages on the Mediterranean Sea were more dangerous.

Fasting, then, is certainly OK to do and even helpful if it helps us focus on the Lord, and as an outward sign of genuine repentance and sorrow for our sins; but it is not required under the New Covenant Jesus brings. Fasting does not make one holier or better by itself. (Neither is fasting or giving up something for Lent or avoiding certain foods during Lent required or commanded. We can do these if we choose, though.)

Going back to Mark 2:19-22, Jesus responded to the question about fasting by telling three very simple parables. (A parable is just a story from everyday life to make a special point.) In verse 19, Jesus asks whether people would stop during a wedding celebration to fast. For the Jews, weddings were very happy, joyous times that could last for a week. It would not be normal to stop and fast during such a happy occasion, since fasting is associated with sorrow and repentance. Jesus is describing Himself as the Bridegroom, coming for His bride, His church, the believers. This image is used in other parables and in the Book of Revelation and in Old Testament passages like Isaiah 62:5, where we hear, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (This is the correct reference for this verse, rather than the one I gave in the podcast!)

The coming of the Savior is a time for rejoicing, not fasting, Jesus says. At the same time, in Mark 2 verses 19-20, He gives His first indication of His death, His being “taken away” from His followers. That would be a proper time for fasting and sorrow, He says. That time of sorrow would not last long, though. Jesu died on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday, with the joy of Easter. For 40 days, Jesus then spent time with His disciples and appeared alive to many more people, and even with His ascension into heaven promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The overwhelming focus now will be upon Jesus and the joy of what He does for us, rather than upon us and rules we are told to follow, that are not even clearly commanded in Scripture - like the demands for fasting.

Jesus goes on in Mark 2:21-22 to give two more parables to say that what He comes to bring will not always fit with the old form of Judaism being presented in His day. The first image, in verse 21, is of trying to patch old clothes with a piece of new cloth that has not yet been washed and shrunk. New cloth, as it shrinks, could make things worse rather than better and tear old cloth more. (I use the example of my three lively grandsons, who always seem to have holes in their jeans. The clothes can be patched and passed on for a while,  but there comes a time for some new jeans, too.)

One commentator, Lenski, says that all the rules and practices of the Pharisees, with their false human righteousness, cannot be combined, even in part, with the grace and faith and new life that come through Jesus. “Discard the old robe of human works and receive the new robe of Christ’s righteousness,” Lenski says.

Mark 2:22 makes almost the same point. “No one puts new wine in old wineskins.” In Jesus’ day, wine was stored in goatskins. When new, those skins would stretch quite a bit. When old, they became stiff and more brittle and could burst under pressure, ruining the skin and the wine. So “new wine is for fresh wineskins,” as new wine still needs to ferment and will cause pressure on the goatskins. In effect, Jesus is saying that He is bringing in some new ways. One cannot just go with the old and the new combined. Throw away the old Pharisaism with its law-centered ways, and receive the new way of grace and life in Him, Jesus is saying.

That means that we need to read the Old Testament now in light of the new way, the New Testament, the New Covenant, and Jesus as the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) and all that he reveals to us through the whole New Testament. The Old Testament is still God’s Word, and the Old Testament leads us to the new Testament and helps us understand it better. Jesus agrees with the Pharisees on some issues, where they are right, in contrast with some other groups like the Sadducees, as we shall see. But there are also real changes that Jesus brings, too. We will see that in the next two sections of Mark’s Gospel, especially about the Sabbath Day.

Old Testament Law said that no work should be done on the Sabbath Day, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. But what was work? What could and could not be done? In Mark 2:23-24, the disciples of Jesus were passing through grain fields and picking some grain for themselves. This was allowed under Old Testament Law. See Deuteronomy 23:24-25. They could take just a little. The Pharisees considered picking anything on the Sabbath Day to be work and therefore wrong. They had complex rules about 39 kinds of generic activity that were forbidden on the Sabbath: to plow, to sow, to reap, to bind sheaves, to thresh, to winnow, to grind, to pound to powder, to cut up vegetables, to pick even a bit on grain (for that was “reaping”), and on and on. The Pharisees were blaming Jesus for not correcting his disciples with their own interpretations of the law - earlier about not fasting and now about doing evil work.

In Mark 2:25-26, Jesus answered with a story from the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 21. See Leviticus 24:5-9 to hear about a special bread made for each Sabbath Day, the Bread of the Presence, which was presented to the Lord each Sabbath day. After the Sabbath, the bread was reserved for the priests to eat. In the 1 Samuel passage, David and some of his friends were in danger and on the run, threatened by King Saul. They were hungry, and David went to the priests to see if they had any food to give them. All they had was some of the leftover Bread of the Presence, meant for the priests. An exception to the general rule was made, and David was given some of that bread, because of the need that was there and because David and the others were not ritually unclean. In the same way, the disciples of Jesus had not broken clear Old Testament law. This was only the opinion of the Pharisees. There was some clear need there for hungry people.

Jesus goes even farther in Mark 2:27. He said, “The Sabbath was made for man (for us human beings) not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath day was intended to be a blessing for us, for our physical rest, and more important, for time to attend to our spiritual needs, too. The Pharisees were inverting this, For them, it was as if people were created for the purpose of obeying the Sabbath laws - and exactly as the Pharisees gave them and interpreted them, whether they had Biblical basis or not.

Jesus went even farther yet, in what he said in Mark 2:28, with His claim that “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” The religious leaders often acted as if they were lords of the Sabbath and of the other people. Jesus, as the promised Messiah, the Son of Man, and as the very Son of God, really was Lord of the Sabbath. He could change things, and changes were coming. Jesus would “fulfill all righteousness”
(Matthew 3:15) and keep the Sabbath, and every other part of God’s will perfectly, as it was really intended, in our place, for our benefit. Jesus would pay for all sins, once for all, by His sacrifice on the cross, His one great atonement for us all so that there would no longer be any need for the yearly Day of Atonement and its rites. (See Hebrews 9:24-26.) There would soon not be a need for many of the old ceremonies and ways, and eventually all the animal sacrifices and even the Temple itself in Jerusalem would disappear (Matthew 24:1-2, John 4:21-24). The Sabbath would still be remembered, but in a different way and form.

This new way is emphasized even more in Mark 3:1-6. Jesus again was in a synagogue on the Sabbath Day. A man with a withered hand was also there - or some think “planted" there so that the Pharisees could watch and see if Jesus healed him and then they could accuse Him of doing evil, doing work on the Sabbath. Jesus knew what was going on, and He took charge, as Lord of the Sabbath. He asked the man with the withered hand to come to Him (Mark 6:3). Then He asked the Pharisees, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” If the Sabbath was for the benefit of people, then to do good and to save would be the better, the right thing to do.

There is total silence from the Pharisees, though. They knew they would be in trouble, no matter what they said. They couldn’t say that doing harm or killing would be lawful, for it was not. Doing good or saving life had to be good, any day. Why would it not be good even on the Sabbath? Jewish authorities did allow for animals in danger to be rescued in some circumstances. Why could people not be helped? In fact, in some ways, to neglect to do good when you can is a kind of evil itself (James 2:15-16).

There was no answer from the Pharisees, and Jesus was angry, with a righteous anger, because of “their hardness of heart” - another term for sinful hearts. Jesus also was grieved. He had come to be the help and Savior of all people, including His fellow Jews. Some of them, though, who should have known better, were already turning to evil against Him.

Jesus went ahead and did the right thing. He helped and healed the man with the withered hand. But notice how He did it. Jesus took no action that people could see and call work. He simply asked the man to stretch out his hand. The man did the action, the work, if one would call it that. The man stretched out his hand, and he was healed. Yet it was clear to all who it was who had done the healing, without a word or visible action. Jesus had healed the man, and what a good and helpful sabbath day that was for the man physically, and hopefully also spiritually.

Mark 2:6 tells us that the Pharisees soon left and immediately began to make plans to destroy Jesus. They would not say that it was lawful to harm or kill on the Sabbath, but they began to do those very thing on that Sabbath day, with regard to Jesus. Note also that they began to plot with the Herodians to get rid of Jesus. The Herodians were a smaller but still influential Jewish political group. They supported the rulership of the Herods in the land, who served with the approval of and under the control of the Roman Emperor. Herodians were generally considered unpatriotic Jews, because they benefited from the Roman control and did not want the Jews to become a totally free and independent people again. The Pharisees usually hated the Herodian,; but here they were willing to work with them, just to do away with Jesus.

One last thought. This conflict we see in Mark 2 and 3 shows the beginning of even greater conflict to come, between Jews and those who followed Jesus - and with Judaizers, people who liked Jesus but also insisted  on people keeping all the Old Testament ways and rules, as well. This is still a problem today with groups who call themselves Christians, but still insist that their people must worship on Saturday and cannot work on Saturday and must still follow Old Testament  festivals and rituals, and have other unique teachings. The Seventh Day Adventists and the United Church of God (used to be Herbert W. Armstrong’s group, with British Israelism) and other groups fall into this category. Watch out for these issues, still today.