Jesus - Outcast for Another's Sake (Part 2)

Sermon Series: Spare Me the Details - Just Give Me Jesus

Have you ever considered that where you live today, how you talk, and the government you enjoy all originated in a sense with one man?  Who do you think that might be?  I would say Christopher Columbus.  Christopher Columbus had an incredibly unique theory in his time.  You remember what it was don't you?  That the world was round.  While everyone else thought that the world was flat Columbus believed it was round and that he might discover a quicker route to India if he sailed west rather than sailing south around the entire continent of Africa.  So after great efforts at trying to convince those with the money and resources to let him test his theory, Columbus finally set sail heading west and never ended up sailing off the edge of the earth but instead discovered the continent of North America.  Think about this.  If Columbus had not explored his theory you would probably be living somewhere in Europe, Africa, or Asia, talking with a very different accent, and perhaps living under the control of a much less democratic country.  We owe a great deal to Christopher Columbus.  But don’t forget, when Columbus was sharing his theory very few people bought into what he believed.  Most people just thought he was flat out crazy.

Throughout human history, humanity has been plagued by misunderstandings of truth.  At times the consequences have been incredibly severe, such as when certain races have believed that they were superior to others and acted on those beliefs resulting in things like slavery and genocide.  At other times it has resulted in mocking and ridicule and people being outcast.  And unfortunately, today, we are still battling some of the beliefs that have been built on years of misunderstanding rather than observing and following truth.  Some of those misunderstandings are centered around Jesus and salvation and the consequences of those misunderstandings are both tragic and eternal.  So I'd like for us to honestly ask ourselves this question as we examine the text of Mark 2:18-3:6, "Have we wrongly understood how to acquire salvation?"  Jesus became an outcast among the religious elite of His time to make sure that we all rightly understood the answer to this question.  The wise among His time thought He was crazy and opposed Him, even more harshly than Columbus' opponents.  But Jesus, like Columbus, understood the truth, and though it was radically different than what was being taught by the wise and educated, it was and is the only truth regarding salvation.  Would you be willing to consider what He had to say regarding salvation in this text?

Last week we began looking at a portion of Mark's gospel that was communicating a clear theme - that Jesus was an outcast for another's sake.  The portion of scripture that we began studying was Mark 2:1-3:6.  In this passage of scripture we see Jesus becoming an outcast among the religious leaders of the Jews so that He could complete the Father's mission and communicate the essentials of salvation to humanity.  In order to consider this theme we broke down the text into two portions, each one communicating a reason that Jesus became an outcast for another's sake.  Last week we examined the first reason in Mark 2:1-17 and said that Jesus became an outcast for another's sake because He was focused on forgiveness rather than fitting in.  This week we'll examine the rest of the text in Mark 2:18-3:6 and discover the second reason that Jesus became an outcast for another's sake - because He emphasized faith in Him, rather than faith in the Law.  And to do that we will examine three REASONS why He emphasized faith in Him, rather than faith in the Law.

In Mark 2:18-22 Jesus emphasized faith in Him rather than faith in the Law because faith in Jesus wasn't an addition to the Law - it replaced the Law.  Mark begins in verse 18 with a statement that the disciples of both John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting.  This wouldn't have been a surprise to readers who had an understanding of the Jewish faith.  Fasting was one of the three main pillars of Judaism, along with prayer and alms giving.  And while the only required fast according to the OT was when the Jews celebrated the Day of Atonement, fasting had become a common practice among the Jews and a sign of their religious commitment.  For generations the Jewish religious leaders had worked at clarifying parts of the Law.  There was a fear that those striving to observe the commands of God might accidentally misunderstand parts of the Law and violate the Law as a result of their misunderstanding.  So for generations the Jewish religious leaders had been adding requirements to the Law feeling like they were doing a service to the Jewish people in making sure they did not violate the Law and that they merited God's favor through their obedience.  (In reality, they were heaping more burdens upon the people, many of which God never intended.)  Fasting had become one of those practices that had been added to throughout the generations.  During the time of Jesus fasts were required during times of national tragedy, during times of crisis, and for any number of personal reasons.  Fasting was typically done during times of sorrow or trouble.  So Mark begins verse 18 reminding the readers of the practices of John the Baptist's disciples and the Pharisees disciples to fast and to demonstrate their religious commitment.  Then a question is asked of Jesus, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"  This was a great question by someone who had made a very important observation.  These others Jews who are committed to their faith practice fasting.  Jesus and His disciples do not.  Isn't there a disconnect here?  If Jesus and his disciples were really good Jews shouldn't they be fasting too?  Jesus then gives and answer that is shocking in many ways.  Jesus responds with a question, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them."  Jesus calls to mind the imagery of a wedding celebration as He begins His response.  A Jewish wedding celebration was about as opposite an image of fasting as one could imagine.  Jewish wedding celebrations were celebrations of great joy, there was nothing sorrowful about them.  And one of the best parts of a Jewish wedding celebration was the wedding feast.  A Jewish wedding feast was marked by tremendous amounts of great food and wine.  If ever there was a time when the Jewish people would not want to fast it would be during the time of a wedding celebration.  No one would want to miss out on the food, wine, and joyful celebration.  So for Jesus to use this imagery in his response would have been quite shocking.  Jesus response suggested that it wasn't a time to fast - there was no tragedy, crisis, or any other reason for the people to be fasting.  In fact, Jesus said quite the opposite.  Jesus suggested that His disciples were not fasting because it was a time of celebration.  Why?  That leads us to the second part of this shocking response.  Jesus said that it was a time of celebration because the bridegroom was present.  This was another shocking response, for Jesus was making a reference to Himself.  This response doesn't catch readers who are familiar with the New Testament by surprise, for it is not uncommon for the NT to refer to Jesus as the husband/groom and the church as the bride.  But at the time of His response the NT had not been written and in the OT there is only one person who is referred to as the husband to Israel - God.  So Jesus, in using this imagery, seems to be suggesting that He is God and that His presence is reason for great celebration.  We know this to be true, but this answer would have been an enormous shock to anyone hearing it and it caused great frustration with the religious leaders of the time who did not believe that Jesus was God's Son.  Jesus then uses one more troubling image in His answer.  He says "the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day."  During a normal Jewish wedding celebration it was the guests who would eventually leave, leaving the bride and groom alone with one another.  But Jesus (foreshadowing His death at the hands of the religious leaders and the Romans) says that the bridegroom will be taken away.  Then the celebration would be over and there would be time for the disciples to fast.  So how do we make sense of Jesus' response.  It seems that the people asking the question to Jesus were confused by His and His disciples' lack of conformity to the Law.  It seems that they were troubled by the fact that Jesus and His disciples were not making every effort to be obedient.  And they wanted an explanation.  The response Jesus gives suggests that being a disciple of Christ didn't mean first and foremost having faith in the Law and striving to uphold it, then adding Jesus in where ever He might fit.  Jesus suggested that being His disciple meant first and foremost following Him.  He wanted people to realize that faith in Him wasn't an addition to the Law - faith in Him replaced the requirement of having to perfectly fulfill the Law.  Adding Jesus to the Law would never work.  Jesus further illustrates that in the illustrations He uses in verses 21 and 22.  Jesus is like the new piece of cloth or the new wine.  He can't be added to the old garment  or to the old wineskins.  Trying to do that would ruin both things.  Faith in Christ alone brings salvation - it is a replacement of the Law, not an addition to it.  

Can I ask you to honestly consider the next few question?  Don't rush to answer them right away.  Meditate on them and consider if your answers are honest and true?  In your life, is Jesus an add-on?  Do you fit Him in where it's convenient?  Do you re-create Him and re-shape Him so that He conforms to your life?  Or is Jesus your only hope of salvation?  Have you abandoned every other hope and every other thing that promises salvation to follow Jesus?  Have you needed to conformed your life to follow Him?  If Jesus is simply an add-on like the new material on old clothing or new wine in old wineskins your hope is vain.  Despite what you want to believe or what others have taught for years and years, Jesus proclaimed that faith in Himself wasn't an add-on to the Law - faith in Him replaced faith in the Law.

Mark next introduces a new narrative in 2:23-2:28.  In this narrative Mark continues to build on the theme of Jesus emphasizing faith in Him, instead of faith in the Law.  In verses 23-28 Mark says the second reason Jesus emphasizes faith in Him instead of faith in the Law is because Jesus is superior to the Law.  This narrative begins with Jesus and His disciples walking through the grainfields on a Sabbath day.  His disciples are apparently hungry as they are walking through the grainfields as verse 23 says that His disciples were plucking the heads of grain.  Verse 24 tells us that some Pharisees were looking on and that they clearly viewed this behavior as a violation of the Law - "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?" (vs. 24).  Unfortunately the Pharisees had become so focused on maintaining certain behaviors that they had overlooked important principles and examples of the Old Testament.  Jesus does His best to remind them of these by encouraging them to recall an OT story in which David and some of his men ate the 'bread of the Presence' "which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat."   But perhaps of even more importance are the two explanations He gives in verse 27.  Jesus said first to the Pharisees, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."  Jesus challenged the Pharisees to consider more than just the actions which they prescribed.  It is true one of the Ten Commandments states, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8).  But Jesus challenged the Pharisees to go back to creation itself and to remember why God had instituted the Sabbath day.  God had rested on the seventh day from His work of creation.  And so God instituted the Sabbath day for man's sake as well.  It was a day for man to rest from his labor and a day to focus on the worship of his Creator.  Man had not been created for the sake of the Sabbath.  Rather Jesus reminds the Pharisees that "the Sabbath was made for man . . ."  The Pharisees had become so focused on maintaining right behavior that they had lost sight of the purpose for which God had created the Sabbath.  Often times, when individuals get so focused on the 'doing' of the Law they will loose sight of the One who gave the Law and what His intentions were in giving the Law.  But the last statement of verse 27 might be the most important for us to consider.  There Jesus says, "So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."  The Pharisees knew very well that God had been the One who instituted the Sabbath.  And now Jesus was claiming to be lord over the Sabbath.  Another provoking statement which would have further set Him at odds with the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the Jews.  But Jesus wasn't interested in fitting in with the religious leaders of the day.  He was focused on carrying out the mission of His Father and along with proclaiming the availability of forgiveness of sins, making sure people knew that it was through faith in Him that that forgiveness was extended.  In making this announcement to the Pharisees Jesus wasn't simply announcing that He was lord of the Sabbath, He was proclaiming His superiority over all of the Law.  Had Jesus wanted to fit in with the Pharisees He could have condemned His disciples for their violation of the Law.  But Jesus knew that close fellowship to Him is where salvation is found, not in strict observance of the Law.  People therefore shouldn't put their faith in the Law, but in the One who was superior to it.  This would have been great news for all those who fallen short of the Law.  For now, those who had failed to observe the Law could have hope that forgiveness and salvation was still available through faith in God's Son.

The third and final narrative of this section is in 3:1-6.  In these verses Mark gives a third reason why Jesus emphasized faith in Himself rather than faith in the Law - because faith in Jesus restores, but faith in the Law hardens the heart.  Verse 1 of chapter 3 provides the setting for these verses.  Jesus had entered a synagogue on the Sabbath.  Then Mark gives us a couple of interesting pieces of information.  Mark says "a man was there with a withered hand."  This is a new way of introducing a individual with a need in Mark's gospel.  All through chapters 1 and 2 the individuals with needs came to Jesus for their own healing either on their own initiative or because someone else brought them to Jesus.  This may in fact have been the reason that this man came too.  But what is important is that Mark does not give us that information.  Mark leaves the reader to believe that the man is present but that he is not seeking to draw attention to himself.  Mark also says in verse 2 that the Pharisees had come with the purpose of finding reason to make accusation against Jesus.  We can't find any other example of this in chapters 1 or 2 of Mark's gospel either.  The Pharisees and scribes may have been present in other narratives, but this is the first time we see them present with the expressed purpose of opposition.  Apparently Jesus perceives the intentions of the Pharisees who are present and beginning in verse 3 we will once again find Jesus challenging these men with their understanding and faith in the Law.  In verse 3 Jesus calls the man with the withered hand to Himself.  (We can be certain that Jesus took notice of this man's physical need and that He had compassion on Him, which would explain the reason Jesus calls the man to Himself.  But it is also clear that Jesus is going to use this man to help Him teach a lesson to the Pharisees who happen to be present.)  In verse 4 Jesus asks two questions.  It seems the first is directed toward His own motivations.  Jesus asks, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?  He wanted the Pharisees to consider whether His act of compassion and mercy on a man who needed physical healing was lawful.  Jesus had a choice here - He could do good and heal the man or He could do nothing, leaving the man's hand withered, and in essence be doing him harm by failing to do him the good He was capable of doing.  Then Jesus asks another question.  "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to save life or to kill?  This question stands out among the two because the context of the question doesn't make sense.  Failing to heal this man's withered hand wouldn't have saved his life.  Nor would failing to heal this man's hand have been life threatening.  But Jesus wasn't directing the question towards Himself and His own motivations and actions.  Jesus was directing this second question to the Pharisees.  Jesus knew that their intentions were to accuse Him and (according to verse 6) destroy Him.  And so He asks these religious leaders, the ones who prided themselves on their ability to guard and uphold the law, which was really lawful - to heal a man's hand on the Sabbath or to sit in the synagogue and look for an opportunity to make accusation and condemn Him to death.  It doesn't take an expert in the Law to answer this question.  But verse 4 says the Pharisees remained silent.  They understood the point Jesus was making, but rather than answer Him, their pride kept them from saying anything.  Verse 5 says their silence angers Jesus and that He was grieved by "their hardness of heart."  This is perhaps the scariest portion of the text for us to consider.  These Pharisees believed with all of their hear that they could merit and earn God's favor.  They believed that in observing the Law they were doing what pleased God and what would allow them to know His will and draw close to Him.  They also believed that in observing the Law they were assuring their eternal salvation.  But the opposite was taking place.  In striving to observe the Law and in taking pride in how well they were able to do that, their hearts were actually growing hard.  Their faith in the Law it's sufficiency caused them to believe they could secure their own salvation.  They didn't really need God - they had the Law and believed it was sufficient to get them to Him.  In their efforts to get closer to Him they were actually driving themselves farther away.  Then in verse 5 Jesus gives a command to the man with the withered hand.  Jesus says, "Stretch out your hand."  Remember, Mark doesn't suggest that this man had come with the expressed purpose of seeking healing.  It appears that this man, hearing the command of Jesus has a choice to make.  Is he in faith going to believe Jesus and obey Him, or observing the tension in the room between Jesus and the Pharisees, is he going to fear opposition from the recognized religious leaders and keep his hand withered and broken.  Mark implies that the man chooses faith and obedience to Christ and says that he stretches out his hand and that his hand was restored.  This is outstanding news for this is what faith in Jesus does - it restores!  Jesus came emphasizing faith in Himself rather than faith in the Law because He knew that faith in Him restores and that faith in the Law only hardens our heart.  This message caused Him to be an outcast among the religious leaders and caused Him great opposition.  But this was the mission that the Father had sent Him on and it was for the Father's sake and for our sake that Christ was willing to make Himself an outcast, that we might find salvation and forgiveness of sins in Him.

There were many who thought Columbus was crazy for believing that the earth was round.  But despite the beliefs and the teachings that had been handed down for centuries it was really Columbus who had discovered and proclaimed truth.  For generations the Jews had passed on the belief that strict observance of the Law was what earned one's salvation.  But when Jesus arrived He proclaimed that salvation and forgiveness only came through faith in Him.  Today many people have continued to live with the belief that they can earn their salvation through keeping the Law.  They get their sense of security by comparing themselves to others who they believe have led more sinful lives and believing that that is proof that they have earned God's favor.  But the truth isn't in what is necessarily passed down to us or in what we choose for ourselves to believe.  The truth lies in Christ and His teaching.  Salvation and forgiveness for sins comes only through faith in Him.  That is the reason He emphasized faith in Himself rather than faith in the Law.

I'll close with two verses from Paul's letter to the Galatians.  Paul wrote, "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified"  (Galatians 2:15-16).  

 Questions for Small Group Discussion

1. Read Mark 2:18-22.  We said one reason that Jesus emphasized faith in Him rather than following the Law was because faith in Jesus wasn't an addition to the Law, it replaced the Law.  Do our efforts to be a church which glorifies God start with our own efforts to which we try to add Jesus or is our understanding of the gospel and faith in Jesus where we start and the base upon which we add our efforts?  Would it be easy to switch these two?

2. Read Mark 2:23-28.  Jesus being superior to the Law doesn't give us the freedom to live however we would like.  We still have a responsibility to live lives that glorify and honor God.  What role does or should the Law play in that?

3. Read Mark 3:1-6.  We talked about faith in the Law actually causing our heart to harden rather than drawing us closer to God.  Is there anything we as a church are putting our faith in rather than Jesus?  What is it about our church that gives us a sense of pride?  Is it something that we are doing?  Is there a chance that we might actually need to repent of that source of pride and put our faith in Christ?

4. What step of faith does this passage of scripture require us to take as individuals and as a small group?  How do we work this out on mission?