A. Let me begin with a question: when you try to picture Jesus in your mind, how do you picture Him?
1. Do you picture Him being gentle, meek and loving? Certainly, He was all those things.
2. But Jesus also had other characteristics and other sides to Him.
3. When we read the Gospel accounts, we also see that Jesus was bold and powerful, confrontational and controversial.
4. But Jesus was not controversial or confrontational for the sake of being those things, rather, He was only controversial and confrontational when necessary.
5. The times when Jesus got the most confrontational was when He encountered legalistic, self-righteous religion and those who practiced it.
6. Legalistic, self-righteous religion missed the point and was not and is not God’s way at all.
B. Allow me to read a short excerpt from a little, old book called “God is No Fool” by Lois Channing: Once I saw a little boy proudly show his mother a painting he’d made at school. She looked at it, and turned it this way and that, and looked some more. “It’s lovely, just lovely,” she murmured. Suddenly, she exclaimed, “Oh! I see what it is! It’s a house and a tree, and there’s a big sun, and…” The little boy grabbed the paper and bunching it all up he hollered, “That’s not what it meant!”
Did you ever, oh so carefully, lay out just how things were, and how they worked, and why they worked, and then sat back satisfied? Then you heard someone repeat what you’d said, oh so carefully, and you hardly recognized it, and your brain screamed, “That’s not what I meant!”
Sometimes, When I’m talking about God, When I’m praying about God, When I’m working for God. Sometimes, When I’m very busy in the church, about the church, around the church, I wonder if God isn’t sighing, or whispering, or saying, or hollering, “That’s not what I meant!”
C. When Jesus came to this earth, He encountered a religious atmosphere in Judaism that was contrary to God’s will, and therefore, He confronted it “head-on.”
1. Sometimes we see Him provoking certain Jewish religious groups as He tried to wake them up and move them away from their self-made, self-righteous teachings and practices.
2. Today in our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are going to examine four incidents of controversy that Mark grouped together in Mark 2:13-3:6.
3. I want us to notice how strongly and clearly Jesus addressed those questions and controversies, and I want us to examine ourselves and make sure we aren’t falling into the same religious traps or missing the same spiritual truths.
I. The 1st controversy is what we might call “The Association Controversy.” (Mark 2:13-17).
A. This first controversy begins: 13 Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him. (Mk. 2:13-14)
1. Mark introduces us to another of Jesus’ chosen followers, and his name is Levi or Matthew.
a. The use of two names was so common then that we almost expect everyone in the Gospel accounts to have two names.
b. Levi was apparently his given name, but it is possible that Jesus gave him the name of Matthew, which means “gift of God,” perhaps that’s how Jesus viewed Matthew.
c. Interestingly enough, the Gospels of Mark and Luke both initially refer to him as “Levi,” but the Gospel that is written by Matthew himself, uses the name “Matthew.”
2. Matthew lived and worked in Capernaum where Jesus had already made Himself known.
a. Matthew was a tax collector and must have heard Jesus speak and may have witnessed Jesus’ miracles prior to receiving the call to follow Jesus.
b. Jesus made surprising choices with all those He called to be apostles, but Matthew had to be one of the most surprising, perhaps next to Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot.
c. If you think we American’s don’t like paying taxes (which we had to do this week) and if you think we don’t like IRS agents, our dislike is nothing compared with the dislike of Jewish tax collectors at the time of Jesus.
d. Tax collectors were known for inflating their commissions and were hated for cooperating with Rome.
e. They were considered sinners, extortionists and traitors by the common people.
f. Needless to say, tax collectors usually became rich because of their professions.
3. For those reasons, it was very surprising that Jesus would choose Matthew and that Matthew would accept the call and leave his business behind.
a. Jesus saw something in Matthew, and Matthew certainly saw something in Jesus.
b. Matthew probably gave up more to follow Jesus than did Peter and Andrew, James and John – those fisherman could return to their work if they wanted to, but once Matthew turned his back on his Roman employers, there was no going back.
c. Of course, the truth is that all of us who want to follow Jesus have to be willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross and daily follow our Lord – the cost of discipleship is great!
B. Matthew was so thrilled by his calling that he immediately threw a party to introduce his friends to Jesus and shouldn’t we all want to do the same after we have come to know Jesus?
1. Shouldn’t we all want to share Him with the people closest to us?
2. Mark described the scene this way: 15 While he was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who were following him. 16 When the scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (2:15-16)
3. Matthew’s friends were like himself – they were outcasts of the religious and the respectable people of Jewish society.
4. Try to picture the gathering there at Matthew’s house – there was a large group of tax collectors and other sinners – probably the irreligious, perhaps drunkards and prostitutes.
a. And sitting there eating with them was this rabbi named Jesus and His other disciples.
5. Then while the party was going on, the Pharisees, acting like the religious police, came to investigate what was happening.
a. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing, so they pulled aside Jesus’ disciples and asked, “Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
b. In other words, “Why does your rabbi associate with the riff-raff?”
c. It was obvious to the Pharisees that Jesus wasn’t there to preach at those sinners, rather He was befriending them.
d. The Pharisees, in their strict attempt to follow the Law of Moses, had developed various safeguards and barriers to keep Jews from breaking the Law and becoming impure.
e. These safeguards had become traditions which the Pharisees had made equal with the Law, and even superior to the Law in practice.
C. How did Jesus respond to their question?
1. Jesus could have responded, “Perhaps I need to think this over. If the religious authorities think this way about it, then perhaps I better get away from those people. If I’m hurting my influence with the religious leaders by being here then it may endanger my work. My reputation is really important.”
2. Jesus didn’t respond that way because Jesus knew the truth about Himself and the truth about everyone else.
a. Jesus knew that all people are sinners, and yet God loves and is concerned for them all.
3. So, Jesus replied: “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mk. 2:17)
a. By answering the Pharisees in that way Jesus was basically saying: “You are right, these people are sick. These people are hurting, troubled men and women. Their life choices include things that are damaging their souls. But aren’t they the kind of people who doctors try to help?”
b. Jesus declares that He is the great physician who has come to treat spiritually sick, unrighteous individuals.
c. By saying that to the Pharisees, Jesus wasn’t implying that the Pharisees were healthy and righteous, but that the doctor can only help those who know they need help.
d. People who think they have no need from God are in no position to receive God’s help.
4. We meet secular people every day who don’t think they have a spiritual problem, but they do.
a. We also meet religious people who think they are righteous before God because they follow all the rules, but many of the rules they follow are manmade, self-righteous approaches to salvation.
b. God wants all of us to see ourselves as spiritually sick and dead, unless we are putting all our faith in Jesus and His righteousness, for we are saved by grace through faith, and not by works (Eph. 2:8).
5. Another important lesson for us here is that we must not let prejudice keep us from people.
a. God loves and is concerned for every person, even a person living in the depths of sin.
b. Any religious belief that causes us to be prejudice or to write certain people off is not acceptable to God.
c. Jesus reached out to all people regardless of their appearance, reputation, or life-style.
d. Remember: it is the sick who need a doctor and everyone is spiritually sick.
e. The mission of all followers of Jesus is to be a doctor among the sick.
II. The 2nd controversy is what we might call “The Fasting Controversy.” (Mark 2:18-22).
A. Mark introduced this controversy by writing: 18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?” (Mark 2:18)
1. So here we have an unidentified group of offended people who approached Jesus with the question: Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisee’s disciples fast, but your disciples don’t?
2. Evidently, the day that Jesus was eating at Matthew’s house was a religious day of fasting.
3. The Law of Moses required fasting only on the Day of Atonement – only once a year.
a. Strict Jews like the Pharisees had prescribed a twice a week fast on Mondays and Thursdays – of course their fasting was only during daylight hours.
4. Jesus was not against fasting, but neither did He requirespecific days for His disciples to fast.
5. Fasting is a good spiritual discipline for the following reasons:
a. It is a helpful way to focus our prayers.
b. It is a good way to develop mastery over the physical.
c. It is a good way to grow in our appreciation of the simple provisions of God by temporarily denying ourselves of them.
6. Unfortunately, the trouble with the Pharisees was that they often fasted to impress people with their spirituality, rather than to receive God’s rewards.
B. Jesus gave a helpful answer to their appropriate question by using three illustrations: a wedding, patching garments, and wine and wineskins.
1. Mark wrote: 19 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. 21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:19-22)
2. Jesus started with an illustration of a wedding banquet and explained how attendants at a wedding should not fast while the bridegroom is with them.
a. Fasting would not be appropriate during an occasion of feasting. Right?
b. During the wedding week they should be happily feasting and rejoicing.
c. But once the wedding feast is over and the bridegroom is gone, then fasting is appropriate.
d. There was definitely a predictive element to Jesus’ statement that at some point the bridegroom would be “taken from them” – He used a word that suggests a sudden and violent removal.
e. Jesus was referring to His crucifixion, and Jesus was saying that when that happens, when He, the Bridegroom, is crucified, then His disciples will certainly fast and mourn.
3. As Jesus answered the question about fasting, He used it as an opportunity to introduce the idea that the spiritual life He was bringing forth wa very different from the spiritual life that had gone before.
a. The two illustrations He used were simple but were vivid and made the same point.
b. Everyone understood that you can’t use new unshrunk cloth to patch an old garment and you can’t put new wine into old wine skins.
c. New cloth will shrink and old wine skins will burst.
d. The spiritual truths and life that Jesus was bringing forth was new wine and new cloth, the old cloth and old wine skins of Judaism would need to be put aside.
e. Jesus was bringing a new covenant, a new way and period of God’s relationship with us.
f. This new covenant required new expressions, concepts and practices, which are too powerful to be contained in the old laws and ceremonies of Judaism.
4. As we try to apply these truths to our present lives, we must realize that the new wine of Christ cannot be fitted into our old worldly, sinful lives.
a. Christianity is not a mere appendage to our old life, it is not a surface decoration, or a veneer that covers our old life.
b. When we turn away from our old lives, our old self is crucified, and we become new creations.
c. As we follow after Jesus and as we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us, everything about us has to change: our thoughts and desires, our actions and attitudes, and our priorities and goals.
d. Some people try to sew the new patch of Jesus onto their old life, or try to put the new wine of Jesus into their old selves, but that just doesn’t work.
e. The call to follow Jesus is a radical one that was bound to create controversy.
III. The 3rd controversy is what we might call “The Sabbath Controversy.” (Mark 2:23-3:6).
A. This third controversy that Mark introduced had to do with the Sabbath and Mark introduced this controversy with two different incidents.
B. The first incident had to do with picking grain on the Sabbath, Mark wrote: 23 On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
1. What Jesus and His disciples were doing would have been perfectly proper on any weekday.
a. They were not stealing because the Law of Moses allowed a traveler to take and eat grain from anyone’s field as long as they just used their hands to harvest, and didn’t use a sickle.
b. But Jewish tradition had made any harvesting a violation of the Sabbath.
2. The 4th commandment of the 10 Commandments read: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work… (Ex. 20:8-10).
a. The Jewish rabbis had interpreted this command by saying that picking an ear of grain and eating it is work, therefore it violated the 10 Commandments.
b. The tragic thing about this is the fact that the Sabbath was originally given to give humankind rest, and properly observed it was supposed to be a blessing and a joy.
c. But the rabbis had invented thousands of hair-splitting interpretations of what it meant to break the Sabbath that had made it a fearful and terrible burden to bear.
d. For instance, they said it was permissible for a person to spit on a rock on the Sabbath, but if a person spit on the dirt, the spit would make mud and making mud was work.
3. What the disciples had done was not a violation of the Sabbath law of God, but was mainly a violation of the Pharisaic interpretation of the law.
4. Jesus defended His disciples by taking the Pharisees to scripture. Mark wrote: 25 He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry — 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence —which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests —and also gave some to his companions?” 27 Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:25-28)
a. Jesus reminded them of what King David had done when he and his men were hungry.
b. David and his men ate the special bread that was only supposed to be eaten by priests.
c. Jesus was saying, “Why do you find fault with Me and My disciples, when you don’t find fault with David and his men?”
d. Jesus’ point was not that “two wrongs make a right,” but that God’s laws are meant to help, not to hurt.
e. When satisfying a legitimate human need comes into conflict with a priestly requirement or Sabbath observation, then the priority must go to human need.
f. The Pharisees’ legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath rule was wrong.
5. But who was Jesus to judge this matter? He was Lord of the Sabbath!
a. As the Lord who gave the Sabbath, He alone could rightly regulate it and fully know how to observe it.
b. So far in Mark’s Gospel, he has shown Jesus to be someone who taught with authority, and that He was someone who had the right to forgive sins, and now he presents Jesus as someone who has the right to make judgments about the Sabbath.
C. Following this incident in the grainfield, Mark showed Jesus entering the synagogue again and being charged with another Sabbath violation.
1. Mark wrote: 1 Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand. 2 In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.” 4 Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him. (Mark 3:1-6)
2. If Jesus had been a fearful, spinless person, then He could have conveniently arranged not to encounter this crippled man in the synagogue.
a. As we have already seen, the Pharisees’ creation of Sabbath traditions was rigid and uncompromising.
b. Jesus knew they were watching and waiting to condemn Him, and so He deliberately called the man to the center of attention, not only to help the man, but to teach the truth.
3. Rather than fielding their questions, Jesus issued them a question of His own: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”
a. The answer should have been so obvious that even a child could have answered it, but the Pharisees remained silent – they dared not touch the question.
b. To say, “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath,” would justify the healing of this man.
c. To say, “It is not lawful for you to heal this man,” would in effect be saying to heal him is to do evil.
d. Jesus had them in a corner and they knew it.
e. Their stubborn and hard hearts angered Jesus, but it didn’t stop Jesus from doing the loving and amazing miracle of healing the man with the crippled hand on the Sabbath.
4. Through both of these incidents Jesus was making one thing clear: All of God’s laws are intended to help us rather than hurt us.
a. In God’s opinion, religion is made for people, rather than the other way around.
5. Those Pharisees were so hard hearted and blind that they couldn’t appreciate what Jesus had done or wonder why He would do it, rather all they wanted to do was find a way to kill him.
a. The Pharisees distaste for Jesus was greater than their distaste for the Herodians, who were a Jewish political party that had compromised with the Romans, so they were willing to cooperate with them in order to try to destroy Jesus.
b. They knew they would need the political influence of he Herodians to put Jesus to death.
Conclusion:
A. So, what do we learn about our Lord Jesus from today’s study and how does it impact the way we follow Him?
B. We learn that Jesus is someone who meets controversy “head on.”
1. Jesus isn’t just a meek and gentle person who always keeps the peace and avoids controversy.
2. What are the kinds of things that Jesus confronted?
3. He confronted the misconceptions and wrong attitudes and actions of supposed religious individuals.
4. He confronted religious people about whom they wouldn’t associate with.
5. He confronted religious people about their self-made laws that kept them from helping people.
6. He confronted religious people about their self-righteous religious rituals.
C. I want to encourage us to examine ourselves and make sure we look more like Jesus than we look like the Pharisees.
1. First, I hope we are like Jesus in the way we try to build relationships with the sinners and outcasts.
a. It should cause us to stop and think if we find ourselves thinking or saying, “I can’t talk with that person or eat with that person because…they are a different nationality or color, or have a certain lifestyle, or have a certain occupation, or don’t have an occupation at all.”
2. Second, I hope we are like Jesus in serving people in need even if it gets in the way of some of our religious rituals.
a. It should cause us to stop and think if we find ourselves thinking or saying, “I can’t help that person because it is my Sabbath, or because I am on my way to worship, or because this is the time I usually read my Bible and pray.”
3. Are we like Jesus? Are we on Jesus’ side? Or would we find Jesus confronting us?
4. I hope when God looks at each of us and our church, He doesn’t say, “That’s not what I meant!”
5. I hope when God looks at each of us and our church, He says, “Now, That’s what I meant! Well done, my good and faithful follower!”
Resources:
• Truth for Today Commentary: Mark 1-8 and 9-16, Martel Pace, Resources Communications.
• Jesus the Controversial, Sermon by David Owens
