Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6)

2/16/2012 11:21:51 PM

                                                           

Jesus Lord of the Sabbath

(Mark 3:1-6)

1 ¶  He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. 2  They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. 3  He *said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward!" 4  And He *said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. 5  After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6  The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.”

In the last entry we looked at Jesus healing on the Sabbath from Mark 2:23-28 and now we will look again at Jesus healing on the Sabbath proving that He is indeed the Lord of the Sabbath.  Jesus is going to do a healing in this section to prove that He is Lord of the Sabbath, which is what He says to the Pharisees in Mark 2:28, “‘So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’”

We see in verse one that when Jesus went into the synagogue to teach and to preach about the kingdom of God, which is what He had told His disciples that He was going to do earlier in chapter two.  The place where this healing is to take place is not told by Mark, but Jesus was still in His Galilean ministry which was near the Sea of Galilee. 

Now in verse two we learn that Jesus was being watched and those who were watching him were probably the Scribes and the Pharisees who wanted to find something He did to bring charges against Him.  We remember from an early entry that the religious system that was in place in Israel by the Pharisees and the Scribes was false and at the center of this false religion was the Sabbath, and there were a great deal of rules and laws which were binding to those who were involved in this false religion.  In Matthew’s gospel Jesus talks to His audience about being set free from the false religion that the Pharisees had in place when He says, “28  "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29  "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30  "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’”

We see in verses 3-4 that Jesus was not intimidated at all by those who were looking to accuse Him as He calls the man with the withered hand up to Him, and then ask a question to those who were there to watch Him.  Warren Wiersbe says of this, “Our Lords questions in Mark 3:4 were never answered by His enemies.  Since evil is at work every day, including the Sabbath Day, why should good not be at work as well?  Death is always at work, but that should not hinder us from seeking to save life.”

We see something in verse five that you will not find any other place in the NT that is said about Jesus, and that is that Jesus looked at these accusers of His with anger.  We can see other places where Jesus was angry, such as when He cleansed the temple, but it is never said of Jesus that He was angry except here.  Not only was He angry, but at the same time grieved.  His accusers did not want Jesus to heal this man because it was the Sabbath and this would break one of their made up rules, for when we look back at the OT we see only that God told the children of Israel not to work on the Sabbath.  In the book of Nehemiah we see Nehemiah getting mad at people who were allowing work to be done on the Sabbath and made sure that the gates remained closed so no more work could be done on the Sabbath.

Jesus was grieved in His heart at the hardness of their hearts because they had mistaken what the Law actually said about the Sabbath and put in their own traditions in place of the Laws.

Jesus then heals the man’s hand by just speaking to the man and telling him to stretch out his hand.  Jesus restored the man’s hand and it was as good as it was before the problem took place.  That was the way that Jesus healed, for after all that was how man was created in the first place by having God speak, and we read in John’s Gospel that it was Jesus who was involved in creation so it was not new to Him to do something like this.

After reading verse six we can see why Jesus was angry, for the Pharisees had just seen a great miracle and all they could think of was how to have Jesus killed because He was not following their traditions.   

Jesus answer to their unbelief was to leave and go to the Sea of Galilee and we will look at that in the next entry.

We have to make sure what we believe in is truth.  I am not saying that traditions are all wrong, but sometimes traditions go against the Word of God as they did in this section of Mark.