Mark 2
Rules, rules, rules! The Law given to
Moses contains some 613 rules. The Pharisees, a group of religious leaders at
Jesus’ time, had added rules on top of those rules – the idea being that if we
make rules that keep people from breaking God’s rules they won’t break God’s
rules and will therefore not sin and incur His wrath. What they had failed to
realize is that the problem of sin is something much deeper than behavior and
the keeping of rules.
Early on in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is
squarely in conflict with the Pharisees over the rules. In chapter 2 we find him dealing with forgiveness,
fasting, and the Sabbath. In all of these situations Jesus shows himself to be
more than the Pharisees (or anyone else) suspects. He also reveals that the human condition is
about more than behavior.
When some people brought a paralyzed man
to Jesus to heal him, Jesus looked and saw the man’s problem was not merely
paralysis but a struggle with his God, and Jesus, as God in human flesh,
addressed the key issue saying, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” When the
Pharisees got up tight about this, Jesus healed the man to prove He had authority
to forgive sins.
People were fasting and expected
everyone to join them, but they noticed Jesus and his disciples weren’t. So they asked Jesus what was up. (Funny how
seeing people eat when you can’t can get a person’s dander up.) Jesus basically
says, this wasn’t a time for fasting but for celebration because He was
there.
The Pharisees were nit-picking the
behavior of Jesus’ disciples because they were breaking one of the rules they
had set up to keep people from breaking God’s Sabbath Laws. Jesus tells them
they’re goofed up; the Sabbath is for people to rest and be refreshed by God,
not to burden them with more rules.
The world still puts rules on God’s
people. “Don’t drink. Don’t talk.
Keep your faith to yourself.”
Jesus has broken the rules for us – which weren’t His rules to begin
with – and has made us free to live as His people … even when others don’t like
it.
Lord Jesus, Help my life to show the freedom
You give me; displayed lovingly as a testimony to the forgiveness You have given
me. Amen.
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