Thursday, February 4
Read Mark 2
Think About It:
Now the time had come for Jesus to demonstrate to the people what His ministry was all about. After all, He had come to do much more than relieve the afflictions of the sick and the demonized. Those miracles were wonderful, but there was something greater for the people to experience, they could enter into the kingdom of God! They needed to understand the spiritual lessons that were behind the physical miracles He was performing. Our Lord makes it clear that He came to bring to all who would trust Him three wonderful gifts: forgiveness, fulfillment, and freedom.
Forgiveness (2:1-12). Consider this scene through the eyes of the Lord Jesus. When He looked up, He saw four men on the roof with their sick friend. They were deeply concerned about their friend and wanted to see him healed. They had the faith to believe that Jesus could and would meet this need.
When the Lord looked down, He saw the palsied man lying on his mat, and then immediately Jesus went to the heart of the man’s problem – sin. Not all sickness is caused by sin (John 9:1-3), but evidently this man’s condition was a result of his disobedience to God. Even before He healed the man’s body, Jesus spoke peace to the man’s heart and announced that his sins were forgiven! Forgiveness is the greatest miracle that Jesus ever performs. It meets the greatest needs; it cost the greatest price; and it brings the greatest blessing and the most lasting results.
Jesus then looked around and saw the critics who would come to spy on Him. When the Lord looked within, he saw the critical spirit in their hearts and knew that they were accusing Him of blasphemy. After all, only God can forgive sins, and Jesus had just told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven. Jesus was claiming to be God!
But the next instant, He proved Himself to be God by reading their hearts and telling them what they were thinking. Since they wanted to “reason” about things, He gave them some things to ponder: “Which is easier, to heal the man or to tell him he is forgiven?” Obviously it is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven!” because nobody can prove whether or not the forgiveness really took place.
Fulfillment (2:13-22). It soon became evident that Jesus was deliberately associating Himself with the outcasts of Jewish Society. He even called a tax collector to become one of His disciples! He did not argue or delay. He got up and followed Jesus, even though he knew that Rome would never give him back his job. He burned his bridges, received a new name (Matthew, “the gift of God”), and enthusiastically invited some of his “sinner” friends to meet the Lord Jesus. It was exactly the kind of people Jesus wanted to reach. Matthew’s friends were patients who needed a physician, and Jesus was that physician. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.
John the Baptist had already announced that Jesus was the bridegroom (John 3:29), and our Lord had performed His first miracle at a joyous marriage feast (John 2:1-11). Now he was inviting people to come to the wedding!
Jesus taught two important lessons about His ministry: 1. He came to save sinners, not call the righteous; and 2. He came to bring gladness and not sadness. The third lesson is this: He came to introduce the new, not patch up the old. Jesus came to usher in the new, not to unite with the old. The Mosaic economy was decaying, getting old, and ready to vanish away. Jesus would establish a new covenant in His blood (Luke 22:19-20). The law would be written on human hearts, not on stones, and the indwelling Holy Spirit would enable God’s people to fulfill the righteousness of the law (Romans 8:1-4).
Freedom (2:23-3:12). When Jesus began openly to violate the Sabbath traditions, it was like declaring war on the religious establishment. When Jesus began openly to violate the Sabbath traditions, it was like declaring war on the religious establishment.
After healing the man at the pool of Bethesda, our Lord’s next act of “Sabbath defiance” was to walk through the fields on the Sabbath and permit His disciples to pluck the grain, rub it between their hands, and eat it. It was not illegal for a hungry person to take some of his neighbor’s fruit or grain, provided he did not fill a vessel or use a harvesting implement. However, that was not what upset the Pharisees. What upset them was that the disciples had worked on the Sabbath day!
The argument is reasonable: if a hungry king and his men were permitted to eat the holy bread from the tabernacle, then it was right for the Lord of the Sabbath to permit His men to eat the grain from His fields. David broke a definite law given by Moses, for the show bread was for the priests only, but the disciples had violated only a man-made tradition. God is surely more concerned with meeting the needs of people than He is protecting religious tradition. The Pharisees had their priorities confused.
Family Time:
- Have the kids retell, describe, or act out the story of the paralyzed man (verses 1-12).
- Why were the religious leaders upset at Jesus? (verse 7)
- What two things did Jesus say He could do, and then DO in verses 10-11?
- Jesus showed here that He WAS God. It is important that we realize that Jesus was more than just a good man. He was God! In verse 12 it tells us that the people were amazed and glorified God. Are you amazed at the power, love, and goodness of God? Spend a few minutes praising Him!
