Sermon Tone Analysis

Mark 2:1-3:6

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Introduction

How many times in your life have you had to shift your way of thinking?

Our world has changed so much in the last 100 years that many of us have had to shift the way we approach things.

There may be a few of you here who still remember doing farm work with horses.

I actually remember visiting my uncle’s farm for a week in summer and putting up hay by piling it on a wagon pulled by horses.

Today, tractors are equipped with auto steer and GPS and the way you think about what can be accomplished and how much land you can farm has changed significantly.

I doubt if any of you remember a time when telephones did not exist, but there will be many of you who remember when there was one phone in the house and you had a party line with your neighbors and you could listen in on their calls and ask them to get off the phone if you needed to make a call and they were on too long.

The shift in thinking to cell phones today has been a huge change.

I remember within the last ten years going on a vacation and being careful to take only about 3 or 4 rolls of film because of the cost.

When we went to Israel, we took over 2000 pictures.

That is a significant change in thinking.

Changing the way we think is not always easy and different people have varying degrees of success at making changes.

No change has ever been as radical as the change in thinking which came when Jesus appeared on earth.

When Jesus first came, some, especially the Jewish leaders, had a great deal of difficulty accepting that a shift was taking place.

Sometimes I wonder if we have successfully made that shift.

Mark 2:1-3:6 helps us think about these things.

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I.                   What is Mark’s Point?

In writing the gospels, the writers did not write everything that happened to Jesus.

Although what they wrote is a historical account, it is not a detailed account written just to give the details.

As they wrote, they chose to record those things that communicated some teaching.

Each gospel writer was writing with a specific audience in mind and with a specific message to communicate.

What is Mark’s point in Mark 2:1-3:6?

Why is this a text unit?

!! A.                 Escalating Conflict

There are already hints in Mark 1 that there is a conflict brewing between Jesus and the religious leaders.

When we read in 1:22 that Jesus taught, “…not as the teachers of the law...” we can guess that trouble is on the horizon.

One of the things that happens in Mark 2:1-3:6 is that that reality is specifically addressed and quickly escalates to the point at which Jesus life is in danger.

Please take note of this escalating conflict.

In Mark 2:5, we read that the teachers of the law were “thinking to themselves, ‘Why does this fellow talk like that?

He’s blaspheming!’”

This is the first hint of conflict, but it is not outward, it is simply in their hearts.

The next level of conflict is revealed in 2:16 where we read that the teachers of the law, “…asked his disciples…” They were not bold enough to address Jesus, but they were getting agitated enough to talk to the disciples.

In 2:24, they become bolder and actually confront Jesus about the supposed transgressions of his disciples.

Then in 3:2 we have a sense that their anger and suspicion is growing as we read that “they were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely.”

Finally, in 3:6, the conflict escalates to the point where they even collaborate with their own enemies in order to plot, “how they might kill Jesus.”

Besides the passion story itself, there are two sections in Mark which speak about the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders.

This is one of them and it seems quite deliberate that Mark wrote these stories in the way he did to reveal this growing conflict.

It is a rapid deterioration and although Jesus does not provoke them to anger, he does not hide from doing what He does and being faithful to his call.

Why does the person and work of Jesus provoke them?

!! B.                 New Wineskins

The answer is that what Jesus was teaching and living was radically different from what the Jewish leaders were teaching and living and His way threatened their way.

!!! 1.                 Chiasm

There is a particular way of writing Scripture, which, if we understand it, helps us come to a clearer understanding of what Scripture is saying.

It is called a chiasm.

The way it works is that an idea is given, a second idea is given, then a third idea is given.

Then the second idea is repeated and then the first idea is repeated.

What this literary device does is function like a funnel.

A funnel brings everything to the center and the chiastic arrangement draws our attention to the center in order to understand that the main idea which is being presented is at the center of the text.

The middle is the heart and interpretive center of the passage.

This style of writing was very common in the literature of the Jewish people and we find it quite often in the Psalms and also in other writings.

In our culture, we are not really familiar with this way of writing and so we need to have it pointed out to us, but the Jewish people who read this would have immediately seen that this was happening and would immediately have perceived that main point of the passage was at the center of the passage.

In this section, we have such a style of writing.

Different commentators have seen different themes which draw our attention to the center of the passage.

Harrington outlines the passage in this way:

A – 2:1-9 – cure by Jesus, silence of adversaries, questioning in their hearts

   B – 2:10-12 – declaration on the Son of Man

      C – 2:13-17 – action of Jesus, opponents’ reaction to disciples

            D – 2:18-22 – sayings of Jesus on bridegroom and newness

      C – 2:23-26 – action of disciples, opponents’ reaction to Jesus

   B – 2:27-28 – declaration on the Son of Man

A – 3:1-6 – cure by Jesus, adversaries’ silence, hardness of heart.

Another writer points out the following common themes:

A – healing – 2:1-12

   B – eating – 2:13-17

      C – center of the passage which is the main point.

B – eating – 2:23-27

A – healing – 3:1-6

!!! 2.                 A New Way

            So one of the main ideas of this passage is what is stated in Mark 2:21-22.

We have already seen that this passage presents an escalating conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.

A moment ago I asked, “Why was there a conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders?”

The answer is found in these two verses.

The religious leaders were steeped in the “traditions of the elders.”

Although what they taught and lived was based on the Old Testament, it had had so many layers of ideas added to it that at this point it was already beyond what God had intended in the first place.

The Jewish leaders were the teachers and keepers of the traditions of the elders.

As Jesus began to teach and demonstrate the power of God they began to realize that what He was teaching was contrary to what they were teaching.

In this statement, Jesus was saying that their teaching and his teaching were incompatible.

He speaks of clothing and points out that if you have an older piece of clothing and you want to patch it you don’t use new material to patch it.

The new piece will shrink and tear the older part of the garment and you will have a bigger problem.

An old piece of clothing with a patch made of new material is incompatible.

In a similar way, if you put new grape juice which has not yet fermented, in an old container, it will ferment and stretch the old container beyond its breaking point and you will lose both the container and the wine.

In other words, an old container and new wine are incompatible.

What Jesus was saying in this section is that He was bringing a new way of thinking.

Although His teaching was compatible with the teaching of God in the Old Testament, it was not compatible with what the religious leaders were teaching.

That is the explanation for why the spiritual leaders had a growing conflict with Jesus.

They were not ready for the change which Jesus was bringing.

Their worldview and that of Jesus just did not fit together.

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II.

The Way of God’s Kingdom

So Jesus was bringing a new way of thinking.

Throughout the passage that new way of thinking is being described through the teaching and ministry of Jesus.

It is very important for us to understand the way of the kingdom of Jesus because we live in this new kingdom.

What are the principles of the kingdom which Jesus is introducing?

Jesus is preaching good news, gospel.

What is that gospel?

As we examine these stories, we will learn three important aspects of the gospel message and as we are reminded of them, we need to ask ourselves, “Have I made the change to the new kingdom?”

Sometimes I wonder if the conflict the religious leaders had with Jesus is not also the conflict we have with the way of the kingdom.

Is it possible that we share the worldview of the Jewish religious leaders?

Have we made the shift in thinking to fully embrace the kingdom of Jesus?