Is Anyone Else Seeing This? (Mark 5:35-43)

In 400 BC, Aristotle ranked sight as the most importance sense, then hearing, then smell, taste, and touch.^[1] Sight, he said, was the most essential to experience and survive in the world.

It’s hard to overestimate how much we rely on sight. Did you know that the olfactory bulb, which is like our CPU for smelling, takes up about 0.01% of our brain matter. Just 3% of your neurons are dedicated for hearing.^[2] But the visual cortex takes up about 1/3 of your entire brain.

It makes sense. Seeing is terribly important in life, not only as we experience it but as we make choices accordingly.

It’s a bit of a shock, then, when the Apostle Paul hits us with eight of the most famous words in all the Bible – words you may have adorning the walls of your home:

2 Corinthians 5:7 – ⁷ For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Paul was not just speaking in esoteric or theoretical terms. That verse comes to us as he discusses life and death, the suffering we experience, our burdens and our hopes.

According to Paul, these eight words should regulate our lives, our attitudes, our choices, and our understanding of what is really true, even if we can’t see it. We walk by faith, not by sight.

That is easier said than done. Easier read than lived. And yet, that is the kind of faith that Christ calls us to – one that willfully, actively trusts Him and obeys Him, in spite of what our eyes may see.

In our text, there are multiple groups who come to an intersection of faith and sight. Would they not only believe, but a faith that obeys, despite what they saw or expected? Let’s take a look.

Mark 5:35 – ³⁵ While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?”

Jairus is the name of the synagogue leader. He would’ve been a man of high social standing, probably a man of means, seen as a pillar in the community. On this day, he was just a desperate father. He came to Jesus and begged Him to come lay His hands on his daughter. Jesus was on the way when they were interrupted by the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment.

At this point, a lot of commentators say that these messengers were showing anger or derision toward Jesus – that if He hadn’t slowed down the girl wouldn’t have died. That they thought if He really cared, He would’ve hurried.^[3] But, how long of a delay do you think it really was? Ten minutes at most? And, obviously the girl died before they sent the messengers, who then came and found Jairus. So, this wasn’t some long delay.

I don’t see anger here, rather they’re coming and saying, “It’s over.” Even if this marvelous Teacher had healed lepers and cast out demons. Death was different. Death was the end.

And, sadly, death was all too common, especially among children. Some records show that 50% of children did not survive into adulthood in that part of the world.^[4] But, whether Jairus waited too long to humble himself and come to see the Rabbi from Nazareth, or whether the illness simply moved faster than he anticipated, now, according to these eye-witnesses, the girl was gone.

Mark 5:36 – ³⁶ When Jesus overheard what was said, he told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”

Don’t you love how aware and observant Jesus is? There’s a mob of people pressing in on Him and He feels a woman touch His tassels. While He’s finishing up His conversation with her, He hears what these guys say. Be encouraged that no matter what it looks like or what you might be feeling, our Lord sees you, He sees what’s going on in your life, He sees into the deepest part of your heart, He hears your prayers, and He intends to commune with you all the days of your life.

Now, these messengers came with a true report: Jairus’ daughter was no longer among the living. But Jesus immediately grabs this father’s attention and effectively says, “Don’t look at them. Don’t listen to them. Listen to Me.” Jesus’ message to Jairus was, “Stop being afraid, just keep on believing.”^[5] The word He used for “believe,” linguists point out is in the present, continual sense.^[6] Right here, right now, despite the report, despite the apparent evidence, Jairus had a choice. Standing face-to-face with his worst fear, would he choose belief over fear?

We don’t hear his response, but we see it as he walks on with the Lord.

Mark 5:37 – ³⁷ He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother.

These three are often referred to as the “inner circle” of Jesus’ disciples. They would also be at the Transfiguration and Jesus will bring them further into the Garden of Gethsemane than the others.

Now, let’s be honest for a minute. How would you feel to be left out? To not be picked to witness the greatest miracle anyone had ever seen thus far? Imagine you’re Andrew, Peter’s brother. I mean, you’re the one who brought Peter to Jesus! You’re the one who said, “I think we’ve found the Messiah.” And you see these other brothers get to go together. And your brother is getting these special opportunities, while you hang out in the street.

The truth is, if we were ranking disciples based on what we read in the Gospels, I think we would put Andrew as starting quarterback. But that’s not what the Lord did. And it’s not because these other guys had better faith. I don’t know why Jesus made these choices. But He did. The question for the nine was, would they still believe with obedience when it looked like they were being sidelined? Did they trust the Lord enough to not be jealous? To not become bitter or resentful? To not start comparing themselves to the other disciples? But to obey faithfully and trustingly, even when the situation looked a bit embarrassing for them?

Mark 5:38 – ³⁸ They came to the leader’s house, and he saw a commotion—people weeping and wailing loudly.

Matthew’s account explains that there’s a crowd of people here along with flute players.^[7] This clues us in to the fact that at least some of these people are professional mourners. Believe it or not, that was the custom. In fact, in the Mishnah – which was completed in about 220 AD – even the poorest Jews were encouraged to hire at least two flutists and one wailing woman when someone died.^[8] Jairus, being a synagogue leader probably had a larger group.

If it seems like it was too soon for all this, remember this is first century Palestine. No coroner is coming. No refrigeration. Bodies decomposed quickly, so burial happened quickly.^[9] Given how many people were already there, it seems the family had expected this little girl to die.

In the house there would’ve been a lot going on. The wailing included instruments plus choral or antiphonal singing accompanied by handclapping. Mark says it was an uproar.^[10]

He also keeps calling Jairus “the leader.” Why keep using his title when we know his name? Well, it puts his plight in perspective. You see, he was supposed to see to the care of the synagogue. He was supposed to see to the care of his family. He was supposed to be the one people could follow for spiritual guidance. His title could be translated a “ruler” of the synagogue.^[11] But in reality, he was in just as much need as the Gadarene demoniac or the woman with the issue of blood. The leader would have to exercise enough faith to follow the Lord, Who was the true Ruler of nature, of the supernatural, of disease, and of death. And the true Ruler was also the real Master of the house.

Mark 5:39 – ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.”

Some will use this verse to say that the girl wasn’t actually dead but that she was just in a coma. All three of the synoptic Gospels – including the one written by a physician – agree that she was dead. The New Testament, at times, uses sleep metaphorically when speaking of death. And certainly, from Christ’s vantage point, she was about to wake back up into this life.

Jesus was asking this group to believe in a big way. There’s the body – lifeless. But He asks them to ignore what they see and instead choose to believe Him. Faced with the sight of death, would they believe in Christ’s new life?

Mark 5:40 – ⁴⁰ They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was.

The phrasing indicates that they not only laughed, but they kept jeering at Him.^[12] The fact that they could switch so quickly from wailing to scoffing shows they didn’t actually care for this family. They’re working a job. And, frankly, for being professionals, they aren’t acting very professionally.

But man oh man are they going to miss out. And they miss out because they chose to see rather than believe. Luke explains, “They laughed at Him because they knew she was dead.”^[13] They saw it with their own eyes! But what they thought was rock-solid, superior knowledge was the very thing that led to their exclusion. In this moment they lived by sight, not by faith.

Jesus had no desire to impress them or even to shame them by proving them wrong. So He tossed them all out. The term used for “put them outside” is one Mark also uses for casting out of demons.

Mark 5:41 – ⁴¹ Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”).

Jews living in Palestine at this time spoke Aramaic.^[14] They would need to know Greek, too, given their proximity to Greek-speaking Gentiles in the region, but Aramaic was the language they used at home and with each other. Religious Jews like Jesus would’ve also known Hebrew. In fact, we see Jesus reading a Hebrew scroll in Luke chapter 4.^[15]

But His day-to-day speech was Aramaic. The nicknames He gave Peter, James, and John were all Aramaic. There are a variety of other Aramaic words we come across in the Gospels.

Here the phrase is very simple and very tender. He calls this child, “Little girl,” or it could also mean, “Little lamb.”^[16] And once again we see Him take someone by the hand. He did so for Peter’s mother-in-law. He touched lepers. He touched cripples. He touched the demon possessed. He is a Savior Who is not afraid to embrace us – to handle our lives and hold us in His hand.

Mark 5:42 – ⁴² Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded.

This was not the girl’s final resurrection – sadly she would have to die again one day – but this is one of the most important events in human history. Because the One Who came saying He was the Christ had now raised the dead.

Paul would explain in 1 Corinthians 15, “[Christ] must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death.”

This scene was not the final abolition of death, but it was a precursor. Jesus is the One. He really is the Messiah that will save us from sin, from death, from hell, and bring us everlasting life.

The gir immediately started walking. No slow rousing, no initial weakness or confusion. She demonstrates how Christ raises us up – we were dead in trespasses and sins – and He raises us to a life of walking. Walking with Him. Immediately empowered by His Word and His enabling.

And this stack of stories in Mark 5 shows that the Lord involves Himself with all who have faith in Him – He does not exclude people. He will save young or old, Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, chronically ill or suddenly stricken, “holy” looking people or defiled people, people of high social status or those who have been cast out. He is the Lord of all, the Savior of all.

For their part, the 5 witnesses didn’t know what to think. They were astounded. Bewildered. They could hardly believe what they had just seen. So, the Lord helped with some instruction.

Mark 5:43 – ⁴³ Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

Wait – how could they not tell people? All the people just outside the door are going to see the girl alive in like 2 minutes.

We don’t really know why Jesus put this restriction on them. Maybe Jesus wanted to avoid being invited to every funeral in the nation for the foreseeable future.^[17] Maybe He wanted to try to shield the girl from the kind of non-stop attention she might get.

It doesn’t really matter. That’s what He asked. “But Lord, this looks like a great opportunity to prove to the Scribes and the Pharisees You are the Messiah.” But this is what He wanted.

And then, He very tenderly sees to her ordinary needs. Let’s get this girl a sandwich! Let’s have some lunch. The Lord does care for our ordinary things. He’s a hands-on Master and Friend to us.

Would Jairus believe in the face of fear? Would the mourners believe in spite of what they saw? Would the 9 believe when they wanted to see what He’d do? Would the parents believe God’s next steps after this miracle were better than what conventional wisdom might dictate?

Do we walk by faith and not by sight? We’re supposed to. We’re supposed to live out our daily, ordinary lives by prioritizing and trusting the Word we’ve heard and the leading we’ve received. The problem is, our sight gets in the way.

There is a fascinating phenomenon researchers call the McGurk effect. It demonstrates how our brains prioritize what we see over the evidence of other senses like hearing. In fact, our brains will sometimes see something and then override what we hear, telling us we’ve heard something else, even when it’s not true.^[18]

Not a big deal when we’re talking about “Ba” and “Fa,” but it becomes a very big deal when we’re talking about what the Lord has said versus what we see in life around us. May we be those who trust our Lord for Who He is and live in such a way that we stop being afraid but keep on believing.

There Won’t Be Blood (Mark 5:21-34)

In the 1920’s, cattle were mysteriously dying across the prairies of North America. Previously healthy herds began to hemorrhage, seemingly without cause.^[1] By 1933, one farmer was desperate enough to drive 200 miles through a blizzard to try to reach the state veterinarian. But, it was Saturday, and the offices were closed. With nowhere else to go, the farmer walked into a chemistry lab at the University of Wisconsin. A professor and his assistant were there and the farmer showed them a dead cow, a pile of hay, and a milk jug of the cow’s blood.^[2]

They were able to diagnose the problem: The hay was the blame. Actually, it was the mold that had grown on the hay. You see, during the financial hardship of the 20’s and 30’s, many farmers could not afford to replace feed when it spoiled. And so, their herds would eat only to bleed out.

The fix ended up being very straightforward: Give the cows new feed. And if an animal was already starting to bleed, they just needed a transfusion of fresh blood.

Blood and healing are the focus of our text tonight. A hemorrhaging woman fights through a squall of people, in a desperate act of faith. Her hope does not disappoint, even if it was a bit misguided.

Mark 5:21 – ²¹ When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea.

Luke explains that this crowd of people welcomed people with great expectation. But in this great mass of people, I want us to notice that only one person experiences a meaningful interaction with Jesus and an outpouring of His power.

Mark 5:22-23 – ²² One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet ²³ and begged him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well, and live.”

As “president” of the synagogue, Jairus would’ve been a highly respected person.^[3] He’s toward the top of the Jewish social ladder. He’s probably a person of means. But facing the death of his only daughter,^[4] Jairus jettisons all dignity and pride and falls at the feet of Jesus.^[5]

The last person we saw someone in this position was the demoniac of the Gadarenes. He begged Jesus to leave him alone. Here an anguished father begs Jesus to come see his little girl. He knows he needs Jesus up close, hands on. The power he heard about and had seen, now he needed it.

Mark 5:24 – ²⁴ So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.

Luke explains that the crowd was nearly crushing Jesus. It’s so bad it’s getting hard to breathe.^[6] The crowds of Mar are always so interesting. Because, on the one hand, they welcome Jesus, but on the other hand, they’re so selfish and short-sighted that they are actually doing Him bodily harm. And how could they have so little compassion? Here’s this father, he says, “My daughter is at death’s door.” Jesus says, “Let’s go save her.” And no one clears a path. No one tries to help. And they don’t even seem to actually want anything along the way. They’re just in the way.

But notice, it says they were “following.” That’s a charged word in the Gospels. Looking at this scene, is this crowd listening to Jesus? Are they obedient toward Jesus? Do they recognize Jesus for Who He is? The facts of the case bear out the answer is no. They can see Him. There He is, within arm’s length. And yet for all but one there is no interaction – no experience of power or transformation or relationship. Heaven help us when our “following” becomes lifeless like that. That we can be in His presence, hear Him speak, be among other disciples, yet go away unchanged, unaffected, only thinking about ourselves rather than the desperate needs all around us.

Mark 5:25-26 – ²⁵ Now a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years ²⁶ had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse.

The most expensive medical treatment out there is a heart transplant. It comes in at about $1.3 million.^[7] This poor lady didn’t spend a million bucks, but she did spend all she had. Her problem was uterine or menstrual in nature.^[8] And that would’ve caused so many other issues in her life.

Apart from the pain and the discomfort and the other troubles caused by loss of blood, her relationships would’ve been totally destroyed. You see, she would spend every day of these 12 years ceremonially unclean. Not only could she not go to the Temple to worship, she couldn’t do day-to-day things with other people since that would make them ceremonially unclean.^[9]

She’d be unable to have children. And so, she either would’ve never married or if she had been married, her husband likely divorced her, which men at that time often did when their wives could not bear children.^[10] Her life was one of pain and isolation and embarrassment and hopelessness.

And then came the doctors. The Jewish rabbis had a saying, “The best physician is worthy of Gehenna.”^[11] That is certainly unkind hyperbole, but this lady not only suffered from her illness, she suffered from the treatments, too. We have records of the kinds of things doctors did for problems like this. There were strange concoctions she would have to drink. One ritual was to carry the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag around her neck or carry barley corn from the dung of a white female donkey.^[12] Or, she could stand in the intersection of two roads, holding a cup of wine and have someone come up behind her and scare her and say, “Arise from thy flux!”^[13]

Funny unless it’s you’re the one paying the bill and drinking the sluice.

But here’s what’s important: God cared about this woman’s suffering. Now, she was not important like Jairus. She had no standing in the community, in fact she was the absolute opposite, socially speaking. But God was mindful of her life, He saw her suffering, and He cared enough to help her.

God’s watchful, merciful attitude toward our suffering is a long running theme throughout the Bible. The Lord sees, He knows, He cares, and He promises that we can cast our cares on Him.

Like the demoniac in our last passage, there was nothing any humans could do to help this poor lady. They had tried and only made things worse. But Christ Jesus has power over demons and disease and, we’ll see next time, death.

Mark 5:27-28 – ²⁷ Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing. ²⁸ For she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I’ll be made well.”

In some ways, her courageous faith was inspiring. But it was quite imperfect. She thinks of Jesus’ power in a superstitious way – that it can be transferred magically or mechanically.^[14] Though we don’t blame her for wanting healing, she didn’t see the need to speak with Jesus. She didn’t intend to worship Him or become His disciple. Now, maybe that’s because she thought He wouldn’t have her, as an unclean outcast of Jewish society, but nevertheless, there is a vending machine, transactional character to her faith.

This is a pattern any of us can slip into. We believe the Lord has power, we go to Him with certain things that are important to us, things that are troubling us, and we pray, “Lord, solve this problem or fix this issue in my life.” But we need to remember that we don’t only need that issue fixed. At the same time we all need a heart transplant – the biggest job of all. We all need spiritual brain surgery. We all need spiritual rehabilitation. We all need more than we realize from our Great Physician.

But at least she knew Jesus could save. She reached out to Him, while the crowd seemingly just pressed onto Him, asking nothing of Him. They were faithless or simply blind to their own needs.

Mark 5:29 – ²⁹ Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

What a beautiful testimony of God’s amazing grace. Yes, her faith was imperfect, but God still rewarded her imperfect faith.

All of our faiths are imperfect, by the way. Thank God He condescends to our weakness. He does so because He wants to transform our lives with His love and power.

In an instant, the Great Physician did what a decade of doctors could not. She was totally, fully healed of her affliction.

That’s an interesting word. It’s the word used for a lash or a whip. The scourge used to flog people in the synagogue.^[15] Jesus took her scourge away. And He was willing, ultimately, to literally take the greater scourge of the Romans, pouring out His blood so we could be saved. By His stripes we are healed. And now, not only does the Lord save us from our afflictions and sufferings, because of the divine power He pours out on us, now we know that our current afflictions are only momentary and they are producing in us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.^[16] Quite a treatment.

Mark 5:30 – ³⁰ Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”

Why call her out? Why not just give her a knowing nod and let her go? It’s because Jesus does not want to have a transactional relationship with you. He wants to have a real, personal relationship with you. And He wanted her (and us) to understand it wasn’t His clothes that saved her.

He wants her to know some things not just about His power, but about His love and about what this healing means for the rest of her life. That He knows her and loves her and sees her.

Mark 5:31-32 – ³¹ His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” ³² But he was looking around to see who had done this.

They say there are no stupid questions. That’s not how the disciples felt at the time. Their answer was harsh.^[17] Sarcastic.^[18] They seem annoyed. Jesus doesn’t didn’t bother to answer them.^[19]

If the Lord asks you a question, it’s never a bad question. It’s not a stupid question. Sometimes God asks us very straightforward, obvious questions because we are missing the obvious lesson. We need to be humble and sensitive to what He asks, not dismissive or annoyed.

Mark 5:33 – ³³ The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

Why was she so afraid? Well, she had just broken the Law. A woman with her affliction was supposed to notify everyone around her about her uncleanness. And anyone she touched would immediately become unclean, too. So now she is exposed and has to say why she touched Jesus…and all the dozens of other people she pressed through to get to Him.

Now, she had a private, transformational experience with God in the sense that she was healed and no one knew it at first. Sometimes Christians argue over whether a person need to say a prayer or go forward at an altar call when they get saved. The truth is, salvation happens in the heart. And so, that can happen in a public display or in the solitude of your own home. But, even though her rescue happened privately, Jesus asked her to give public testimony.

Mark 5:34 – ³⁴ “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.”

He was not trying to embarrass her, He wanted to instruct her. He wanted her to know that He considered her His daughter. This is the only time Jesus calls a woman daughter in the Gospels.^[20] And what a comfort it must of been to know that no bill was coming in the mail. He healed her for free. She didn’t make Him unclean. He solved all those problems.

And He wanted her to understand that she wasn’t only healed of a sickness, but that this faith relationship she had with the Savior meant she could go from then on in peace. A word that means wholeness of wellbeing because of right relationship with God.^[21] He said, “Be healed from your affliction.” She might say, “I already am.” But Jesus was saying, “No, the restoring and peace starts now. There’s more. You’re going to go from this place becoming more whole day by day.”

How else might He intend to make her whole? That was the question. That’s our question, too. God’s intention is that we not just be around Him – that we not just see what He says in His word or come to church or hang around other Christians and then go away unchanged. He wants to transform us and fill our lives with His power and make us whole. But we have to have faith. We have to recognize that, yes, I need the Savior to save me. And that day-by-day, as I “follow” Jesus, there’s always some treatment He intends, not only for my good, but also so that the watching crowds around me can also have their lives saved.

Jairus is about to be told, “It’s too late. There’s no hope. Your daughter is dead.” But Jesus turns to him and says, “Don’t be afraid. Believe.” What had Jairus just seen? This woman’s life restored. Transformed. Saved.

Back in 1930, those University of Wisconsin researchers didn’t stop with diagnosing what those cattle were dying from. They realized something in this fungus made the cows’ blood thin out. Fast forward another 10 years and in 1940 they developed a way to control the process for medical purposes and invented Warfarin or you may have heard it called Coumadin.^[22] It is now one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, saving countless lives of stroke patients or heart attack victims. So not only were they able to stop the suffering of the prairie cattle, but also to use the suffering that had already happened to save many other lives for decades to come.

God wants to transform your life. He sees your struggles and not only wants to care for you in them, He wants to care for others through them. Our part is to understand Who Jesus is, believe it, and reach out in faith so He can do what He wants to do in us. We don’t just gather to see Jesus pass by. To hear His word in one ear and let it go out the other. Faith means we understand Who He is and reach out, trusting that He has life for us. Salvation and rescue and transformation that we desperately need.

When Pigs Fly (Mark 5:1-20)

I had quite a scare recently. In the middle of the night, our dog started barking. It wasn’t her small chirp that lets us know she’s bored and would like to see what’s going on outside. No, this was as loud and tense as I’ve ever heard her – something had intruded.

I went out to the front room and there, in the shadows, I could make out a round, head shape at eye level, about 3 yards from me. It moved ever so slightly and I knew I had very little time to react. Instinctively, I turned on the light and now could see the intruder clearly: It was a birthday balloon that had wafted in from the other room when the A/C kicked on.

This section of Mark is fright night. I usually think of the encounter with the Gadarene demoniac as being a daytime event but Mark told us that it was evening when they got into the boat at Capernaum. Normally it takes about two hours to get to the other side of the sea.^[1] Even assuming the storm slowed them down, there’s no reason for us to think it was yet morning.

Have you ever been followed at night? The disciples, who are already terrified as of chapter 4, verse 41, land on shore and see a grotesque man, bleeding, naked, staring them down as he ran toward them. Oh, and it’s all happening with a graveyard as the backdrop. Scary stuff.

Mark 5:1-2 – ¹ They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. ² As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.

The Gospel of Matthew and Luke both record this event. In Matthew we see there are two demon-possessed men. It’s not a contradiction, just a matter of story-telling perspective.

The Devil’s artillery failed to stop Jesus’ arrival, so he turned to troops. A legion of demons is dispatched to resist the Lord. Of course Jesus could have called down more than 12 legions of angels to protect Himself.^[2] But Jesus Christ didn’t need bodyguards, even behind enemy lines.

The Gerasenes was Gentile controlled.^[3] He’s in an unclean land, among unclean tombs, facing an unclean Gentile, full of unclean spirits. But, Jesus goes there so He might bring deliverance and preach the Good News. Exorcisms happened in the sacred synagogue and the Gentile graveyard.

Mark 5:3-5 – ³ He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore—not even with a chain— ⁴ because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

We want our heroes to be fantastically strong – Captain America, Wolverine, Mr. Incredible. Much different story when the monster next door has that kind of power. This guy had supernatural strength. When’s the last time you broke through metal chains? The whole community had tried to contain this menace with zero success. No one was strong enough to subdue him. You couldn’t bind him or stop him. In that description, Mark was using “as strong an expression as imaginable.”^[4]

But now, let’s realize how horrible the situation was for the man himself. He was dying in slow motion. He lived among the dead. He was cast out to starve. He spent his days shouting into the dark and slicing his own flesh, his life ebbing away a little more each day.

If you’re not a Christian here tonight you need to know: This is you. I’m not saying you’re demon possessed, but you are dying in slow motion. You were born dead in trespasses and sins and no matter how strong you may feel, you are headed toward eternal death unless you are rescued and revived by Jesus Christ. There is salvation in no other name. But He wants to save you. That’s why He came to earth. To seek and to save the lost. He came to give you life.

Mark 5:6-8 – ⁶ When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him. ⁷ And he cried out with a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you before God, don’t torment me!” ⁸ For he had told him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

Your version may say the man came and “worshiped” Him, but let’s not get confused about what’s happening here. The demons are not singing praises. In fact, their opening line was a colloquial saying that meant something like, “What have I done to You that You should do this to me?”^[5] In Matthew’s account, the demons also say to Jesus, “What a minute – You’re early. You’re here ‘before the time.’” And, as we’ve seen before, it seems the demons Jesus encountered sometimes tried to gain an upper hand against Him by using invoking His earthly name and heavenly title.^[6])

The demons also try to boss Jesus around, demanding that He swear to God in an oath that He won’t torture them.^[7] It’s ironic: They’re worried about being tormented after all they had done to this poor man. They made sport of torturing him. Luke says he had been that way for a long time.^[8]

But it’s interesting – they had some measure of understanding, they immediately recognized Him. They knew His name. They knew He had absolute power that could not be withstood. But they were simultaneously in the dark about many other things when it came to Jesus and His work.

So, they were not worshiping Jesus. But they could not help but pay Him the homage He was due as the Son of the Most High God. Philippians tells us that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord.^[9]

A person may mock Jesus, rebel against Him, run from His commands, but one day, Christ will return, and then they, too, will be on their knees before the King of kings.

Let’s recognize one more thing: They knew that Jesus and His Father were both merciful. That He might not destroy them, though that’s what they deserve. Did their master, the Devil, show any mercy to Job? Had they shown any mercy to this man? But the God of the Bible is a God of mercy.

Isaiah 30:18a – ¹⁸ Therefore the LORD is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion…

Jesus was willing to show these unclean spirits a measure of mercy. Now, He was not willing to allow them to continue what they were doing to this poor man. And remember, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And these demons were feeding on one of those Christ came to save. And so He would not fail to rescue this man and bring him from death to life.

Mark 5:9-10 – ⁹ “What is your name?” he asked him. “My name is Legion,” he answered him, “because we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region.

There is some suggestion that demons are assigned and attached to certain areas, but that doesn’t mean we need to start doing demon maps or anything like that. Nor do we need to learn how to extract the name of demons so we can command them. The demons tried to play that game with Jesus and He is demonstrating that they have no power over Him, whatsoever.

Now, at the time, a Roman legion was about 6,000 soldiers.^[10] That’s not a specific count for how many demons are in this guy, but it was a lot. I find it ironic that they really want to stay in that locale, but don’t mind being all cooped up together in a single guy.

Mark 5:11-13 – ¹¹ A large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside. ¹² The demons begged him, “Send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.” ¹³ So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned there.

You FFA folks might think, “Pigs aren’t really herd animals.” Mark is highlighting the cosmic conflict going on here by using military images. The word he uses was often used of a band of military recruits. And Jesus dismisses the legion, almost like a commander.^[11]

There’s another image hidden here for the original readers: The wild boar was the emblem of the Roman legion stationed in Palestine.^[12] So here’s Jesus, in Gentile land, facing a legion, and in the end the pigs are driven into the sea.

Remember: Mark was primarily writing this book to Christians living in Rome and elsewhere in Italy.^[13] So here is a subtle reminder that Jesus not only had power over legions of demons, but also over the godless legions of Rome and every other human kingdom. In the end, Christ conquers all.

Now, this situation raises a number of questions – some of which we simply can’t answer with total certainty. First, why did the demons want to go into the pigs? Well, there’s some indication in the New Testament that these sort of spirits want to inhabit other living creatures. There’s a second possible reason we’ll get to in a moment.

The second question is: Why did Jesus allow this? Doesn’t He care about the pigs? God absolutely cares about animals. But this does highlight God’s priorities. A single human life is much more important than even thousands of pigs.^[14] In Matthew 12, Jesus says outright, “A person is worth far more than a sheep.” That doesn’t mean it’s ok for people to mistreat animals, but when lives hang in the balance, God goes with the human every time. Because humans are created in His image. You are not the same as an animal. You are a human, and that is a unique being in God’s order.

Before we move on, one more quick reminder for us, especially anyone who is not a believer here. Take a good long look at the naked, bloody suffering of the demon possessed man. Try to hear the chilling screams of the pigs as they drown in the sea. That is the devil’s plan for you. That is what sin does every time. The road of sin leads to your grave. The road of salvation leads to life everlasting.

Perhaps Jesus allowed this so that this poor man would know he was really, truly safe. That the demons were gone and they would not return to trap him again. Because He wanted to remind us:

Micah 7:19 – ¹⁹ He will again have compassion on us; he will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

That’s what Jesus does when He forgives us because He delights in His faithful love toward us.

Mark 5:14-17 – ¹⁴ The men who tended them ran off and reported it in the town and the countryside, and people went to see what had happened. ¹⁵ They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demon-possessed, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs. ¹⁷ Then they began to beg him to leave their region.

So, like the 12, these Gentiles were afraid. Terrified because they did not understand Who Jesus was. They don’t glorify God. They don’t think, “Maybe we should hear more from this miracle worker.” No, they go right to: “Would You please leave?”

We’d expect people to say, “Hey, I know this other person who is demon possessed,” or, “I’ve got this sick family member, let me go get them.” But they were not interested. And perhaps that is why the demons asked to go into the pigs. Maybe they knew these people well enough to know they cared more about their sows than their souls.

Now, turn from the crowd to the man. He has been totally transformed. He’s gone from screaming to serene. From naked to clothed. And we’ll see this wasn’t just him feeling a little better, but his mind is fixed. His desires and behavior are changed. Now he has strength for life not just death.

But there he is, seated and clothed. Jesus didn’t just deliver him, but also provided for him. Perhaps the cloak was Peter’s or John’s. Maybe it was Jesus’! But he was made well, from the inside out.

Mark 5:18-20 – ¹⁸ As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him earnestly that he might remain with him. ¹⁹ Jesus did not let him but told him, “Go home to your own people, and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ So he went out and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed.

After all that, Jesus gets right back in the boat to go back to Jewish territory. You know, Jesus does not stay where He isn’t wanted.^[15] When a nation, a community, a family, or a church says, “We don’t trust You, we’re not interested in Your opinion or Your leading,” then the Lord withdraws Himself. That should be a very sobering thought for us. It happened to churches in the New Testament. Instead of allowing pride or fear or misunderstanding to determine our relationship to Jesus, we should be like this Gerasene man. He begged to remain with Jesus.

That’s an interesting phrase – it’s exactly how disciples were described back in chapter 3. The 12 were those He appointed to be with Him and to be sent out to preach. This man was instantly filled with a desire for discipleship.

And Jesus says no?!? What in the world is going on here? Well, let’s remember: This is a Gentile. Jesus’ ministry at this point in time was not to the Gentile world – not yet. And bringing a Gentile into the group would’ve caused significant problems among the Jews. But did Jesus say this man couldn’t be a disciple? Actually, the Lord sent him out to proclaim the Gospel in the Decapolis as the Gentile world’s first missionary. To go and spread the word of God’s power and His mercy. And the man does it, fearlessly. The disciples were afraid. The crowds were afraid. But the one who was delivered had no fear. He became a proclaimer just like John the Baptist had been a proclaimer.

As we close, a couple thoughts about discipleship. On one level, it is shocking to us that Jesus would allow the demons to go where they wanted, but not allow this man to come follow Him. But, the Lord knows what is best and what is needful. One commentator writes, “Jesus’ answer [to this man] shows how impossible it is to have a stereotyped definition of discipleship. One person is taken away from home and family, another is sent back to them contrary to his own wishes.”^[16]

Will we allow the Lord to set the destinations and directives of our lives? That’s what real discipleship is. To kneel before Him, not because we were compelled by His power, but because we are compelled by our love for Him. A love that trusts and obeys.

And second, notice Jesus did not send this man out with power to perform any miracles. What did he have? His transformed life was the demonstration of God’s power. The changes in his life were the visible proof of God’s mercy, of God’s love, of God’s truth, of God’s activity. Now, the Lord may do miraculous things through you, but that’s not what we really need to make a difference in the world. Your life, changed by the Gospel, is proof enough. Your heart, your mind, your attitude, your choices, your hope when transformed by the love of God is enough to make an unbelieving world marvel.

Mark 4:26-34 – Growing Gains

Do you remember those “grow in water” toys? They still sell them, but you don’t see them as much as we did in the 90’s. The packages promised unbelievable growth – that what you started with would expand to 50, 100, 1,000 in size. So you’d get out the little capsule or the tiny, shrunken dinosaur that looked like it came out of a Lucky Charms box, toss it in a glass of water, then wait a few hours, only to realize you were right to not believe the claims. Now, instead of a tiny, shrunken marshmallow you didn’t want to play with, you had a wet sponge that you didn’t want to play with.

Mark 4 shows us the way Jesus taught in Galilee. He predominantly used parables when speaking to the crowds. This chapter is a stack of parables, not necessarily given at the same time, but showing Jesus’ method and the content of some of these teachings.

The collection starts with the Parable of the Sower, which Jesus sets out as the key parable for understanding the others. Tonight we have two other parables that are similar in style and imagery, but with somewhat different points.

In the Parable of the Sower, the focus was the four types of soil. Tonight the main point is that even though Christ’s work began humbly and in obscurity, in the end the growth will be unbelievably huge – dominating the whole world with life.

Mark 4:26a – ²⁶ “The kingdom of God is like this,” he said…

What does Jesus mean by “the Kingdom of God?” The truth is, Jesus doesn’t define the Kingdom of God. But He did describe it.^[1] Does He mean the final phase when Jesus is on His throne, ruling in Jerusalem in glory? Or does He mean the spiritual reality – that though we’re still waiting for His forever Kingdom to arrive in full, the people of God live and operate with the knowledge that Christ already is King and we are citizens sent on His business during our pilgrimage home? Or is He referencing the redemptive work that the imperishable seed of the word of God does in individual lives as it is sown into our hearts and starts to transform us and bear fruit?

Looking at the parables we find all these elements. We see the final harvest of souls into eternity, we see the calling we all receive as Christians to join together in the global work of the Gospel, and we see how the Gospel penetrates and permeates our individual hearts and minds to change us, here and now. As one scholar noted, in this section of Scripture, “we have parables which imply that the Kingdom is present and yet not present, and which continue the…contrast between what is now hidden and what will assuredly be revealed.”^[2]

Mark 4:26b-27 – …“A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ He sleeps and rises night and day; the seed sprouts and grows, although he doesn’t know how.

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus is the first and foremost Sower and we imitate Him. But notice this sower: He sleeps and he isn’t all-knowing. He represents believers who have taken up the call to be a part of the work of God and the spreading of the Gospel.

This image assures of of several things: First, that the Lord will accomplish His work in this world. It cannot fail. Even though the people involved do so without total understanding and with no power of their own to bring a crop out of the ground. Even still, the seed will germinate. It will grow. The field will come alive for the harvest.

Second, there is – as always – a depiction of God’s generous grace toward us. This farmer has such limited knowledge. He has limited strength. He can’t work round the clock. If you’re talking about saving the world, he’s not the ideal candidate. But God includes us in His work despite our shortcomings. God is gracious toward us to include us in His redemptive mission.

As partners in that work, we should behave with humility. We should recognized that we don’t always know the mind of God – that we don’t always have the best ideas for how to do God’s work. And we should always remember that the power is not in our minds or in our scattering technique or in the supplements we put in the soil. The power is in the seed.

Sometimes churches feel like the Gospel needs some help. That the seed needs Miracle-Gro alongside it. That people we want to help need enticement before they’d be willing to accept the Gospel. But the Gospel is the power of God for salvation in and of itself.^[3]

This farmer may not fully understand how this seed does its thing, but he believes it will. And so, not only is he faithful to do the work, but we see he does it in restful confidence – without worry.

But the fact that he isn’t worried does not mean he doesn’t care. He has dedicated himself to this seed, this effort, to growing this crop. Day by day focusing on that growth.

What would happen if this farmer grew no crop? What would happen to his family? To his community? They need the harvest for now and for the future. It’s essential.

In times of peace and prosperity, believers often stop caring about spiritual growth. We settle into a mentality that’s, “I’ve got a spot in heaven and that’s all I need.” But that’s not all we need. God wants growth in your life – harvests from your life. Not just once, but season after season.

Mark 4:28 – ²⁸ The soil produces a crop by itself—first the blade, then the head, and then the full grain on the head.

There are times when the Lord works dramatically and suddenly, but in general, as God works in a life, in a church, in the world, it’s not instantaneous. There is gradual development and progression. The farmer isn’t done with the job the moment he scatters the seed. Then there is the watering. There’s watching for weeds, protection from pests, careful measurement of when the crop is ripe. The Christian life is about patience and dedication and faithfulness. It’s not just about us feeling a certain way all the time. There’s a book on Biblical discipleship with a great title: A Long Obedience In The Same Direction. That direction is where the Lord leads.

Now, as we wait on the Lord and walk faithfully with Him, God is – of course – even more faithful to do what He has promised. This seed grows by itself. The word there is “automatically.”^[4] But the farmer dedicates himself to being a part of it.

The encouragement for us is to trust that the growth God wants to do in our lives is going to happen. It may be gradual, but it is unstoppable. And so don’t give up your place or activity in the Lord’s garden because you think there’s more action out in the world. Real, eternal power and change is not found in the political, it’s not found in the financial, it’s not found in the experiential. It’s found by following God’s designs which come charged with God’s power.

Mark 4:29 – ²⁹ As soon as the crop is ready, he sends for the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

They say, “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” In this case, it’s not about the blade or the head, it’s about the crop. In the Parable of the Sower we see shoots that came up quickly but bore no fruit. That wasn’t a good thing. God wants fruit in your life, in our church, in this world.

And there are all sorts of different crops God wants to bring out of your life. All sorts of fruits of the Spirit. Just as olives served a different set of purposes than grain did, so each of our lives can glorify God and bring change into this world in a wide variety of ways.

But don’t just be a bag of rich soil. Actually bear fruit. If we were to drive down to any one of the nurseries in town, we would find pallets and pallets of perfectly good soil, bagged up and ready for use. But that soil won’t grow anything unless it’s worked.

Mark 4:30 – ³⁰ And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use to describe it?

Jesus wants us to be thinking about the Kingdom and to apply what we hear. We don’t learn everything about the Kingdom of God from these parables,^[5] but they give us ideas to consider and meditate upon and accept with real action and obedience.

Mark 4:31-32 – ³¹ It’s like a mustard seed that, when sown upon the soil, is the smallest of all the seeds on the ground. ³² And when sown, it comes up and grows taller than all the garden plants, and produces large branches, so that the birds of the sky can nest in its shade.”

What is this parable about? That’s a question that has a wide set of answers from faithful, thoughtful students of God’s word. Each of the three interpretations offered tonight give us a lot to ponder.

The first and most common interpretation for this parable is that it’s simply about the fantastic growth of the Kingdom. That even though Christ came in the humblest form, the most modest of beginnings, look at what the final result is. The Carpenter from Nazareth, born in a stable, Whose message was absolutely rejected by the elite of Israel and Rome and Who died a criminal’s death – yet look at how the Gospel continued to spread, continued to change lives, continued to accomplish the impossible day by day through the centuries up to and including our lives today!

Other interpreters say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa – birds weren’t a good thing in the Parable of the Sower. In fact, they were devilish figures who ate the seed.” And they point out that this mustard plant has overgrown. For them the parable speaks of how as God does His work, there will be false growth mingled with it.^[6] A worldly overgrowth that looks impressive and powerful, but where is the fruit? Instead of helping, there is a hindrance. We think of Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8 who attached himself to the revival in Samaria, but he wasn’t a follower of Jesus. He saw it as a way to enrich himself and wield power over others.

There’s validity to this interpretation. It reminds us we’re not to judge hearts, but we are supposed to judge fruit. What crops are coming out of a life? In my own life, what is growing? Tangles and thorns and unruly overgrowth, or am I growing in my knowledge and obedience to Christ?

There is a third interpretation to consider. Why a mustard plant? Well because the seed is so small. Jesus liked to use the mustard seed as an analogy: “Faith like a mustard seed…”

By the way – at some point a skeptic might tell you that the mustard seed is not, in fact, the smallest seed, so there you go Jesus never existed. Rabbis during this time period used the mustard seed as the proverbial example of the smallest measure of size.^[7] Think of how we use ants today.

But a mustard plant is not really what you would cultivate in your field. Listen to this ancient historian’s account: “Mustard…with its pungent taste and fiery effect…grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it.”^[8] In some sense, Jesus was saying that the Kingdom of God was, to some people, an invasive and noxious weed. And yet, in reality, it was a plant that produced flowers and oil and spice and aroma and flavor and medicine for life.^[9]

The Pharisees thought of Jesus as an invasive weed. They did all they could to pluck Him and His followers out of their land. But once the Lord arrived, once the truth of the Gospel was sown, Light into the darkness, the darkness could not overcome it. And it kept growing and bearing fruit.

Mark 4:33-34 – ³³ He was speaking the word to them with many parables like these, as they were able to understand. ³⁴ He did not speak to them without a parable. Privately, however, he explained everything to his own disciples.

Do parables ever confuse you? They confuse me sometimes. Even this last mustard parable…scholars who know original languages and dedicate their lives to studying one area of Scripture aren’t all totally sure about the interpretation.

And that’s ok. The disciples also didn’t fully understand. But the point of the parables was to divide people into two groups: Those who wanted to understand and those who didn’t.

You know, Hebrews 4 says the word of God is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.^[10] That’s exactly what the parables did. If you wanted to follow, you followed up.

Now listen, we have more resources than the disciples then did. We’ve got the whole canon of Scripture. We have many centuries of careful study that we can lean on. We’ve got more information than ever before. But we’re still supposed to be disciples who follow up. Because our faith in Christ and our understanding of His word is not math. It’s not, “I believed the right ten things and now that’s all I need.” It’s not, “I heard the parable once and that’s what was required.”

We’re called into an ongoing relationship of closeness and growth with the Lord. Called to keep going to His word and opening our lives before it and allowing it to be sown into our hearts so that it can do its work. And the truth is, the Word always has power to put down new roots in us.

I was talking to someone the other day who said, “You know, I’ve read that verse 1,000 times and it’s just been a sort of pass-it-by verse, but I read it today and it suddenly jumped out at me. It stuck in my mind.” And they were talking about how they weren’t sure what the Lord wanted to teach them about it, but they were thinking about it and it was bearing fruit in their minds.

There in verse 33 it says, “As they were able to understand.” The word understand is defined as, “Listening and conforming to what was heard. To receive news, believe it, and respond.”^[11]

We don’t always immediately get what the Lord is trying to tell us, which is why we want to make hearing God’s word a lifestyle. The goal isn’t to just read the Bible once, but to continually have it sown into our lives, day-by-day, situation after situation, so that new roots can grow down to bear new crops for the Lord.

Verse 34 says that Jesus explained everything to His own disciples. What an amazing thing that Christ calls us His own. That He takes the time, the effort, the patience, the grace, the power, to cultivate our lives for His glory and His purposes. To grow fruit in us that changes the world.

Today there’s a lot of talk of low-skilled workers being replaced with robots, right? The Lord could do that. But He doesn’t. Because He loves us and calls us to His side and empowers us to be His hands and feet, because He has made us His own.

The Kingdom of God is an unstoppable work of grace, meaning, and fruitfulness. So, seeing that this Kingdom is operating now and will culminate in a dominion of life all over the world, shouldn’t we rush to be part of the harvest? Why wouldn’t we clear the fields of our hearts so that the King can sow as much seed into us as He possibly could?

If there are things we don’t understand about His truth or His leading, that’s ok. But don’t stay on the outside. Become an insider by pursuing the Lord and saying, “Jesus, I want to understand. I want to be conformed by what I hear from You. I want to be brought into the work You’re doing.”

Now is the time for sowing and for growth and for the reaping of spiritual fruit. Don’t be a bag of soil unused on the shelf. Grow according to God’s leadings and designs, starting right now.

Let The Light One In (Mark 4:21-25)

Can you hear fluorescent light bulbs? Those who can usually dislike the buzz and hum above them. Studies show that young students, in particular, have adverse effects when their classrooms are lit by fluorescent tubes.^[1] That said, we don’t usually pay much attention to the sounds of light bulbs.

Unless of course you’re an Israeli security researcher. A team at Ben-Gurion University developed a method where spies take a telescope, an electro-optical sensor, and a laptop, point it at a hanging light bulb that might be visible through a window, and are able to discern the audio in that room.

The sound waves create vibrations on the glass bulb, which cause minuscule changes in its light output. The electrical signals are then analyzed and converted so that listeners can hear exactly what’s going on around that light. They’re calling it “Lamphone.”^[2]

In this text, Jesus wants to speak through a lamp. He urgently insists that we listen to the light and that the way we respond will not only make a difference in this life, but will be definitive in the next.

Mark 4:21 – ²¹ He also said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed? Isn’t it to be put on a lampstand?

In that day, the average house was one room with no windows.^[3] If you wanted light in the house, you had to bring it in. They would use little clay lamps, filled with olive oil and a wick, and set them on a shelf or a carve out in the wall.

Jesus’ questions are very simple, taken from a common sense situation. Obviously they would set the lamp on the stand, rather than under a bed or beneath a basket. Putting a lit flame under something like that was not only silly because the light would be hidden and therefore leave you in the dark, but it might actually cause a dangerous fire in the house.^[4]

But Jesus wasn’t talking about a literal clay lamp. He’s making a much bigger point. Our English translations alter the peculiar way that Jesus phrased this question. What He said was actually, “Does the lamp come for the purpose of being placed under a [basket]?”^[5]

The Lamp comes to your house. That’s the image. Jesus was making reference to the fact that He is the Light of the world.^[6] That His arrival was a new dawn of eternal import.

Remember: He just told His disciples that through the parables He’s giving them the secrets of the Kingdom. That He came to sow the word of God and those who receive it with faith and obedience will continually receive more understanding and knowledge and spiritual fruit from God.

Now, as He continues this discussion, we see not only is He the Sower Who sows the word, but He is the Light Who has come, and hopes to be brought into their lives.

What is the purpose of light? It illuminates. It gives us vision. It reveals. It exposes. It facilitates movement and activity and growth. But, as we see in the parable, only if it’s in the right position.

Christ came to be the central focal point of our lives. He’s not just the old garage light that gets 2 or 3 minutes of use a day. His light is meant to flood our lives, expose everything to His warmth and His cleansing and His inspection. And we need it. We can’t live in the dark – not really. If we can’t see things as they are, if we can’t see obstacles around us, if we can’t see the way ahead, if we can’t see other people around us, what kind of life is that?

So Jesus asks these questions with obvious answers: Do you want light in your house? What wouldn’t these first century Galileans give for 100 watt bulbs! But on a deeper level, this simple parable reveals the sad spiritual reality: That humanity loves darkness, rather than light. That our sin natures cling to the shadows and tries desperately to cover the Light, to overcome it.

Just after the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, Jesus went on to explain that:

John 3:19-21a – ¹⁹ The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. ²¹ But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light

Our sin nature tries to flee from the Light of the world. That’s the first thing Adam and Eve did after they disobeyed God – they hid from the Lord. But God has come to bring light into the dark so that people can finally see the truth, so they can be saved from the darkness of sin. Because in Jesus, the Light of the world, is life. “And that life was the light of men,” John says.^[7]

Now, this parable has multiple layers of application for us as Christians. Because Jesus is the Lamp – He’s the One Who came to shine the light of the Gospel for all humanity. But He said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

What happens now that He has ascended into heaven? Is the world left in darkness? Not at all. He also said to His disciples, “You are the light of the world. Like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. So let your light shine before others.”^[8]

Not only do we want to respond to this parable by properly positioning Jesus in the center of our lives and allowing His light to do all He wants to do in us, but we also respond by remembering the position we’re in as light bearers. Now we bring the Light of salvation to those trapped in the dark.

Mark 4:22 – ²² For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light.

Jesus came to reveal. He reveals our sin. He reveals the plan of salvation. He reveals the heart of God. He reveals the power of God. He reveals the true nature of man and the only hope for man. He revealed that He is the One and only Messiah. There will never be a new revelation. There isn’t another, secret universe where God is running a different redemption experiment. When people claim to be the Messiah, or claim to be Jesus, we can confidently say, “No you’re not,” because the Lord has shared with us the secrets of the Kingdom and the plan for His return.

Meanwhile, as His plan unfolds, verse 22 reminds us that our Lord knows everything. In the end, all will be made right. Everything will be accounted for and judged according to His plan and truth.

But this verse isn’t only about the global work of Gd, it’s also what He wants to do in your personal life: That everything in us be brought into the light, nothing held back from exposure to His grace.

Years ago I went to a dermatologist for an issue on my nose. It was my first visit, and the doctor said, “I want to do a whole body inspection.” I wasn’t really on board with that. Just look at my nose and I’ll decide if anything else needs to be examined.

We don’t want to have that kind of relationship with Jesus, the Great Physician. “Ok Lord. Here’s the problem I’m having at work, or here’s the hard time I’m having in my marriage, but leave the rest of me alone – I’ve got it covered. You can give me instruction on this issue, leave the rest alone.”

Instead we want to have David’s outlook from Psalm 139. “Lord, search me and know me. You observe all my travels. You know all my thoughts. You have encircled me and placed Your hand on me and I welcome the floodlight of Your truth and grace and presence to bring me out of darkness and into Your marvelous light.”

Mark 4:23 – ²³ If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen.”

Jesus was imperative here. His words were more like, “If you have ears, you better listen!”^[9] As we learned last week, parables aren’t just interesting stories. They’re essential truths that we must respond to. That’s why Jesus used parables: So that we would hear the way He wants us to hear.

We “listen” in different ways. Sometimes we listen to extremely important information with absolutely no interest. I haven’t flown in a while, but even when I did I paid no attention to the safety instructions before take off.

Sadly, that’s how many people “hear” the Word of God. But Jesus presents these words as urgent and essential and as the most important consideration of our lives.

Jesus is looking for hearing that is thoughtful and attentive and most of all responsive. That we hear the word of God, believe it, and then take action accordingly. In this case, that we take God at His word that we are in darkness unless we receive His light and then respond by receiving the Light that has come into the world.

Mark 4:24 – ²⁴ And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear. By the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and more will be added to you.

“Pay attention.” So, again, the Lord is driving, driving into us that we must respond to His teaching. We’re not only to soak in the Gospel and the word of God, but here we see this activity of measuring and growth and reciprocation. It’s as if we’re scooping what we hear into our lives.

We’ve just seen an example of how this plays out. Jesus preached truth to a crowd and a few responded by coming to Him and asking for understanding. Once that happened, the Lord started revealing more to them. And then more. And then more. As they received the word by faith and in obedience, more understanding was given and then more transformation happened and more fruit grew in their lives.

Jesus says here that the sort of measure we use has an impact on what we continue to receive.

I was thinking about how this might apply in a real Christian life and a few pictures came to mind. First, imagine you have a very small view of God – that He’s not really mindful of your life, that He’s not really going to do anything on your behalf, that He’s far off or disinterested or cruel. In that sense, your measure is a tiny little thimble cup. Well, as you go to God’s word with that sort of measure, you’re not going to come back with much that can refresh you. It will be hard to fill up.

Or, perhaps someone falls into a theology that really makes man the center of everything – where you think the Bible is really about you being healthy all the time and wealthy all the time and living your best life now. That’s a measure full of holes. More like a sieve than a scoop. So when you go to God’s word, a lot of understanding is going to leak out.

Whereas if we come to God’s word in humility and surrender, acknowledging that we don’t know everything, we haven’t figured it all out, but we know God is the Supreme King and Creator and the Lover of our souls and that if we will go to His word, there we will find all we need for life and Godliness and that within it it reveals a God of grace and kindness and faithfulness – a God Who calls us and commands us but walks with us day by day – that kind of measure is one that can hold a great supply – one that can fill a life and refresh it and overflow to the lives around us.

Mark 4:25 – ²⁵ For whoever has, more will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

This is not the haves versus the have-nots. This is about the haves and the will-nots. Those who choose to stay in the dark rather than let in the Light. Those who did not hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit, but instead keep the door of their hearts closed when the Light came knocking.

They will not only lose out on wisdom and understanding and perspective in this life, but in the end they will miss out on the Kingdom.

Some people will say, “I believe in God.” And they think that’s enough. A tiny pinpoint of light in the dark. The Bible says, “Look, even the demons believe in God.”^[10] People walking in darkness don’t understand that they’re going to lose it all. In Luke’s telling of this verse it says, “Whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”^[11] Ephesians 4 fleshes it out.

Ephesians 4:18 – ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.

Rather than giving themselves over to the Lord, they gave themselves over to promiscuity and impurity – the love of the dark. So they cover the lamp – they tuck it under their bed. And the result will be a deadly fire instead of a transformed life.

Perhaps to some verse 25 seems harsh. Yet, the truth of this principle plays out in the real world. Use it or lose it. That happens with the vacation that is allotted to many of you at work.

Or consider a well of water. When in use, it gives life, it helps us wash things and grow things and nourish things. But when a well is abandoned, after a time it becomes polluted and toxic. In fact, an abandoned well even threatens the other water supplies in the area.^[12] All simply from not using it.

Clifton Allen writes, “If a man keeps responsive to the way and word of Jesus, he is given more and more. If not, his mind is hardening, God’s wrath is operative, and the limited spiritual insight he once had will be lost.”^[13]

And so not only do we welcome the Light of the world into our lives, we perpetually receive the Light through the Word being sown into our hearts. And we listen to this Light, because through Him we have life. And as we continue in this relationship with the Lord, our part is to keep receiving the word, to keep allowing the light to shine on our hearts, on our actions, on our choices, on our attitudes so that God can continue to illuminate us and cleanse us and grow us and show us what life is really all about.

Soil Sort (Mark 4:1-20)

In 2020, the US was locked down. Travel was banned, parks were chained up, beaches cleared, and schools emptied. So what did Americans do? Gardening. Nationally, we already held the number 3 spot of home-gardening countries, but more than 20 million new gardeners sprung up during the pandemic, bringing the total number of American households planting stuff above 50%.^[1]

The uptick in this wholesome hobby had one problem: Seed shortages. Retailers saw a 200% increase in demand during the pandemic years.^[2] One supplier had to totally shut down their website more than once to try to slow the orders coming in. Multi-year stockpiles of staple veggies like broccoli, carrots, lettuce, peas, and tomatoes were wiped out.

That’s not the end of our seed concerns. A 2023 report shows that we have too small a supply of native seed for the recovery and conservation projects needed after fires, droughts, and floods.

Broccoli and forrest seeds are important, but not nearly as important as the seed discussed in Mark 4. In this chapter, Mark shares four of Jesus’ parables with us. Three of them deal with seed. Not seed that grows a tomato or two, but bears a harvest of life-changing fruit season after season.

Mark 4:1-2 – ¹ Again he began to teach by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around him. So he got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was by the sea on the shore. ² He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them,

Mark usually focuses on Jesus’ actions and interactions. But this chapter is one of the places where Mark takes the time to tell us some of the content of Jesus’ teaching.

Jesus often used parables. He didn’t invent them. We find some in the Old Testament.^[3] Other rabbis used them, too. But Christ used them “to a degree unmatched before His time or since.”^[4]

A parable is a vivid illustration of God’s truth. The Sunday-school definition is an “earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” I like Ray Stedman’s definition: A vocal cartoon.^[5] Something meant to catch our attention and communicate a point and make us imagine and consider an essential truth.

But parables are not just moral stories. They’re not God’s version of Aesop’s Fables. They aren’t simply helpful proverbs packaged in an interesting way. Parables reveal truth about God, about His Kingdom, about His Way, and about humanity on a level that no worldly teaching can.

Mark 4:3-9 – ³ “Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow. ⁴ As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. ⁵ Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it grew up quickly, since the soil wasn’t deep. ⁶ When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” ⁹ Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”

Jesus will give us the interpretation in the following verses, so I’m not going to do that here. Instead, as we allow these images to sink in, let’s consider elements from the delivery itself.

Jesus’ message to the crowd begins and ends with an urgent command to listen. Jesus says, “Hear what I’m saying. Anyone who has ears, please listen and consider.” This parable wasn’t just advice, it was core and crucial. Scholars note that the Lord used a term which echoed the opening word of the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”^[6] Pious Jews recited that phrase every single day. That verb doesn’t only mean hear or listen, it also means to obey.^[7]

The point of parables is not that we know something, but that we do something. That we respond to what God has revealed. The truths delivered through these stories play out in our real lives.

Now, we call this story The Parable of the Sower, but really a better title might be The Parable of the Soils.^[8] We’ll learn that the soil is not just inanimate dirt, but has choices and responsibilities once the seed has fallen on it. But first, verses 10 through 12.

Mark 4:10-12 – ¹⁰ When he was alone, those around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. ¹¹ He answered them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those outside, everything comes in parables ¹² so that they may indeed look, and yet not perceive; they may indeed listen, and yet not understand; otherwise, they might turn back and be forgiven.”

Does that sound scary? It does if we don’t know the context. On an isolated first reading a person might say, “I guess Jesus doesn’t want certain people to be saved.” But that’s not what’s happening.  Listen to how Matthew records Jesus’ answer to the disciples about why He uses parables:

Matthew 13:13-16 – ¹³ That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. ¹⁴ Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You will listen and listen, but never understand; you will look and look, but never perceive. ¹⁵ For this people’s heart has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back— and I would heal them.

Jesus, the Son of God, was on earth, preaching, healing every sickness, working countless miracles, and the general response was disbelief and animosity. The religious leaders accused Him of being demon possessed. The crowds ignored His message. They fulfilled the prophecy foretold by Isaiah.

Consider also the context of the parable. The Sower, Who is first and foremost Jesus, wasn’t being stingy. He was casting seed all over, just as Jesus was spreading His message in many places.

So, it’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive certain people. But, if they won’t repent, then they will perish. Later, in Luke 13, Jesus says it outright twice: “Unless you repent, you will all perish.”^[9] Later, in Revelation 2, the Lord says to churches, “Unless you repent,” then lists deadly consequences.^[10]

And then we have the situational context where Jesus shared this parable, then later the disciples come in response, they follow up on what was revealed, they seek God’s truth, and the Lord says, “Because you’ve done this now you get a gift from God: The secrets of the Kingdom.”

Secrets here is that word used many times in the New Testament: Mysteries.^[11] Paul used it 21 times himself. In the New Testament, “mysteries” are things that can only be known if they are revealed by God, but they are open to anyone who wants to know them and come to God for them.

God wants everyone to be saved. In a different parable, we see a Master who puts on a feast and by the end of the story he’s invited everyone: Friends and neighbors, strangers in the streets, alleys, highways, and hedges, to join him. The only people that don’t are those that won’t.

Verse 10 is a real-life demonstration of what was described in the parable. You had the large crowd, but only some responded to the preaching. It wasn’t only the 12 – there were others who believed there, too. This moment showed the difference between those who listened the way Jesus commanded them, and those who didn’t.

You parents have seen this. You ask your kid, “Why didn’t you do that thing I told you?” They say, “I didn’t hear you.” “But we were in the car and we were making eye contact and you said, ‘Ok.’”

Verses 10 through 12 aren’t about an unfair God. They’re a further differentiation between the crowd and real disciples. A theme Mark has been developing for a few passages now. Remember, in our last passage there was a dramatic picture of those around Jesus, in the house, and those standing outside the house because they would not believe and refused to come in.

Mark 4:13 – ¹³ Then he said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand all of the parables?

Understanding parables is an important part of the Christian life. They are unique lessons about Christ, His Kingdom, and His way for life. When we ask, “What is this about?” it must always point back to the Lord. But, as we receive the parables, we most of all must ask, “What is my response?”

Jesus tells us to consider the parables thoughtfully. Because the truth is: We also can misunderstand the Lord. We also can be a little numb to His words. Our hearts can start to harden or become distracted. These disciples were struggling with their understanding, so we can, too.

To counteract that, we should continually apply this parable and keep our hearts conditioned to respond. We want to perpetually keep ourselves in verse 20. Because this story is not just about the moment you get saved, but a whole life of bearing fruit as the Lord sows His word into your heart.

In John 8, Jesus said real disciples continue in His Word. And James tells us that Christians must continually receive the implanted word.^[12] So now, let’s hear Jesus’ explanation of this parable.

Mark 4:14 – ¹⁴ The sower sows the word.

Like a seed, God’s word contains everything necessary for life, growth, and fruitfulness. A tomato seed contains what is necessary for the plant. Yes, of course, that seed is unlocked by soil and water and sunlight, but in that seed is what you need. The same is true of God’s word. All we need for life and Godliness is found in it. It grows in us if we participate and prepare ourselves for it.

Mark 4:15 – ¹⁵ Some are like the word sown on the path. When they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them.

This first soil is a heart where the word of God makes no impact. They are surrendered to another god, who is a devourer and destroyer.

There really is a Devil out there and he really is our adversary. He wants to stop the work of God and the spread of His word. Now here, the soil is presented as somewhat culpable for the failure to receive the seed. But, what can I do if a bird swoops down and gobbles the grain up?

We’ve got a dog at home. I know that if I leave my plate of food on the table, she’s going to come over and eat it. I have to protect that food. Christians: We need to be on guard against the schemes of the Devil. How can I possibly hope to win that fight? We don’t have to. Our Savior overcame him. He rejected every temptation. And now, we live in Christ’s power to overcome temptation. If we resist the Devil, he will flee from us. Endeavor to protect your connection with God in your life.

Mark 4:16-17 – ¹⁶ And others are like seed sown on rocky ground. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But they have no root; they are short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away.

This heart soil is quick to be excited about the good news, but underneath those emotions the heart is still hard. There’s stone below the surface. Their mind isn’t really inclined to God, but to how they feel in their circumstances. When the going gets tough, they move on to the next new thing.

Our hearts must be rooted in Christ, not in circumstances. Colossians 2 tells us to be rooted in Him, built up in Him, established in our faith, not our feelings. Now, your faith should feel joy and peace and expectation and excitement but about the Lord, not about our temporal circumstances. That’s how a Christian can sing worship songs while in a dungeon. A heart plowed deep for God’s work.

Mark 4:18-19 – ¹⁸ Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹ but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness, of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

In this example, the plant has grown. You can see stem and leaves and roots – but no fruit. It’s too distracted, to consumed with other pursuits, and so it is unproductive. Useless to the farmer.

There are a lot of Christians who are living season after season of fruitlessness. The word is sown into their lives at church or their own devotions, but it doesn’t produce change, it doesn’t produce ministry, it doesn’t produce obedience. But God wants fruit. There are other parables that speak specifically about this: A master coming and finding no fruit and saying, “This is not ok.”

The Pharisees were plants with no fruit. They had libraries of knowledge about the seed, but nothing grew in their lives but weeds and thistles.

Mark 4:20 – ²⁰ And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”

Again, we see a personification in the soil – that it has responsibility to hear the word, welcome the word, and allow it to do its work. When a heart does that, something miraculous happens.

At the time, an average harvest might be 7 or 8 fold. A great harvest would be 10.^[13] God wants our lives to be superabundant with His spiritual fruit.

That fruit, like all fruit, will have seed in it. The soil of your life producing a variety of fruit each season whose pit and core is always the word of God, which then spills out for a new crop.

So now we’ve heard this chief parable. What is our response? What is the state of my heart? Is it hard? Is it soft? Is it distracted? Is it unproductive? Is it attentive? God sows so that we can grow and be a part of His miraculous harvest. He can handle the birds. His seed can withstand less-than-ideal conditions. Are we preparing our hearts, cultivating our lives to receive what He wants to plant? Are we allowing Him to plow and soften us? Are we giving the nutrients of our lives to His seed rather than the weeds of this world? Are we bearing fruit? Do I respond? What sort of soil am I tonight?

The Devil Made Him Do It! (Mark 3:20-35)

Does your family have a “crazy uncle”? If you answered, “No, we don’t have one,” I hate to tell you, but that might mean it’s you.

Last November, a site dedicated to the exchange of ideas on college campuses published an article titled, A Thanksgiving Guide For Crazy Uncles. It opened with these lines:

“This Thanksgiving you might step into the role of the “crazy uncle.” You know the one—big opinions, the loudest voice, met with apathy. But maybe their ideas aren’t dismissed because they’re wrong. They just don’t always bring enough receipts.”^[1]

In our text, Jesus is accused of being out of His mind. Sadly, it isn’t just His foes saying it. Even His own family come from Nazareth to stop Him from preaching His message and performing His ministry. The Lord Jesus is dismissed by both of these groups not because He has failed to bring enough receipts, but because they refuse to accept that He Who He says He is. The works and the words do not matter to them, because they’ve already decided what they want to think about Him.

Mark 3:20 – ²⁰ Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat.

It’s hard to appreciate how demanding these crowds were. At times, they pressed so intensely on Jesus that He had to get out in a boat on the water to keep from being crushed.^[2]

Here in the house they are so busy with the needs of this crowd that they don’t have time to grab a piece of bread and shove it in their mouth! Seeing how little consideration they have for Jesus, we are reminded that – as disciples – we must pursue the presence of the Lord, not only pursue His power for us. Christianity is not about making demands of Jesus, but devoting ourselves to Him.

There are a few controversies in the verses ahead: Jesus’ family and the unpardonable sin. For the family issue, it will help if we notice a literary technique Mark uses in this section. He unfolds this scene in what scholars call a “chiastic structure.”^[3]

In a chiasm, Biblical authors present a sequence of ideas and then show the response to those ideas in the reverse order. Tonight we see Jesus with the crowd, the appearance of the family, finally the accusation of the scribes. Then it mirrors back with the response to the scribes, Jesus’ family reappears, and finally Jesus and the crowd again.

So we’ve seen the crowd and once again they are making demands of Jesus as if they are the masters and He is the slave. Not a good place to be. Even still, the Lord was patient and kind and poured out His compassion for them, even when His family shows up and tries to stop Him.

Mark 3:21 – ²¹ When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, “He’s out of his mind.”

Mark used a colloquial term where my version says “family.”^[4] Yours might say “His own people.” It’s a word that can mean family or relatives or friends. At a certain point in church history, translators and commentators started becoming uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus’ family might act this way. Plus, Catholic doctrine says Mary remained a perpetual virgin. So some groups started to suggest the idea that these were friends or maybe cousins of Jesus, not His mother and brothers.

But remember the chiasm! At the end, Mark is going to specifically show Mary and brothers. So, it seems he wants us to understand this group in verse 21 as Jesus’ literal, immediate family.

Now, Jesus was Mary’s firstborn Son, but she did not remain a virgin forever. She is not the sinless Queen of Heaven as suggested by Roman Catholic tradition. Mark 6 says plainly that Jesus had four half-brothers and at least two sisters. There is zero suggestion in the Bible that they were Joseph’s kids from a previous marriage. They were Mary’s kids.

They’ve come from Nazareth, not to help Jesus out or to tell Him He should work a little less. They were saying that Jesus was out of His mind. That He was psychologically deranged.^[5] According to Mark’s language, they repeatedly said it.^[6] They actually wanted to grab Him and take Him home. The word for “restrain” here is the same that will be used of the Jews arresting Jesus later.^[7]

As we read the Gospels, it’s hard to get a read on Mary’s perspective, but Jesus’ brothers certainly did not believe He was the Messiah until after the resurrection.^[8]

Mark 3:22 – ²² The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “He drives out demons by the ruler of the demons.”

Despite all the good Jesus was doing, there is a swell of opposition against Him. People are coming from Nazareth, coming from Jerusalem, to try to interrupt His ministry. The crowd won’t let Him go, His family doesn’t want Him to stay. They all think it’s their job to take charge of Him and make Him fall in what line they have decided is best.

The scribes are jealous. The family is embarrassed. The crowd is selfish. Meanwhile, Christ is trying to tell them the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and how they can receive everlasting life! It’s an ugly look for humanity. But there are disciples there and they’re not blowing it in this scene.

These scribes are an official delegation from the religious leadership in Jerusalem.^[9] They’re not interested in Jesus’ message. They have started a sustained campaign of vilification against Him.^[10]

Matthew and Luke explain that Jesus healed a demon possessed man who was blind and mute. That prompted the scribes to say, “Well, Him and Satan are working together.” Beelzebul was the name of an old pagan god. The name can mean “Lord of the house,”^[11] which will make Jesus’ next comments very apt. The name also means “Lord of the flies,”^[12] for all you literary fans out there.

The scribes used this name to refer to Satan.^[13] Despite all they’ve seen and heard, they immediately dismiss Jesus in the most blasphemous term, giving the Devil the credit for this work.

People still dismiss Christ today. They say, “Well, there’s too much suffering in the world,” and just wave away the truth of God, the message of the Gospel, prophecy, testimony, all of it.

But Christians can make a similar mistake. When we say, “God wants me to be happy,” and use that idea to dismiss things God is saying or doing in our lives, it may not be as blasphemous as what the scribes were doing, but it comes from the same place in the heart. It’s still rejection of His authority.

Mark 3:23-27 – ²³ So he summoned them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished. ²⁷ But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.

First thing first: Jesus summoned them. He called them over. Despite their blasphemy and hatred and jealousy, the Lord took the time to try to help them. He tries to warn them that they are on a path to destruction, not because He wants to gloat, but because He wants to rescue them.

These parables are straightforward. Look at how He tries to drive it home as clearly as He can. He uses different levels of example: Kingdom, then house, the individual. In the other Gospels we see He also pointed out that the Jews also had exorcists, so whose power are they using? He’s trying to show them the truth, that He is the stronger man. That He has bound the Devil. That He is the Deliverer. These words and the deeds that back them up should’ve reminded them of Isaiah 49, which talks about captives being delivered from a mighty tyrant and that when that happens, “all humanity will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior.”

But they would not believe it. They willfully chose to lie to themselves because they weren’t willing to humble themselves.

At first the stronger Man’s conduct is somewhat shocking. Jesus likens it to a thief breaking in to rob a house. But in reality, this isn’t a burglary, it’s an extraction operation. The Savior plunders the Devil of that he wants most: YOU! You are the pearl of great price. And you can either be the devil’s trophy or you can be the Lord’s own special possession.^[14] Choose this day who you will serve.

Mark 3:28-30 – ²⁸ “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they utter. ²⁹ But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”,— ³⁰ because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

There is an unpardonable sin. It isn’t suicide. It isn’t one of the “seven deadly sins.” So what is it? Some scholars say it is when a person attributes the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Others say it’s when a person fully and finally rejects the work of the Holy Spirit, which is to draw people to Jesus.

Others say it was this specific moment and how these scribes responded to seeing an exorcism. So, those scholars say, no one else can commit the unpardonable sin.

On the other hand, other scholars note that Jesus seemed to be genuinely warning these scribes, indicating they hadn’t committed the unpardonable sin yet, but were close.

So what is it? We have a couple helpful clues. First, let’s talk about blasphemy. One definition of blasphemy I find helpful is, “An expression of defiant hostility toward God.”^[15] Now, blasphemies will be forgiven. Jesus said so in verse 28. So what is different about what these scribes were doing?

First of all, they were the expert authorities on the Word of God. Some believe they had the entire Old Testament memorized. They dedicated their lives to knowing what God had said. Now, they had personally witnessed not only a miraculous outpouring of God’s power, but listened to the teachings of Christ. And their response was to defiantly, repeatedly say “He is demon possessed.”^[16]

In trying to understand the unpardonable sin, one commentary says this, “What Jesus is speaking of…is not an isolated act but a settled condition of the soul—the result of a long history of repeated and willful acts of sin. And if the person involved cannot be forgiven it is not so much that God refuses to forgive as it is the sinner refuses to allow him.”^[17]

Meanwhile, there is incredible good news in these verses: “People will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they utter.” Praise the Lord! Your sins are dealt with once and for all at the cross. And not just a select few individuals. The word “people” there is the “sons of men.” Anyone. Not just the sons of Abraham. Not just the sons of one group or one time, but all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved and forgiven and made right with God.

If you are carrying the weight, the guilt of some sin, you can lay it down at the feet of Jesus. You must lay it down so you can run the race Christ has given you with your eyes on Him, not on your past, not on your unworthiness, but on Him, so that your faith might be perfected.

Mark 3:31-35 – ³¹ His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him and told him, “Look, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside asking for you.” ³³ He replied to them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴ Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

It seems the family was unwilling to come into this house. After all, Jesus was ready and willing to summon the scribes to Himself. Do we think He wouldn’t extend the same courtesy to His own brothers? Rather, it looks like they refused to go in. They were probably terribly embarrassed by the reputation Jesus made for the family, at least among religious Jews.

They’re outside demanding that Jesus leave His ministry and come back to them – to follow them. Jesus is not dishonoring His family, but He’s unwilling to choose them over His Father. And He took the opportunity to teach a wonderful truth to those who did believe in Him as Messiah: That God wasn’t just making us slaves, but children in His house. That we can be near to Him and have a real relationship based on love. And to be in that relationship, we simply need to do the will of God.

How do we do that? Luke makes it very plain in his telling of this scene: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear and do the word of God.”^[18]

So we must know the word and do it. We must not dismiss it or wave it away or shape it to our own preconceived notions. Instead, we circle up around the Lord, to hear and do what He says. To recognize that we follow Him, not the other way around. That God’s work is accomplished through Christ and our part is to join that work in faith and devotion and obedience.

As we close, one more reminder. Here we are, gathered together as disciples. Christ reminds us in this text that we are a family. Families can be tough. There’s history and eccentricity and complexity. But we must endeavor to be a loving and healthy family – one that supports one another in grace and compassion and long-suffering. A family whose center is Christ Jesus, operating in the power of the Spirit as directed through the Word. With that perspective, we will see the Lord’s will done in and through us and we will not only be in right relationship to our Savior, but to each other.

The Out Crowd (Mark 3:7-19)

Crowds do strange things. Studies show that more than 1/3 of people will purposefully choose an answer they know to be wrong if other people in the crowd already chose that answer.^[1]

This is part of a phenomenon called deindividuation. In these cases, individuals in a crowd are so caught up in what is happening, they will follow the group around them, abandoning self-control and self-awareness, even when it may lead to behaviors that bring harm to themselves or others.^[2]

Our text is all about the crowd. We see a massive throng, maybe tens of thousands of people in size,^[3] acting badly. But among this sea of people a different, distinct group stands out: Disciples.

In some ways, these two groups look the same. After all, the disciples followed Jesus, but the crowd followed Him, too. And Jesus seems happy to talk to and work with both groups. So, what is the difference? And does it matter if we’re in one group or the other? Let’s take a look.

Mark 3:7-8 – ⁷ Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a large crowd followed from Galilee, and a large crowd followed from Judea, ⁸ Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and around Tyre and Sidon. The large crowd came to him because they heard about everything he was doing.

Matthew explains Jesus left the synagogue because He knew the Pharisees were plotting to kill Him.^[4] But, it wasn’t time for Him to die, so He took things down to the shore.

This was the time when Jesus was most popular, with the largest crowds coming to see Him.^[5] These were huge numbers. He didn’t just empty a village or two – people were coming from every point of the compass and from distant regions.

The walk from Jerusalem to Capernaum was 100 miles!^[6] Idumea was even farther. There were people coming from the Transjordan, others coming from way up in the North West of Lebanon.

Mark says they followed Jesus. Were they disciples? Jesus did say, “Follow Me.” Yet, there was a big difference in the why and the how of the crowd’s following compared to the disciples’ following.

The why is given in verse 8. They came to Him because they heard about everything He was doing. It wasn’t the message they were interested in, it was the miracles. The doings, not the sayings.

But Jesus said back in chapter 1 that the reason He came was not primarily to heal physical ailments, but to preach the Good News of the Kingdom. But this crowd didn’t care about that.

There are other examples in the Gospels where these crowds make it clear that they are not actually listening to Jesus – they just want supernatural manifestations from Him. In John 6, a crowd wants miracles from Jesus while He wants to give them some of the greatest truths ever revealed – about the Bread of Life, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal life. But they say, “How about instead You give us literal bread every day?”^[7]

These crowds thought of Jesus as a magical miracle worker, not as the Messiah. They misunderstood Who He was. We need to be careful not to make similar mistakes.

Mark 3:9-10 – ⁹ Then he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, so that the crowd wouldn’t crush him. ¹⁰ Since he had healed many, all who had diseases were pressing toward him to touch him.

Their why was wrong and their how was wrong. The phrase “pressing toward Him” literally means falling on Him.^[8] They were chasing Him^[9] to grab on like people do when a money truck crashes on a freeway. There’s pushing and shoving.^[10]

One of the words Mark uses is the same one you would use for pressing grapes to extract the juices.^[11] Christ’s power was a commodity to them – a sort of “while supplies last” situation. They did not fall down in worship before Him, they fell on Him with their demands. They wanted to lay hold of His power, but we don’t see any of them allowing God to lay hold of their lives.

The Lord wants to hold your life in His hand. Psalm 139 says, “Your hand will lead me; Your right hand will hold on to me.” His holding means He is the Master and Decider for us. He is the One in charge of your life. He doesn’t exist for my wants and desires, but instead I am to surrender my past, present, and future to His will and design.

And here we see a contrast between the crowd and the disciples. The crowd sees Jesus as a device to get things they want. The disciples are able to receive direction from the Lord.

He told them they need to keep a little boat ready for His use. This wasn’t just a one-time thing, it was all the time when they were in this area.^[12] There were times He needed transportation, or times like this where He needed it for safety. But they had to keep it ready.

This may have been more of an ask than we realize. The boat probably belonged to one of the fishermen, but you’d have to maintain and administrate it. Leaving it docked might have meant fees. It meant they couldn’t lease the boat to other fishermen to gain some passive income.

This illustrates an aspect of real discipleship. There are times when the Lord comes to us and says, “I want you to give this boat of yours toward the ministry of the Gospel. I want you to personally, financially, sacrificially contribute toward the work of the Kingdom.”

“But I don’t own a boat.” Neither did Matthew. The point is, the crowd comes demanding things from Jesus but brings no worship, no gift, no contribution to His ministry. They want from Him. The disciples give their lives to Him, and that included generosity with their resources.

Mark 3:11-12 – ¹¹ Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God!” ¹² And he would strongly warn them not to make him known.

Ironically, the demons offer more honor to Jesus than the people in the crowd. They fall down before Jesus while the humans fall over each other, trying to be first in line.

Mark 3:13 – ¹³ Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those he wanted, and they came to him.

Now the focus changes from the crowd to the real disciples – specifically the group known as “The Twelve.” There were other people who believed Jesus and followed Him as disciples, but these Twelve were specially set apart and commissioned by the Lord.

Luke tells us that before this announcement, Jesus spent all night in prayer.^[13] But the crowds were still there. Try to imagine it! Jesus is trying to have this incredibly important time with the Father about the selection of these guys who would be instrumental in the founding of the church and 10,000 people are hanging around trying to get His attention and get Him to do stuff for them!

Mark tells us that Jesus summoned those He wanted. Not the top earners of the group. Not whoever had the highest GPA. Not the most well-connected elites. God’s callings are not about our achievements or abilities, they’re about His loving grace and kindness toward individuals.

And notice: The crowds came after hearing about Jesus’ miracles. The disciples here come after being summoned. They waited and listened to Him and answered His call.

Mark 3:14-15 – ¹⁴ He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, to send them out to preach, ¹⁵ and to have authority to drive out demons.

The crowds came because they wanted power from Jesus – according to their own desires and designs. Ultimately, they became disappointed in Him. The disciples believed His Word and what’s the result? He gives them power! Not according to their desires or designs or their self-interest, but for the work of the Kingdom. For reaching the world. For saving souls and setting captives free.

He appointed them to do the things that He had been doing. Preaching, exorcising, going out with the Good News. They may have said, “So, if we’re going to be like You, does that mean that we’ll be crushed? That we’ll be hounded? That the Pharisees will be angrily confronting us, too?” Of course, we know the answer is yes. The world is going to treat disciples the way they treated Jesus. But what Jesus was giving was so much better than what the world would try to take away.

First, He gave them a new identity: An appointment and a new name. Now, we are not apostles, but God has appointed you for some work and gives you a new name. Christian. Salt. In eternity, we’re told we’ll receive another new name specially chosen by Jesus for us, written on a white stone.^[14]

The second thing He gave was communion with Him. He summoned these twelve to be with Him. He did not sit in first class while they stayed in coach. He was with them day in and day out.

This is such an important difference between the crowd and the disciples. The crowd didn’t care about being with Jesus. They just wanted from Him. But discipleship and relationship with God is about being with the Lord. That’s what qualified the Twelve to bear witness of Jesus and participate in His work, by the way – being with Jesus.^[15]

We’ve been enjoying a worship song that has a wonderfully tender chorus. The opening lines are, “You are our daily bread, You are our daily bread, and we will seek Your face before we seek Your hand.” A reminder that the point is being with Jesus. Communion before supplication.

Third, Jesus gave these guys a message to proclaim as He sent them out. Wait – how can we be with Him and be sent out from Him? The Lord is always with us. He dwells in our hearts. Emmanuel will never leave or forsake us. He goes with us as He sends us to speak His message.

Finally, He gave them the power of God to operate through their lives so people could be rescued and saved. To prove that Christ is the Messiah and He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Mark 3:16-19 – ¹⁶ He appointed the Twelve:^, To Simon, he gave the name Peter; ¹⁷ and to James the son of Zebedee, and to his brother John, he gave the name “Boanerges” (that is, “Sons of Thunder”); ¹⁸ Andrew; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

The Twelve is an interesting group. We really don’t know as much about them as you’d expect since they are so distinct as a group. There were two sets of brothers, maybe three.^[16] Seven of them are never named again in Mark.^[17] Frankly, we know almost nothing about half of them.^[18] As an example, we don’t even know Bartholomew’s name! Scholars agree that that is not a first name – it’s a surname. Bar means “son of,” so we’re being told he was the son of Talmai.^[19] Iscariot was not Judas’ dad’s name. It was probably the town he was from. If so, that makes him the only non-Galilean in the group.^[20] Sort of interesting given the false following we just witnessed from all these crowds from Judea and Idumea and elsewhere who also did not really follow Jesus.

One other fun piece of trivia: As far as scholars can tell, the Greek word Jesus used to nickname Peter had never been used as a name before.^[21] I wonder how Simon felt about that.

Why don’t we know more about the Twelve? For one thing, it’s not really about them, it’s about you! Your discipleship. God’s tender conforming of your life. What He has called you to do. We can take what we do know about the disciples and use their examples as a litmus for our own discipleship.

It’s like the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. It doesn’t matter that we don’t actually live in first century Smyrna. The point is we can see the examples and evaluate ourselves to determine if any of those letters currently describe or apply to our circumstances and to adjust where necessary.

So, think about the Twelve. Which sort of disciple are we tonight? Hopefully none of us are like Judas – a man who never actually believed – he was a thief and a counterfeit even though he ran with the group and looked a lot like a believer.

Or are we like Thomas the Twin, a bit cynical, unwilling to believe without first seeing? Or are we like James and John, lashing out at people who treat us poorly? Are we like Philip, always trying to bring people to Jesus? Are we Simon the Zealot, full of passions and opinions, but willing to be conformed into the image of Jesus, setting aside our old, revolutionary ways when the Lord asks?

There are a lot of ways we can see their examples and measure our own discipleship as we follow Jesus. As we join His group, He doesn’t demand deindividuation like we see happening in crowds. It’s not that you no longer exist as an individual – you do. Look at the tenderness of Jesus renaming these guys and having a relationship based on closeness and kindness. But disciples listen and learn and conform to Christ’s image.  His words become our words. His reactions become our reactions. Our future is put in His hands. That’s the difference between the crowd and the disciples. The crowd wanted Jesus for now. Disciples want Jesus forever, for everything. That’s what we want. Let’s follow Him like that. Listening to Him, giving ourselves to Him, staying with Him not because we just want Him do things for us, but because we understand Who He is and what He’s offering now and forever.

Every Rule You Break, We’ll Be Watching You (Mark 3:1-6)

Would You Rather is a staple in our house. Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible? Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck? Would you rather always have bad breath or always have BO? These are hard choices kids love to wrestle with at the dinner table.

I’ve got a different Would You Rather for us tonight: Would you rather have a hobbled hand or a dead heart? Both of those maladies are put on display in this text. But this story isn’t just about a physical healing. It’s about spiritual condition and whether you and I will respond to the Great Physician with obedience and faith or with resentment and fury.

Mark 3:1 – Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand.

This is the last of five stories Mark put together which show the growing conflict between Jesus and those Jews – particularly the religious leaders – who did not like what He was all about.

We would say Jesus went to church that Saturday.^[1] Obviously this is a Jewish gathering, not a Christian one, but in many ways a synagogue service was similar to a normal church service.^[2]

Worship in synagogues was not the same as worship in the Temple. There was no animal sacrifice in the synagogues, no priests there giving atonement. The Temple was in Jerusalem, synagogues were in any city where there were at least ten Jewish men. They developed during the Babylonian exile and were local gatherings for education, prayer, worship, and fellowship.^[3]

That’s what they were supposed to be. Sadly when Jesus went to synagogue, conflict and tension usually followed. In chapter 1, Jesus goes to synagogue and a demon confronts Him, saying, “What are You doing here?!?” In chapter 6, Jesus is in a synagogue teaching wonderful things unlike anything they had ever heard and the people say, “Isn’t this that Nobody from Nazareth?”

And yet, despite the problems, Jesus kept going to services, week after week. He wanted to be there and, as always, He conducted Himself with patience and grace despite being misunderstood.

Churches are not perfect and some churches should be avoided because of the kind of damage they do to hearts and lives. But no matter where we go, we’re called to be a part of the regular gathering of God’s people, knowing that they bring their shortcomings with them and we bring our shortcomings with us. God commands us to dwell together in peace and harmony and growth.

That Sabbath, there was a man in the crowd with a shriveled hand. Luke says it was his right hand.^[4] It seems that, as a result of disease or an injury, his hand had become shrunken and paralyzed.^[5]

Mark 3:2 – ² In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath.

The “they” will be identified as Pharisees down in verse 6. Mark has shown us a withered hand, but from the start of this scene, the diseased paralysis of their hearts is absolutely astounding.

They knew Jesus could heal. They weren’t watching to see if He could heal the man, but whether He would on Saturday.

They were at synagogue that day, not to worship, not to pray, not to hear this historic Rabbi, Whose fame filled the whole region – they didn’t care that He was a miracle worker. No, they had seen and heard all they wanted, now all they wanted was for Him to go away.

In John 10, Jesus is talking to a group like this and He says, “Listen, if you don’t want to believe Me, at least believe the works I do.”^[6] But the Pharisees had made up their minds and closed their hearts to anything Jesus might say or do. They only watched Him in order to find fault. And the term used there suggests they kept watching Him, dogging His steps.^[7]

Has anyone followed you so closely they give you a flat tire? Or in the store, they bump the back of your ankles with their shopping cart? That’s what the Pharisees are doing here.

This passage is not really about a broken hand, it’s about broken hearts. It always comes back to the heart. Will we let the Lord in? Will we allow Him to remove the heart of stone within us and give us a new heart, soft and alive?

Here we are – at church – dedicated to studying the Word and doing what’s right. That’s how the Pharisees would’ve described themselves. The question is: Have we so made up our minds about everything in the Word, in the spiritual life, that we’re unwilling to hear anything new from the Lord?

I’m not suggesting the essentials of doctrine ever change – they don’t. The Scriptures are complete and have been delivered once for all. But are we willing to accept that the Lord might say, “Cast your nets on the other side of the boat?” That He might have a new directive for our lives?

Now, the Pharisees knew Jesus did a lot of healing. But they said you can’t heal on the Sabbath. Of course the Law doesn’t say that – just their convoluted interpretations of the Law. Actually, the Pharisees didn’t fully agree. Some Pharisees allowed for medical treatments on the Sabbath, others didn’t.^[8] They even disputed whether you were allowed to pray for sick people on the Sabbath.

They thought these rules made you right with God. Meanwhile, think about the absurdity of fallen men telling God what He could and couldn’t do! They didn’t think Jesus was God, which is why Jesus told them, “I’m the Lord of the Sabbath.” Still, they wanted Him to bend to their system.

We do not tell God what to do. It’s popular for people fighting on social media these days to talk about what Jesus would and wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t you know it, Jesus always aligns with the views we already hold! At least that’s the message you get from people. But we don’t tell God what to do. Not my will, but His be done.

Mark 3:3 – ³ He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.”

Jesus knows exactly what was going on. He knew what the Pharisees were thinking. He knew their scheme. He knew in the crowd there was a man who needed healing. He knew it all.

We’ve all seen the scenes where a person who is being followed turns the tables on the watchers. The walk up to the surveillance van and knock on the window. That’s essentially what Jesus does. He asks this fellow to come stand right in the middle of the meeting so everyone can see him.

Now, from what we can tell, this man did not expect to be healed. He didn’t ask to be healed – he just went to church. But the Savior met him there and was about to change his life and use his life.

Most of us are regular attenders of church. Life-changing things don’t necessarily happen to us every single Sunday or every single Wednesday, but the encouragement here is that God might change our lives today. He wants to interact with us, He wants to transform us, and He works in a special way when His people gather together.

I’d like to share part of a testimony we received just this week that illustrates this very thing: “I used to go to church with my step mom…after a while I stopped going and it always left me with this feeling of something missing. But…I remember waking up on a Sunday morning and I felt like asking my stepmom if I could go to church with her. Of course, she said yes. So I got dressed and off I went to church and as soon as I stepped into the church and sat down that feeling of something missing immediately lifted off of me and I knew that what I was missing was Christ.”

That didn’t happen because of something we did. It was God’s doing. God wants to work in your life. And, like this fellow in Mark 3, He wants to use your life as an object lesson for others. Jesus spoke directly to him, but it’s obvious that He was also speaking to everyone else. Teaching them. Showing them His power and His compassion through this man’s life.

He asked the man to come to the middle.^[9] It would’ve been a scary moment, but the Lord wasn’t going to embarrass or take advantage of him. He only had good planned for him. But for this wonderful object lesson to play out, the man would have to trust and obey. Which is what he did.

Mark 3:4 – 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.

The Pharisees cared about the Talmud, Jesus cared about the Torah. The Torah is the five books of Moses. The Talmud is a huge collection of rabbinic discussions and interpretations of the Torah.

In my Bible, the Torah is about 270 pages. The Talmud, by contrast, is more than 2,700 pages!^[10] Ten times as long! They were convinced they had figured out spirituality through systems and boxes. It didn’t seem to bother them that God had been silent for 400 years. “What do we need to hear from God for? We’ve solved the equation.” But what a terrible irony that the people in the room who spent the most time and effort being religious were furthest from the Lord.

Jesus asks this question in an effort to show them that their whole perspective on spirituality was skewed. They broke everything down into the minutiae of how many steps you can take and how many pounds you can carry and how you need to portion out your spices in order to please God. But here Jesus says, “Zoom out. Let’s not talk about cumin or sewing needles. Does God want you to do good on the Sabbath or do evil?”

This line about saving life or killing is interesting. Pharisaism developed from the Maccabean revolt. One of the major incidents of that time was when a thousand Jews were slaughtered because they would not fight on the Sabbath. After that, Jewish leaders decided you can kill on the Sabbath if you’re being attacked.^[11] The group that became the Pharisees were a key part in that fight.

So Jesus tries to get them to think about the heart of the issue and, more importantly, the heart of God. Not what they think is best, but what does God intend? But they remain silent.

Their silence is absurd. They’re supposed to be the deciders of all Sabbath debates! They’re the ones that exist to answer these questions. But they refuse to respond. Why? Because they can’t answer. Any answer they give will betray their jealousy, their self-righteousness, their inconsistency.

By the way, if your doctrine can’t stand up to questions, that’s a red flag. The Pharisees frequently could not answer the questions Jesus posed to them because it was about tradition not truth.

Mark 3:5 –  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.

Jesus was angry, He was grieved, He was moved with compassion. This verse makes it crystal clear that the Lord cares about what’s going on in our lives, He cares about what’s going on in our hearts, and He cares about our choices. He is actually, personally, emotionally invested in your life.

Now, the man was also silent in this text, but he acts with obedience and faith. Jesus told him to stretch out his hand. That’s the one thing he can’t do – not naturally, that is. But he believed Jesus had the power to do the impossible for him. So he stepped out in faith, cooperating with God.

His hand was restored. Sadly, the Pharisees’ hearts remained hard. The term there refers to a kind of marble.^[12] Stone. Calcified and callous.^[13] That’s the one thing you don’t want your heart to be.

The saddest part is that their hearts could’ve been healed just like the man’s hand. They could’ve been like the Grinch, whose heart grew three sizes. They were also given a chance to believe.

The difference was they didn’t think they needed healing. The man knew his hand was withered. But they thought their hearts were fine. They felt no need to have anything restored.

They needed to reckon with the fact that they were wrong. Their righteousness, their religious efforts, their intellectual dedication could not save them. They needed to stretch out their hearts toward Christ. That term also refers to casting out an anchor.^[14] Anchoring your life on what? On the Lord Jesus Christ. On His truth. On His command. On His restorative, redemptive work. Choosing to build our lives not on our best ideas or our traditions but on His leading and revelation.

Mark 3:6 – ⁶ Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.

You know what was definitely not lawful? Conspiring to murder on the Sabbath! But that’s how hard their hearts were. Luke tells us they were full of rage at what they had seen.^[15] They were so upset they made a partnership with Herodians. That was a group that supported Roman occupation and thought Herod was a great guy.^[16] Seriously? You support Herod? The Pharisees would rather join them than admit that they needed adjustment – that God still had something to say to them.

And so we see this dramatic movement. The crippled man is drawn to Jesus and his life is restored. The Pharisees retreat from Jesus and toward death. Why? Because of the hardness of their hearts. It’s always about the heart. That’s what was fueling their choices, their emotional responses, their anger, their unkindness, their compromise, their behavior. Hard hearts that would not surrender.

So here we are, at church. Though Christ isn’t bodily in front of us, He promises to be with us in a special way, walking in our midst. And here He is, speaking through His eternal Word.

The questions are: Why are we here and what are we watching for? Are we here because it’s our tradition or do we believe that the God of heaven and earth also attends church so He can change us and bring change through us? Do we believe that God might transform us when we gather together?

And, as we come into the Lord’s presence, what are we watching for? The Pharisees were watching for all the wrong reasons. We don’t want to be like them. So what are we watching for? Are we watching for the commands of God and the diagnoses and the changes that God wants to work in our lives? The restoration He wants to accomplish as we anchor ourselves onto Him?

Faith and obedience was the difference in this text. That’s always the difference. So whether you need a hand healed or a heart healed tonight, respond in humility and faith and obedience. God can do the impossible. He wants to change your life and use your life. Would we rather be restored or full of rigor mortis?