Project 119: Mark 3:1-12
| Project 119 | Mary Splawn
Did you and your family have special traditions or specific plans on Sundays when you were growing up? When I was a little girl, my family didn’t go out to eat on Sundays because, at the time, my parents saw this as a way of following God’s command of Sabbath rest.
The Pharisees probably grew up with a very strict Sabbath routine as well. Observing the Sabbath rest was a commandment that God had given the Israelites, but the Pharisees added to this commandments rules upon rules in order to make sure that no one ever came close to transgressing the command. So, not only did they avoid work; they even limited how far people were allowed to walk on this sacred day. I guess a Fitbit would have come in handy to them!
All kidding aside, the Jewish leaders probably meant well in their attempts to obey the rules that they had constructed to help keep the Sabbath as a day of rest. The problem is that they lost focus on what really mattered…worshiping God and serving Him.
So, when Jesus asks them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?,” they are silent because they know that healing the man would be considered work by the religious leaders of the day. Jesus is furious with them and He says they have “stubborn hearts.”
Perhaps they were well-meaning, but their hearts were deceived. They thought they knew what was best, but their legalistic practice led their hearts astray. This reminds me of the verse in Jeremiah 17:9 which speaks about the heart. It says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.”
The truth of the matter is that all of us have wicked and deceitful hearts, not just the Pharisees. But in a cultural setting where we’re told to follow our hearts and do what feels right, this verse hits us hard. How can something be sin when it feels so right?
This passage calls us all on the carpet. It reminds us that Jesus sees our hearts and sometimes a test of our faith is our response to injustice. Also, it reminds us that well-meaning Christians can often be in sin if they are following their hearts and not the truth of Scripture.
Take some time to confess your wayward heart to the Lord. I know it sounds harsh, but there is freedom in recognizing your natural state. Then ask the Lord to reveal ways you are blinded by your culture or your heart to the sin in your life. Call out with David in the words of Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Mark 3:1-12 (ESV):
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.