Mark 2:18-28

Jesus lifts the burden of the law
Mark 2:18-28

I met a lady about a year ago who had spent a lot of her life reading the first five books of the Old Testament and counting God’s laws contained within.  She wrote a book about it.  She counted 613 laws, which she divided into Restrictions (365) and Obligations (248).  It sounded pretty heavy to me, but these laws, she said, gave her comfort, for she was Jewish.  I admired her for her devotion to the Law, but that law wouldn’t save her – only the love of Jesus could.  (Please pray for Penny’s salvation, as she is very old and her time is near)

Now, can you imagine in Jesus’ time when all they had was the law, and not only God’s law, but man’s?  The Jewish leaders had added another 670 or so “Jewish” laws that were also to be followed.  “The Law,” (God’s law) which was intended to keep God’s people pure, had now become a burden to all thanks to the human laws.  Jesus would address this in this passage of scripture.

2:18-20 Fasting was a part of the Jewish tradition.  At one point in the Bible (see Zechariah 7:4-11), the Jews were fasting two months of the year.  This was done so they could contemplate God.  They rarely did — they just starved.  Jesus (the bridegroom) in this passage tells us that while he’s on earth, there is no reason to fast, because God, in the form of Jesus, was with them.  They can fast and contemplate him after he’s gone.

2:21-22 … Now to those laws I was telling you about…  I still do not entirely get it, but it goes something like this – You can’t combine the many old laws in the Old Testament, and the additional laws that the Jewish leaders created with the new teaching of Jesus.  It just won’t work.  The “Old religion,” Judaism had become cumbersome and the laws served no purpose except to make people miserable.  They were a burden.  Jesus came to show us that the spirit of the law is what mattered.  If the law caused people not to be saved, then the law needed change.  Jesus streamlined the law by stating that if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor (all people) as yourself, then you are fulfilling God’s intent of the law.

Jesus offers the law of love.  What a simple yet beautiful concept!

2: 23-28 Well, here’s an example of what Jesus was talking about… Jesus and his disciples were picking grain, which equated with working on the Sabbath (“the day of rest,” our Sunday, their Saturday), a real no-no in Jewish law (I emphasize Jewish law; this command was not found in the Old Testament Law).  The Pharisee is understandably upset because Jesus and his followers were not obeying the letter of the law.  Jesus’ response?… Man was not created just so he could rest once a week; God set aside one day a week for man to contemplate His many wonders.  A more modern version for us might state that God did not create a church just for our mandatory attendance on Sunday, he created a place that we might get together voluntarily to worship and praise God because of all that He has done in our lives.  We worship God today because of love, and hopefully not out of obligation.