Mark 2b (8-13-25)

What's up everybody? This is Pastor James. Welcome back to our Midweek Bible study.

Today we're going to finish up chapter 2 and a little bit of scripture today, not

nearly as long as usual, but we'll start in verse 18 and read through verse 22 as

we talk about this discussion about fasting that Jesus and his disciples

encounter. So let's read together. Once when John's disciples and the Pharisees

were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, why don't your disciples fast

like John's disciples and the Pharisees do? Jesus replied, do wedding guests fast

while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can't fast while the groom is

with them, but someday the groom will be taken away from them and they will fast.

Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth for the new cloth patch

would shrink and rip away from the old cloth leaving an even bigger tear than

before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the wine would burst

the wineskins and the wine in the skins would both be lost. New wine calls

for new wineskins. Okay, so let's just kind of start off with this. Now if you

go to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew 9 reveals that the people who actually came to

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Jesus and asked why he and his disciples didn't fast were actually the disciples

of John the Baptist. Now this is pretty important because as different as John

was from the religious leaders of the day, he was still doing some of the

same things similarly to the religious leaders such as fasting. So there were

aspects of the law that called the people of Israel to fast and to pray. And

it is important to ask questions like this as fasting is something that is

promoted greatly throughout Scripture both in the Old Testament and in the

New Testament. So the religious leaders were fasting, John and his disciples

were fasting, and so Jesus comes along. He is speaking powerfully with authority.

People were so excited about what he was doing. He was healing the sick. He was

raising the dead. He was casting out demons. He was doing these amazing

wonderful things and yet Jesus was not fasting. And that's curious as to why

if he is supposed to be honoring the law to the utmost, why is he not fasting

like the disciples of John the Baptist and the other religious leaders? So but

in this passage we see a few things. So the first thing is is that Jesus is

breaking the mold as he and his disciples were kind of pulling this

this polar opposite of what was going on. They weren't fasting, okay? In fact Jesus

and his disciples weren't doing a lot of things that the other religious leaders

and John the Baptist were doing. Jesus and his disciples were going to parties.

They were hanging out with sinners, notorious sinners. You know he called

Matthew to be his disciple and Matthew threw a party and invited all his

sinful friends. And remember that people were angry. Why is Jesus hanging out

with these people? Jesus calls Zacchaeus to come down. He goes to Zacchaeus's

house. He hangs out with all of Zacchaeus's friends and the religious

leaders are angry because of this. So Jesus and his disciples are hanging out

with sinners. They're drinking wine. They're attending a lot of parties and

this is very different from what the people of Israel were expecting during

this time. It was also very different from what the religious leaders were

doing during this time. So we have to understand that everything Jesus was

doing was very different. It was not questionable but was questionable. So I'll

just be honest. You know as a pastor if one of my staff members whether it was

Pastor Timmy or Pastor Nina or Haley or one of our board members or one of our

church members for that matter, if I found out that they were going to these

parties regularly with people who were not professing believers in Christ, there

was alcohol involved or drugs or anything for that matter that wasn't

healthy, and they were going to these parties and participating whether it just

be casually or whatever, I would be very concerned. It would worry me that they

were doing something or living in a way or allowing their relationship with Christ

to slip because they were indulging in things or involving themselves with other

people who weren't healthy and weren't helping them grow closer to Christ. That

I see the reason why John the Baptist and his disciples would be concerned and

even the religious leaders would be concerned, hey we're doing this, why

aren't you guys and why isn't Jesus doing this? So Jesus begins to explain why

he and his disciples are operating in the context that they are. He gives a

parable or an example of why this is and he compares himself and the current

moment that his disciples have with him as the celebration of a wedding. Now this

is super important as weddings were these amazing times of celebration during

biblical times. During Jesus' day weddings were like it was the most awesome time.

You know there were holidays but a lot of the Jewish holidays were very

religious, they were very serious, you had to honor these things. It's not like

today where we have Christmas and Thanksgiving and we celebrate with

family and we have Easter and we do these like big events with family that

are really happy times but weddings were a big deal. They lasted several days and

people loved them. It was like it was a great escape from the reality of

everyday living and everything came to a stop during a wedding and in fact what

we find is is that during Jesus' day and even before and after when someone was

getting married even the religious leaders who were very serious and

stringent about the law would be willing to permit the people who were

enjoying the wedding to abstain from certain aspects or observances of the

law during the wedding celebration. Okay now the religious leaders are following

Jesus very stringently. I mean they're trying to find fault in him with

everything but even they were willing to permit certain things to go undone

during a wedding celebration because it was such a big deal that so if certain

observances or things came about now you couldn't just all of a sudden start

worshiping idols or doing crazy stuff you know there was a threshold but for

the most part most things were set to the side so that the people could

enjoy the wedding celebration to its full extent because it was such a

special time. So Jesus compares his time with his disciples as a wedding

celebration and Jesus himself is the groom and he's saying that the moment

his disciples have with him is a time for celebration and learning and joy

rather than fasting morning and observing the things of old. The current

moment is much better and much more superior than the requirements of the

old and this is why we get the analogy of patching an old garment with new

cloth. If you're unfamiliar with this new cloth shrinks when it's washed so

if you use new cloth to patch old clothes the first time you wash them the

patch will shrink and rip out and in fact it will leave a bigger hole than

was there before. Likewise it's very similar with wine skins when wine is

made it undergoes a chemical reaction called fermentation which makes it

expand. Now new wine skins are able to expand because they still have like

moisture in the wood they're still not completely set and they haven't been

with the wine as it undergoes that chemical reaction called fermentation but an old

wine skin has already been expanded and it can't go any further so if you put new

wine into an old wine skin it will expand and it will burst rendering it

useless and the wine would be lost. So Jesus is not speaking negatively of

what John and his disciples and the other religious leaders are doing. That's

really important to understand. He's not speaking against fasting. Jesus very much

supports fasting. In fact when you look at the New Testament the disciples

communicate with the early church about the importance of prayer and fasting and

Jesus is simply saying that while he is there it is a time for joy and

celebration and learning and because it's like a wedding there are certain

things that can be put off until the wedding celebration is over. So when you

look back at verse 20 Jesus says but someday the groom will be taken away from

them and then they will fast. So Jesus is communicating. He's prophesying of the

fact that he will be taken from them and when Jesus is taken away the

disciples will then fast and mourn and pray and seek the face of God but the

idea that Jesus is there, you know, he is God. He does not need to fast in order to

get a clear message of his purpose or God's plan because he is God and so

therefore he knows God's purpose. He knows God's plans. He is God's purpose and God's

plan and that's what he's communicating in this is as he's saying you know that

he is the new one and he is the one that is able to to break this mold and you

can't put God inside the boxes of old. You can't put him with the old cloth. You

can't put him with the old wine skins because Jesus and the faith that we have

in Jesus is very much this new living thriving thing and so it's going to

it's going to change and it's going to shape and move and it's going to be

different compared to the old law that John and his disciples and the other

religious leaders and their disciples were operating by. Very fascinating little

passage of scripture right there and you know I think it's really important

that when these people come and ask Jesus why aren't you fasting, Jesus

doesn't chastise them. He answers their question because he understands

their hearts and he understands that they're seeking a legitimate answer.

They're not trying to call him out in front of a large group of people.

They're simply trying to understand okay you're doing things differently. Why

is that help us to understand and I think that's a really cool part of this

passage and this leads into our next passage to finish up this chapter so

let's read verses 23 through 28. We'll finish up the chapter and as we talk

about this discussion on the Sabbath so verse 23. One Sabbath day as Jesus was

walking through some grain fields his disciples began breaking off heads of

grain to eat but the Pharisees said to Jesus look why are they breaking the law

by harvesting grain on the Sabbath? Jesus said to them haven't you ever read

in the scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He went

into the house of God during the days when Abiathar was high priest and broke

the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests were

allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions. Then Jesus said to them the

Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people and not people to meet the

requirements of the Sabbath so the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath.

Okay so what we see here is another example of Jesus doing things

differently. It doesn't mean that he's doing them wrong because Jesus did not

break the law, he did not do anything wrong, he did everything perfectly

exactly the way that he was supposed to. So in this passage Jesus and his

disciples are walking through a field and they're breaking off heads of grain

and just eating as they're walking along but according to the religious

leaders of the day this was considered breaking the Sabbath. So let me give

you an idea of what's going on. In the first five books of the Bible you have

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These books are called the

Torah or the books of the law and these books are what the people of

Israel operated off of. This is how you honor and serve and live for God. These

are the rules that you go by. Now they did read things like the book, the judges,

they had those, they had those writings, they had those oral

stories that they taught to one another, they had the writings of the

prophets, they had the books of poetry, of proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and Psalms

and all that stuff. So they basically had all of the Old Testament scripture that

we have but they really focused on the law and the Torah. But what happened is

is that from the time that Moses gave the law to the people of Israel there

were questions and discussions of okay well how do we honor this law the right

way. And obviously everyone has a different opinion so what happened is is that the

religious leaders as time went on they started writing more specific

instructions on how to observe things like the Sabbath. So

the law said honor the Sabbath and keep it holy

but by the time Jesus comes in the flesh the religious leaders would have

written pages upon pages upon pages of what was permissible

and what was not permissible on the Sabbath.

What was work what was not considered work and it was something as silly

as if you pick a cup up or just something simple in the palm of your

hand and carried it across the room because you carried it in the palm of

your hand that would be considered work because you were carrying something.

However if you place something on the back of your hand

and carried it across the room that was not considered work

and therefore it was honoring the Sabbath because you were not

carrying it was resting on the back of your hand.

So by the time Jesus comes along that was

the extent upon which they had added to the laws of Moses and I think it was

like there was about 600 and something laws

that God had given the people of Israel through Moses. By the time

Jesus comes in the flesh there was over 1500

laws and regulations upon which you obeyed the original 600 and something laws

and so they had almost tripled the amount of information

and the requirements that people had needed. Now this is very significant

because this is a lot and and this is what Jesus is dealing with

in this is that he's he's not breaking the law by working on the Sabbath he's

only he and his disciples were only eating food.

So we we have this disagreement about the things of God. The religious leaders

are very set on evaluating Jesus according to their

understanding of the law but Jesus who is God

he gave the law he completely understands the law because he is the one who gave

it he obeys it perfectly and not only does he

understand it and obey it but he is also lord over it

at all times and the religious leaders viewed the Sabbath day as a day of

confinement or limitation and they wanted to confine and limit

the people on this day as well but Jesus who claims that he is lord over the

Sabbath saw the Sabbath day is what it was created

for it was given for freedom and benefit it was made so that the

needs of people could be met it was not made

for God to benefit from but God calls us to honor the Sabbath and to keep it

holy for our benefit it's so that we can receive

rest we can have what we need so the disciples

harvesting the little bit of grain that they're eating they're not

harvesting in excess they're harvesting only what they're eating

on the Sabbath was a perfectly permissible thing because they were

meeting a basic need of food and the religious leaders

were just trying to put the weight of their Sabbath expectations on Jesus and

his disciples by limiting them from a common

everyday need of getting food and this is when Jesus kind of

explains what the Sabbath was truly intended for and how he the son of man

was lord over the Sabbath and he's not limited to the rules that man had

instilled on one another as a way to honor the Sabbath and

thankfully you know we serve a heavenly father

who has given everything to us for his glory and our benefit

and even the Sabbath is for us and I think we got to remember that a lot of

times you know sometimes we look at scripture and we

look at God's word and it seems very daunting and it

seems very impossible to do but in reality it was always for our

benefit God did it for our good and sometimes we have to remind ourselves

everything that God wants us to do he has done for our good and our

benefit and the rest was intended to give

give us rest for our benefit so one last thing before we close out today so

if you look at verses 25 through 26 Jesus gives this example of

David going to the house of God and eating the bread that was reserved

for the bread of the presence and it was rotated out every seven days and then

once it was rotated out only the priest was allowed by the law to

eat this bread and I want to talk about this because

in Mark, Mark records this as when Abiathar was high priest

David went into the house of God and he received the bread from Abiathar

however if you look back at first Samuel chapter 21

1 Samuel 21:1

verse 1 it says that the priest during this event was actually a hemelech

now Mark states the priest is Abiathar

first Samuel states the priest was a hemelech

and a lot of people will try to use this

this small difference to say see that the Bible is not accurate the Bible is

not right because there are differences in

it there's contradictions and this is a contradiction

but biblical scholars will tell us that this is a perfectly

permissible form of writing in this moment when Mark

says Abiathar rather than a hemelech and the reason why is

is because shortly after this account in first Samuel

Thal sends a group of soldiers to I think it's the the town of Nod where the

house of God was and he massacres the entire town

and in this massacre a hemelech one of the priests was killed and all of the

other priests were as well but Abiathar the son of a hemelech now

this is really important because Abiathar was the son

of a hemelech Abiathar was able to escape

he escaped and went to find a shelter and safety with David and his men in the

wilderness and after Saul was removed from

after he was removed from kingship and the Lord took his life

David appointed Abiathar as the high priest so historically

in the nation of Israel Abiathar was always associated with

the priesthood during the time of David so for Mark to write this

and quote this or even Jesus to say you know during

Abiathar it would have been very appropriate for

the people to understand that the time frame of

Abiathar being the priest during David's reign was more appropriate for the

people to understand than the actual his father a hemelech being listed as

the one who had the interaction with David so historically from a biblical

perspective this is a very permissible difference in

scripture that would not be seen as malicious or

too far out to to create a contradictive

information in scripture and so this is very permissible

would be a very normal thing and so Abiathar was the high priest here in

David's reign but his father a hemelech may have been was the one who

actually had the interaction with David so

this is not a terrible thing this this doesn't discredit the Bible in any

way actually it just affirmed scripture and it

reminds us that the way that the the Hebrew people

recorded history recorded things was very different than the way we do

and it's very similar to how the Jewish people

did not quote dates whenever they were talking about stuff

they always associated significant events

with the time frame of the king that was reigning

or whenever someone was leading the nation of people so they would say

during the time that the judge so and so ruled over Israel

during the time that King such and such reign

it's like when Isaiah said in the year that King Uzziah died

I was given a message from the Lord it was always

related to the significant leader so as Mark is quoting this it would have been

very appropriate for him to say during the king time of King David

Abiathar was high priest and this is why he mentioned it this way

okay just wanted to leave you with that I always want to make sure that we

cover even like the least little bit of

things that could cause people to doubt or question

and maybe if someone has a question for you or brings us up later on

you'll have a good explanation for them and you can research that a little

bit more if you have questions on it and

read it yourself and that way you know more about it but

anyway let's pray and I'll let you guys go father in heaven thank you so much

for this day and for everything you've given us

thank you for your love and mercy and your

amazing and powerful word and I pray God that you would help us to follow you

and honor you and all that we do strengthen us help us to grow in your

ways and Lord just speak to our hearts Lord

help us not to question you but Lord to have faith and

remind ourselves that you know more than we know

you are higher and more intelligent and wiser

and more perfect in every way than we could ever possibly be

and it would be so foolish for us to put you into boxes that we can understand

or apply things that apply to us to you

like the religious leaders did Lord help us not to

impose any of our ways on you but Lord help us to turn away from ourselves and

let your ways and your heart be imposed on us we love you today

and we thank you for everything and we ask all this in Jesus name amen

all right guys thanks for tuning in for another week we appreciate you

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we love you we're praying for you hope you have a great week