operate. God does not box us in but allows us to be free.
Many of the Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus’ day are box sellers. They get so busy making sure everyone has the right box that they forget what the box is supposed to hold. Goodness of life is for everyone. When Jesus asks, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?” he is met with silence.
Jesus is aware that his listeners already know the answer. Jesus understands that those being asked to respond to his question have been boxed in. This boxing-in makes Jesus mad. Those who are uncomfortable with Jesus being mad will just have to get over it. The word that Mark used to describe Jesus’ anger means “to be really disgusted.” He is so disgusted that he grieves for those with whom he is angry.
If you have ever looked at someone who has made you angry and they are angry back at you and you say, “You know, I feel really sorry for you,” then you get the picture. Jesus is saying to the religious leaders, “You don’t get it, do you? You have forgotten the reason for the Sabbath. You have closed down your hearts. Your hearts are fossilized. They have grown old, hard, and without feeling. They represent death and not life.”
If you have trouble believing that Jesus meant all this with the use of one phrase, then look it up in a good commentary. Mark’s use of the Greek language, based on the idiom of Jesus’ day, reveals a multi-layered meaning in many phrases. In other words they had some better ways of saying what something means than we do. One phrase could say many things.
Jesus is sick to his heart over the religious leadership of his father’s house. Before he ever goes to Jerusalem, Jesus, by means of his words and deeds, symbolically turns over the tables in the synagogue. On the tables are all those boxes full of regulations that the religious leaders have used to hem in the people. Jesus wants the contents of those boxes out on the floor for all to see. The new has arrived. The old is going to have to be broken open in order to contain the new. The boxes are too small.
But boxes are an important product of the religious establishment. No wonder it is in this section that Mark reveals for the first time in explicit language that they start plotting how to get rid of him.
Lest we forget that there is a healing story in all this, let us remember the man with a withered hand. Mark seems more interested in the Pharisees’ contempt for Jesus’ perceived disrespect towards the Sabbath. The healing of the man with a withered hand seems secondary. To Mark, it is secondary. Mark assumes the healing ministry of Jesus and usually gives little detail about the healing itself.
The assumptions made by the writer of Mark’s Gospel would make a book unto themselves. We might like to know more about the background assumptions of this first and oldest gospel, but Mark keeps us guessing. His writing almost assumes that the reader already buys into certain things about Jesus. Jesus is a healer. That is assumed.
Mark has no way of knowing the questions that would arise years later about some of his assumptions. How does Jesus heal? Why does he not heal everybody? Why does healing not happen more today like it did when Jesus touched people?
All of these are pretty good questions which Mark leaves unanswered. Jesus’ healings are, in my book, pretty spectacular. But is this some kind of tease? I have personally not seen withered hands made whole with one touch of a human hand. Yes, I know there are miracles of modern surgery and medicine, but I am talking about those things that look like they happen on TV when some screaming voice beckons a person in a wheelchair to walk.
We have all seen the scenes on TV and anyone who wants to take the time to investigate will discover the emptiness of many of those “healings.” Mind control, hysteria, and even set up fake healings are usually what are behind many of these spectacular episodes.
The Gospel of Mark clearly states that Jesus is the unique bearer of a new kingdom. As a sign of this kingdom, Jesus heals. Mark believes in the demons of his day. In our day and age, we can demythologize those demons, but to Mark they are demons. Jesus, as we shall see later in this chapter has the demons’ number. A new power is breaking into the world. This is the power of the man from heaven.
For Jesus, to heal is not really a big deal. In the completion of this new kingdom there will be healing for everyone. What is soon discovered is that our kingdom cannot handle the completeness of this new kingdom. There are still healings that happen. We cannot box up those healings. There is mystery to healing, for there is a mystery to the way the kingdom of God touches our kingdom.
We can offer healing in the name of Jesus, but we are not Jesus. He is a one-time event. He is the bearer of a kingdom which is both here in part, and not yet. Jesus gives us a glimpse of the “not yet” in his healings. Jesus does, however, go away.
The power of his spirit is with us. Healing and wholeness can happen in the name of that Spirit, but it is not as patterned and controlled as many “healers” claim it to be. I have the same anger as Jesus had when I see the manipulation done in his name.
For Jesus, there is no mystery in healing. He simply does it. When we see him face to face we too shall receive the full benefit of that healing. In this life, where the kingdom of God struggles to be felt and made real, healing is not as evident.
I know there are miraculous, sudden healings that cannot be explained. They are few in terms of all that could be and all that are needed. I will not package the healing of God nor do I believe anyone can. Jesus is a pattern in many ways, but there can be some danger in those who think they can also say boldly, “Stretch out your hand.” Some things are to be left to Jesus.
To pray for healing in the name of Jesus is most appropriate, but there is always an element of letting it be after the prayer is said. I fully believe that when I lay my hands on someone or anoint them with oil and ask for God’s healing grace for their lives, that God gives a measure of healing to that person. I am not to control or package what kind of healing that will be.
Usually I do not get the kind of physical healing I desire when I pray such a healing prayer for someone. I have seen many cases of healing of relationships, emotional healing, and spiritual growth come from such healing times. When it comes to the physical, we stand at the edge of mystery.
Jesus contains the full mystery within himself in some way that I do not pretend to understand. Many creeds are written after Mark pens his gospel. Those creeds attempt to present the mystery of the Christ. All creeds fail in this effort. Faith recognizes the mystery.
The mystery touches a man’s hand and the hand is restored. The Pharisees can only see the infraction of an old rule. They cannot even see the mystery. Jesus’ anger is centered in their being so much in the dark when they are supposed to be those whose job it is to be sacred handlers of the mysteries of God.
Mark 3:7–12 The Crowds and the Demons
This is a scenario that most preachers would recognize: If you ask someone who comes to church on a certain Sunday, “How many people were there in church today?” they will give you a certain number. If you ask the preacher of that church the same question, the answer will have at least another fifty people added to it.
Mark tells us that Jesus departs to the sea with his few disciples (he has not called all of them yet) followed by “a great multitude from Galilee.” No doubt that this is a large crowd, but because the followers are surging forward and jostling each other so much, it probably feels much larger. The reason for the numbers is the “new preacher,” although Mark states that the people are gathering not so much because of what Jesus is saying but rather what he is doing. Everybody wants healing. This man can heal.
Your age will determine how you will picture the scene in these verses. My generation
