Mark 2
I love reading the Gospels, because it is like personally listening to the teachings of our Lord Jesus from His very mouth and watching Him do the things that He had set as examples for us today.
Besides listening to the teachings of our Lord Jesus in the Gospels, we can also see some happenings around Jesus that He used them as examples for our learning.
So let us immerse into today’s chapter together to listen to the teachings that proceeded from the mouth of our Lord and to also watch some examples that are worth our consideration and emulation.
Bible Passage: Mark 2
Example Of Great Faith And Love
This chapter begins with a happening that is very familiar to all of us, and that is the 4 friends who painstakingly brought their paralytic friend to be healed by Jesus and the Lord saw their great faith, healed their friend.
Besides showing great faith in the Almightiness of the Lord, these 4 friends’ heart of love was truly worthy of our emulation.
Whenever I read this record in Gospels, I’ll always visualize these 4 friends were carrying another of their friend on a stretcher who was a paralytic, and frantically bashing through crowds of people just to quickly get to Jesus for His healing touch.
They knew for sure that this Jesus was able to make their beloved friend well, and whatever hindrances they had to face were secondary. I could almost sense their urgency in wanting to see their friend stand up again. This is really touching!
From this recorded incident in the Bible, we are often told to reflect on our faith in the Lord, how much do we trust the Lord’s almightiness? And also to reflect on our love for our brethren in Christ and also those people whom we call friends. Do we know how to love them with the love we have learnt from Christ, and how much love are we willing to give?
Indeed we must constantly check on our faith in the Lord. Do we constantly seek to draw closer to Him daily, and increase the trust that we must have in Him?
We are in the Body of Christ, ourselves and all the brothers and sisters are part of this Body, do we love each other like how Jesus loves us?
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
John 15:13-14 (ESV)
This is the kind of love that our Lord wants us to have towards our brothers and sisters, are we able to do it?
We may not need to lay down our lives for our brethren……. yet, but let’s ask ourselves, have we even love our brethren to the best that we can, or do we keep an arm’s length from those brethren who seem too troublesome to love, too demanding, ill mannered, or those with strange/weird habits?
Example Of Quick Response To God’s Calling
He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was
teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at
the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
Mark 2:13-14 (ESV)
I was rather fascinated by Levi’s response to Jesus’ call, it seemed that he did not even hesitate for a moment to think if he should follow the Lord or not, what about his job as a tax collector? He didn’t wait, but ‘he rose and followed Him’
How would Levi know for sure that he really wanted to follow Jesus? Was he sure he wanted to leave his job as a tax collector to follow Jesus?
There is a speculation made by some Bible scholars about Levi’s quick response to Jesus’ call. They speculated that it was possible that before Jesus ‘officially’ called His 12 disciples, He had already started to teach the word of God to the people around the village, even when He was a teenager.
Levi could have pondered seriously about what Jesus had taught through the years, and he might have even gone to Jesus to seek and found answers to all of his questions about the commandments of God.
So when the time came, Levi responded quickly to the call of the Lord, for he knew that Jesus was no ordinary teacher of the Law.
Whether or not this speculation is what really happened, it doesn’t really matter. But what matters and what we must learn is the readiness of Levi to respond to the Lord’s calling.
When we have received the Holy Spirit, we are being sent to do the works of God (ref. Acts 1:8). So if we are being asked to be involved in any divine works, do not hesitate to think that we are unable to carry out the work(s) due to our business in the world or our personal preferences in regards to divine works.
We must not receive the grace of God in vain.
The Sabbath And Man
What is better than hearing from the Lord of the Sabbath Himself about the essence of Sabbath keeping?
From this simple explanation of Jesus about the Sabbath, I see the great love of God. Why?
God created the heavens and the earth, and everything in it with man’s interests in His mind!
He established the Sabbath for man’s benefit; a day of rest that man can enjoy the company of the Lord.
In today’s Christendom, many have grown accustomed to revering Sunday as a day for Christians to worship God instead of the Sabbath, which God has clearly appointed as the holy day of the week.
Throughout the Old Testament, we can detect the emphasis of the Sabbath, and it was due to the people profaning the Sabbath, that they were being punished.
The fear of punishment for profaning the Sabbath had got into the Jews so much so that they started to implement strict restrictions on the Sabbath. And as time passed, these restrictions became part of the laws of the Judaism. These restrictions must have made the Jews of that time to fear the Sabbath rather than finding it a delight.
So it seems that this sentiment has also affected the Christians of today that whoever still want to keep the Sabbath is putting a bondage upon themselves of the old law which only the Jews needed to keep.
But Isaiah the prophet recorded something that God had spoken with His own mouth.
“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Isaiah 58:13-14 (ESV)
God wants His people to call the Sabbath a delight, for it is a day of holiness and blessings in the Lord.
Will God demand something that His people find it impossible to do? If the Sabbath is such a fearful and dreaded day, will God force the people to feel otherwise?
God had established the Sabbath and hallowed this day for the sake of man way before the 10 Commandments were carved on slaps of stone, even in the beginning when God created man. (ref. Gen. 2:1-3).
Furthermore, when Jesus said, “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”, it is clear that the Sabbath was not made for only the Jews, but for all humanity, for the well being of all humanity.
Finally, according to the words of God in Isaiah 58, keeping the Sabbath comes with a promise, a promise that God would bless all Sabbath keepers with the heritage of Jacob.
Now what was the heritage of Jacob?
May God give you of the dew of heaven
and of the fatness of the earth
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”
Genesis 27:28-29 (ESV)
See what we will miss if we don’t keep the Sabbath?
Truly, our God will bless us unreservedly with His abundant grace and love when we obey Him with our whole heart.
May God continue to bless us with wisdom in His Word in this new year ahead.
Shalom!
5 Comments
PS
Besides pointing us to the eternal rest in the kingdom of heaven, keeping Sabbath gives us actual blessings while we are here on earth. Notice the wordings in Isaiah 58:14 …I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,…The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
The blessings are dispensed while we are on earth! The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Lord Jesus came so that our sins can be forgiven. (Mark 2:5)
The paralytic did not stand up and walk immediately after Lord Jesus declared that his sins were forgiven. (Mark 2:5) He stood up and walked only after Lord Jesus said to him, “…arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” (Mark 2:11-12)
Are we like him? spring into action only when there is an explicit instruction from Lord Jesus?
Lord Jesus has given us the explicit commission to proclaim His gospel of salvation to the end of the earth and to pastor His sheep.
Stand up, walk and proclaim: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved…” (Mark 16:15-16)
PS
May i ask a silly question?
The chinese bible uses 四个人(ie four men) in Mark 2:3, 有人in Matthew 9:2 and in Luke 5:18.
Er, could these 4 men be family members and /or relatives and not friends?
In a family-based and closely-knitted church like TJC, there is bound to be some who are “close ones”, some who are just “so-so”.
May be as long as each of us strive to be a good member in the body of Christ, His house will naturally give off a warmth which each child can feel when he/she steps in. (Eph 2:19-22)
If i m just a “so-so”, i m still coming home to my Father’s house, right?
Faith is not an unbearable heaviness of life.
biblereadingcompanion
I am not sure if the 4 were friends or relatives but what I do know is that they were very important to the paralytic.
Look at Mark 2:5… “When Jesus saw their faith…”
It was not just the faith of the paralytic but the faith of ALL of them. This faith led to the forgiveness of sin of the paralytic and ended up with him walking!
I was also struck a lot by verse 17….
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Salvation is for everyone right? Especially those who are in deep need. But who are those who really need Jesus? Those with bad habits, behave in ways we ‘Christians’ deem unrighteous. They may lie or seem deceitful.
And because we see these ‘unsightly’ behaviour, we make our decisions and give reasons why we should or should not do a certain thing.
But Jesus’ example puts me to shame. The example of the 4 men puts me to shame.
Jesus came and sought out those who others rejected. Do we?
Imagine if you were on of the four men struggling to bring the paralytic to Jesus. What would it motivate you to struggle up a roof, hefting a dead weight, and then dig your way through it to bring another to the source of healing?
How hard would it be for you to recruit 3 partners? Would the stares and unhappy looks and comments from the crowd stop you? Would a skeptical observer – even if he/she is a teacher of the law – who doesn’t expect God to work ‘outside the box’ stop you?
How convicted are we that we are willing to go through all these difficulties just to bring an individual… a soul to Jesus?
I am so ashamed. ;(
PS
Hi biblereadingcompanion, yes, the 4 care and they put their care into action.
No matter they are family members/relatives/friends,
they care and they do their care.
Let Lord Jesus light us as His candle and shine forth from the very spot where we are now.
Wonder if this is the N-times which the 4 carried the paralytic to seek treatment. This time they brought him in front of Lord Jesus. And he was healed.
Are we as determined to bring others to seek healing? Healing of the soul?
They care.
PP
On verse 5, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
At that moment, Jesus has not healed him, but he had forgiven his sin.
Why?
Here is what I learn from this verse:
Sin was the root of suffering. Because of sin there is sickness.
Before Adam and Eve fall sin, there was no sickness. Everything was good. Because of sin, man was separated from God. Only without sin then man can be together with God.
Jesus knows the best for him / us. His / our body in this world is temporary. The most important things is his / our soul.
After Jesus healed the paralytic, definitely he would die one day.
So what important isn’t his / our physical, but his / our soul.