At this point, Mark merely refers in passing to the whole story of John’s denunciation of Herod for immorality, and John’s consequent imprisonment and death (for full account, see 6:14–29). The incident serves here only as a date-line, for from this moment began the preaching of the good news by Jesus. That the initial point of preaching was hard-pressed, stubbornly nationalistic Galilee, surrounded by Gentiles, always first target for any invader from the north, is seen by Matthew to be no accident (Matt. 4:12–16). As in the words of the prophet, so in the earthly ministry of Jesus, Galilee appropriately symbolizes God’s people in bondage, to whom the light of salvation would first come (Isa. 9:1–2).1 Nevertheless, this does not justify us in downgrading (with Marxsen) the geographic reality of the location of the mission in favour of theological symbolism.
14. The gospel of God: there is a variant reading ‘gospel of the kingdom’, which is certainly the sense of verse 15.
15. The news which Jesus now heralded in Galilee was that God’s hour had struck, the time to which all the Old Testament had looked forward. God’s reign upon earth, a concept familiar from the prophets, was about to begin (is at hand). All were therefore called to a change of heart (repent) and to a belief in this good news, for which John had already prepared the way. This is the only instance in Mark where pisteuo en, believe in, is used: see BAGD p. 660, where ‘put one’s trust in’ seems a better translation than ‘believe on the basis of the gospel’. What all had yet to learn, and what proved to be the hardest lesson for the disciples of Jesus to learn, was that the reign of God was not to be a cataclysmic external triumph in the here and now by an earthly Messiah, but a peaceful rule over the hearts of those who responded to the message, although no reader of the Old Testament could think of it as purely an internal matter. True, the gospel involves the kingdom: but it also alters all contemporary concepts of the kingdom (see Schweizer). Is at hand: this might possibly be translated, following the sense of the presumed Semitic original, ‘has come’. In one sense the kingdom had already come in the person of Jesus, who was fulfilling God’s will perfectly. In another sense, it was gradually coming, in lives surrendered to God. In a third sense, God would introduce it universally at the ‘last day’.
Jesus called Simon and Andrew to be fishers of men (17), and while the use of the metaphor in their particular case may have been suggested by their occupation at the time, yet this is a universal calling for every disciple of Jesus.2 Fisherman, farmer, builder, reaper, shepherd, steward, servant: all are examples of the homely metaphors used by Jesus in the gospels, each describing a different aspect of our common Christian obligations to our Lord and to our fellows.
Both pairs of brothers found that obedience to the call of Jesus was costly; it meant abandonment of all that they held dear, and all earthly security, in simple committal to Jesus. Nor can we say that those who left father and hired servants and boat left more than those who left their nets alone,3 since both left all that they had; that is always the minimum requirement for the Christian (8:34). Left and followed (18) correspond to the double call of Jesus in verse 15 ‘repent and believe’ (Minear).
It has been well pointed out by scholars that to the ancient world, unaccustomed to walking abreast on a wide path as modern pedestrians would naturally do, the word followed meant to ‘walk with’, in modern idiom. To walk with Jesus as Enoch had walked with God (Gen. 5:22), these fishermen gave up all earthly prospects. Nevertheless it is true that, by New Testament times, the verb ‘to follow’ had added to its meaning an ethical aspect, for it is always the teacher who walks ahead, and the student who follows: therefore, at the least, a rabbi-disciple relationship is implied.
It was the consistent practice of Jesus to attend both temple and synagogue; but, unlike any other teacher whom his audience had heard hitherto, he neither quoted nor relied on any great rabbinic names as precedent for his teaching. His hearers were amazed, not only at the content of his teaching, but also at the assumption of personal authority4 displayed in the manner of its presentation. This was in direct contrast to the caution and pettifogging of the scribes, to whom the new handling of law and tradition by Jesus must have seemed cavalier, to say the least. Anderson well points out the stress given in Mark to the teaching programme of Jesus, although the content of his teaching is not detailed.
23–26. The immediate result of the preaching of Jesus was not harmony, but division and strife, exactly as he later warned (Matt. 10:34). This strife might lie concealed in the minds of the congregation, but it was made plain in the outcry of the demoniac. He, at least, bears unwilling witness to the person and work of Jesus, though he recoils instinctively from his purity, realizing that here is a preacher with whom he had nothing in common, crying what have you to do with us? (24)5 Capernaum, the scene of the miracle, was a proud city of unbelief, compared with which Tyre and Sidon would fare better in the day of judgment (Matt. 11:23–24). It is a strange commentary on the spiritual situation in Capernaum that a demoniac could worship in the synagogue with no sense of incongruity, until confronted by Jesus, and indeed apparently with no initial desire to be delivered from his affliction. The instant response of Jesus was to muzzle this involuntary demon-testimony and free the man from the incubus. The Greek word phimōtheti, be silent (25), is better translated as ‘be muzzled’: it is both strong and blunt, like ‘shut up’ in modern colloquial English. The main emphasis is on the silencing of the demon, to maintain the so-called ‘messianic secret’. See the Introduction (p. 88f.): Jesus will not accept compulsory witness to his god-head, when given by the powers of evil.
27–28. This exhibition of power only confirmed the impression left in the minds of his hearers, that here was one invested with authority. But, though it often led to wonder, a miracle did not lead necessarily to belief. This seems to be one of the reasons why Jesus performed healing miracles so sparingly and selectively, and seemingly only for those in whom faith already existed, no matter in how smalla degree (9:24). Of course, in the case of a demoniac, it would be useless to seek for such faith before liberation. Faith, in any case, if produced merely by the spectacular and the abnormal would be inadequate (Minear and Schweizer).6
This ‘domestic miracle’ gives us one of the rare glimpses into the home lives of the apostles. Simon’s wife may even have accompanied her husband on his missionary travels later, as she is mentioned specifically by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:5.7 This incident is often claimed as a ‘Petrine touch’: certainly, of the apostles, only Peter, James and John were present (and Andrew?).
As so often in the gospel narrative, the touch of Jesus brought instant healing (31); and the consciousness of healing brought grateful devotion to him, expressed in the way in which she served or ‘waited at table’. It is incorrect, with Schweizer (quoted in Anderson), to compare 15:41, and to see this service as being the model of discipleship for a woman. Humble service like this is the model for every disciple of Jesus alike (10:43–45), but a strict rabbi would have forbidden a woman even to serve at table.
The miracle in the synagogue and the miracle in the home are the natural preludes to the general healing described in these verses. The two isolated miracles had actually taken place on the sabbath; now, after sunset, with the sabbath over and the first day of the week begun, crowds assembled to seek healing. The evangelist may have intended us to see that it was appropriate for such general healing and blessing to be on what was to the church ‘the Lord’s day’. The question of healing by Jesus on the sabbath does not seem to have yet arisen as a controversial point. Presumably this was so because the healing of the demoniac was involuntary, and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law took place inside a private house, and would therefore be unseen by and unknown to the orthodox. Orthodox Judaism permitted healing on the sabbath only when life was in danger, and there is no evidence that such was the case here. As the Pharisees do not appear on the scene till 2:16, however, their absence may have also been the reason for the absence of controversy as yet. For a rigid Jew, breach of the sabbath was punishable by death (Num. 15:35).
34. Once again, the Lord refuses to accept demoniac testimony to his Godhead. All such testimony is non-voluntary, an unwilling recognition by the powers of darkness of an empirical fact, and therefore it corresponds to no morally or spiritually transforming discovery. Jesus is prepared to await the revelation to be made by God himself that alone will enable every disciple to say with Peter, ‘You are the Christ’ (8:29). James 2:19 shows that such grudging acceptance of God by the demons as an unwelcome reality is far apart from true Christian faith: though demons may well admit, they do not trust,8 but only ‘shudder’. That is not the biblical ‘fear of the Lord’ (Ps. 19:9).
All the varied healings mentioned here must have taken a considerable time. We know that on some occasions at least, the miracle was accompanied by a conscious flow of healing power from Jesus (5:30). Healing may therefore have been an exhausting experience to him, although this is not actually stated in Scripture. If so, it would have been another reason for the frequent withdrawal of Jesus after such occasions, as now.
It was after a busy sabbath of worship and ministry in the synagogue, at a time when others might seek rest and relaxation, that Jesus sought God in private prayer (35). In this way he was accustomed to spend his ‘preacher’s Monday morning’. The earliness of the hour and the pains taken to secure a quiet place for uninterrupted prayer left a lasting impression on the disciples. Simon and the others seem to have thoroughly disapproved of this ‘unrealistic’ strategy in withdrawing from the bustle and opportunity of Capernaum to the silence of a lonely spot (37). They must have been still more puzzled when Jesus saw, in this heightened local interest roused by his healing work, the signal to move on, and to preach in other villages (38). This, he explains, was in fulfilment of his mission, which now became a general preaching and healing mission of a peripatetic nature, based on the synagogues of Galilee. Lightfoot notes that, in Mark, there are three specific references to Jesus at prayer (1:35; 6:46; 14:32). All are at night, and all at times of tension: but surely this early rising for prayer shows a general pattern.
This account of the healing of the leper is only one example of a type of incident that must have been repeated many times in the unrecorded ministry of Jesus, which obviously (3:8–12) was much more extensive than our scanty records show. In this miracle, told by Mark in his usual laconic way, there are only two characters involved. The first character is an untouchable, conscious of his own state, earnestly desiring to be cleansed, humble enough to ask for cleansing and believing that Jesus had the power to heal him. The other figure is the compassionate Jesus,9 who does not shrink from laying his hand even on the loathsomeness of leprosy. Wherever the compassionate Christ and the yearning sinner meet, there then comes instantaneous and complete cleansing. In the antiseptic cleanliness of modern hospitals, we lose sight of the wonder of the parable of Jesus in all his purity stooping to touch the ugliness and stench of our sin to bring healing and forgiveness. In the ancient world, the attitude towards leprosy was not unlike the popular attitude to suspected sufferers from AIDS today. To the pious Jew, conscious of the ritual uncleanness of the leper (Lev. 13:3), the wonder became even more staggering: Jesus was willing to incur defilement (as they saw it), so that the defiled leper might be made clean. The whole of the gospel is here in a nutshell: Christ redeems us from the curse by becoming under a curse for our sake (Gal. 3:13).
43–44. Once again, the commands of Jesus run counter to all natural human thought.10 To the healed leper, the most natural thing in the world, the spontaneous expression of gratitude, would have been to tell others. This, in his case, was forbidden in the most explicit terms, which was surely because Jesus never desired people to be drawn to follow him simply in hopes of material benefits to be obtained from him. Unwise publicity by witness to physical healing might attract others from wrong motives. This is one of the paradoxes of the ministry of Jesus. He sees the hungry crowd, has pity on them and feeds them; and yet he rebukes crowds who come to him solely for feeding (John 6:26), and disciples who fail to learn the lesson from it (8:17). He has compassion on the sick, and does not turn them away when they come for healing; but he makes no attempt to seek out the sick to heal them. Rather, he withdraws himself when the crowds seeking healing become too great, for this makes his teaching ministry, which is alone able to interpret his healing ministry, impossible (38). His primary purpose was ‘preaching the gospel of God’ (14). Jesus certainly performed miracles and healed the sick, but to say, with some, that he banished sickness and death from Israel for three years, goes far beyond Scripture, and ignores his purpose.
For the healed person to show himself to the priest, on the other hand, and to make the necessary offerings, was both a fitting expression of gratitude to God for his healing, and also an obligation to a law which was at once the medical and hygienic, as well as the ceremonial, code of Israel (cf. Deut. 24:8, reinforcing the injunctions of Lev. 14:2). It was a proof that he had been healed. It was also a proof to the priest of the healing power of Jesus (1:44): but no danger of wide publication was involved here.
45. Disobedience to the express command of Jesus, even if undertaken from the best possible motives, could lead only to a hampering and hindering of his work. Perhaps that was why Jesus had warned him so strongly against it in verse 43, but all in vain.
Whenever Jesus entered a house, the verdict of the gospels is that the fact could not be concealed (7:24), so pervasive was his presence. Soon the crowds gathered again in Capernaum, which, after the move from Nazareth, now became his home (for the move, see Luke 4:31). But this time the crowds came, not merely to be healed of bodily illnesses or afflictions, but to hear the word of God (verse 2). The temporary withdrawal by Jesus in 1:38, and the Galilean preaching tour of 1:39, had served their purpose; the wheat had been separated from the chaff, among the hearers of Jesus.
Nevertheless, because the needs of those in Capernaum were many and varied, and because Jesus would meet all those needs, however diverse, there was still healing: and healing, after all, was another messianic sign (Luke 7:22). The crowds that milled about the door of the house, whether it was Mary’s new home or the house of Simon’s mother-in-law, or the house of some other unknown friend of Jesus, were hungry to hear the word of God; and so the poor had the gospel preached to them (Matt. 11:5), the last great messianic sign.
3–5. Their faith. The four who came in faith were anxious to obtain physical healing for their friend; it was granted. The paralysed man himself, to judge from Jesus’ dealing with him, was not so much conscious of his physical need as he was of his spiritual burden; so Jesus granted to him forgiveness as well as healing. Only the scribes, arrogantly self-satisfied, and therefore conscious of no need, received nothing. Verse 17 is the later comment by Jesus, not without wry humour, on this seeming anomaly.
As usual, Jesus healed in response to faith. Here Scripture does not make clear the attitude of the sick man himself. He, too, may well have had faith, but it may be that he was too conscious of his own sin to have any confidence in approaching Jesus. It is simplest to assume that Jesus worked the miracle in response to the active faith of the four others, who brought a helpless friend and laid him at Jesus’ feet. Their faith showed its reality by its obstinacy and stubbornness in refusing to give up hope. This could be a veritable sermon on the text of James 2:26, illustrating the truth that faith, unless it shows its reality by action, is unreal and self-deceptive, and therefore cannot be expected to achieve results.
6–7. These scribes (NIV ‘teachers of the law’, which is loose, but correctly defines their status) were men of theological acumen. They were not the local synagogue officials of provincial Capernaum, but a fact-finding commission of the type that had already minutely cross-questioned John the Baptist (John 1:19; Luke 5:17). They saw at once down to the theological roots of the matter. Of course, none but God could forgive sin; how dare a mere human like Jesus claim such authority? Again and again during the life of Jesus the same dilemma was to reappear. If he were not divine, then he was indeed a blasphemer: for he must be ‘either God, or mad, or bad’, as the old saying runs. There could be no other possible explanation. If the scribes did not accept him, then they must condemn him. At least some of them would see the logic of this (3:6) and so they would begin to plot his death in cold blood. Already, the path to the cross was determined.
8–9. Nevertheless, in the case of some of the scribes, the bewilderment may have been genuine enough, as it surely was in the case of the honest scribe of 12:34. To help such bewildered people to make the staggering equation between the human Jesus and Godhead, Jesus gave them an unasked sign of his divine power, by healing the paralytic before their eyes.
Of course it was equally easy to utter the two phrases in the text, and equally easy for divine power to vindicate the note of authority in either phrase. But there is no outward sign by which the inward reality of the forgiveness of sins can be tested, while it is at once clear to all whether a lame man actually walks or not. In other words, in this physical sphere it could most readily be seen whether the assumption of authority by Jesus was justified or unjustified. So, as often, Jesus took his enemies on their own terms and refuted them; verse 8 shows that he acted in full knowledge of their thought processes. It was, in point of fact, a much easier thing to heal the body than to restore the soul, for even a prophet might heal, while no mere prophet could ever forgive sins; but the scribes, with their incessant demands for visible signs, were unlikely to see this (see 8:11). In any case, Jesus both healed and forgave on this occasion, leaving them speechless. If they had eyes to see it, here was the very sign they had wanted; but none are so blind as those who refuse to see.
10–11. ‘The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins …’ There are two ways of understanding this passage; both lines of exegesis are fruitful, and, if pursued far enough, ultimately merge into one. The first interpretation is, in paraphrase, ‘You say that only God can forgive sins? but I will show you that here is a human who has the same power’, so leading the thoughtful hearer to the equation of the human Jesus with God. This would involve understanding the phrase Son of man as being merely the common Semitic paraphrase for ‘mortal’ (Ezek. 2:1, etc.). The second interpretation would take Son of man, in this instance, as Jesus’ own self-chosen title for himself, as it must be in 8:31, etc.12 If it is taken in this way, then we should paraphrase ‘to show you that I in person have this power to forgive sins …’ In either case, the miracle has evidential value to prove the divine authority of Jesus. Most, if not all, of the healing miracles recorded in the gospel seem to have had this aim as well as the exhibition of divine love; they certainly produced this result to those who were not wilfully blind.
12. Once again, the word of Jesus proved to be effectual, a word of power and authority. As in Genesis God had created from nothing by a word (Heb. 11:3), so, at a word, God’s Son could bring strength out of weakness, so that something which was impossible by nature became possible, and a paralysed man walked home, carrying his mattress. The natural reaction of the unbiased section of the crowd was to praise God who had committed such authority to humans (cf. Matt. 9:8), so vindicating Jesus’ reason for performing the miracle. The crowd at least realized that an entirely new factor had now entered the situation; this was the ‘finger of God’ (cf. Exod. 8:19). But they were as yet content to wonder at such authority committed to a human, without asking the further question as to who this human was. The full answer to that was not to come till Caesarea Philippi (8:27–30), and it was a question for which not even the closest disciples of Jesus were as yet ready.
Jesus is frequently described as engaged in open-air preaching, especially beside the Sea of Galilee, where many villages were clustered round the shore of the lake in thickly populated Galilee (see Josephus). One reason for this choice may have been that the sloping shore provided a convenient amphitheatre for a large audience, especially if Jesus preached from a boat moored just offshore in shallow water (as apparently in 4:1). Perhaps the same practical reason, as well as the geography of Galilee, influenced the Lord’s fondness for teaching on hillsides. He had grown up in hilly Nazareth (1:9), where his (presumably married) sisters apparently still continued to live (6:3), even after his own move down to the lake (Luke 4:31). See the comment on 2:1 for Capernaum as becoming his home in later years. Several of his disciples are specifically mentioned as coming from the shores of the lake (1:16–19). As far as the three active years of his ministry go, the area immediately around the Sea of Galilee was therefore his home base, rather than the hills of central Galilee, although the ‘sermon on the mount’ may well represent a summary of his teaching in these central highlands (Matt. 5 – 7). As Luke chapter 6 contains an account of a very similar ‘sermon on the plain’ instead, it is reasonable to suppose that this represents a summary of the main teaching of Jesus given on the level land by the lake. Alternatively, ‘plain’ may refer to a level plateau in the mountains of Galilee, as Blomberg suggests (in Carson and Woodbridge, Hermeneutics, Authority and Canon, p. 147). In that case, the teaching here mentioned, but not particularized by Mark, may have been part of this Lucan outline, for we may assume a generally similar pattern of teaching throughout the Galilean ministry.
The ministry of Jesus is explained in various Greek terms. He ‘heralds’ the news (1:14); he ‘teaches’ (1:21); he ‘speaks’ the word (2:2). Perhaps we may see here a rough division into evangelism, systematic instruction and informal teaching, all given in turn by Jesus; we have examples of all three types recorded in the gospels, although least material is recorded in Mark on systematic instruction.
Levi, usually equated with Matthew (Matt. 9:9), was a tax-collector and, since he was working in Galilee, doubtless an agent of the hated half-Edomite Herod (cf. Luke 23:6–7).13 This made him as much an outcast from orthodox Jewish society as the leper of 1:40 had been. Such tax-collectors were often, if not always, rapacious and immoral, apart altogether from the nationalistic prejudice against them, since they were working directly for the Romans or the Herods. Yet, as Jesus had laid his hand on the leper and cleansed him, so he called Levi to be one of the apostles, one of the foundation members of his new society (cf. Rev. 21:14 with Eph. 2:20), one of the twelve ‘new patriarchs’, heads of his new Israel (cf. Luke 22:30). Levi cannot be said to have been a likely choice for an apostle, but then neither had his ancestor been a likely choice (Gen. 49:5), before God changed him (Deut. 33:8–11), as Jesus would change this Levi now.
15. It seems that this meal was in the nature of a reception given by Levi to his old business acquaintances, to enable them to meet his new-found master. This verse, and the biting criticism of the Pharisees in verse 16, seem to prove that the Lord already numbered many such tax-collectors among his followers.14 The meal with Levi was therefore not an isolated instance, but chosen by Mark as a typical example of the mission of Jesus.
16. Jesus never excused or condoned sin; no scribe or Pharisee ever condemned it in stronger terms than he did. But this criticism of Jesus by the Pharisees was ill-based for several reasons. First, when a man or woman became a friend or a follower of Jesus, then he or she ceased to be a sinner, but was changed. Secondly, the reason that Jesus mixed so freely with people of this sort was just because their need was so great, and because they, unlike the ‘religious’, were conscious of their need and therefore responsive to his message. It was apparently a common complaint that Jesus was not sufficiently particular in choosing his friends, unlike other rabbis. Jesus himself must have known that the common Pharisaic view of him was as a greedy and hard-drinking person, and as a friend of tax-collectors and sinners (see Matt. 11:19). Nevertheless, in spite of all this criticism, it is probable that the main objection of the Pharisees to social intercourse (whether by themselves or by Jesus), with such strata of society was not a truly moral scruple, but merely a fear lest they themselves should contract ceremonial defilement by contact with those who were ritually unclean (cf. John 18:28). So Jesus would willingly touch the leper (1:41), but the priest and Levite, because of their office, dared not help even an injured and bleeding man at the roadside (Luke 10:31–32), for fear of incurring ceremonial defilement. (On the question of the ‘table fellowship’ of Jesus, see Joel B. Green, How to Read the Gospels and Acts, pages 48–57. It is possible that the early church saw in this passage a reference to the Lord’s Supper.)
17. Jesus not only refused to deny the imputation; he claimed that to act in this fashion, by deliberately seeking out the sinful, was the whole purpose of his mission, and indeed an irrefutable proof of his Messiahship. As in the case of Zacchaeus, the Son of man came specially to seek and to save the lost ones (see Luke 19:10). His whole mission was directed towards the sinful, or those who are sick, to use the imagery of the present passage. He did not mean that any were in truth righteous or well and thus without need of spiritual healing. The point is that, without the primary pre-requisite of a sense of need, there could be no healing for them, for they were unwilling to come to him, the sole source of healing, to seek it (cf. John 5:40).
John’s disciples, and so, we may infer, John himself, were meticulous in keeping the ceremonial law. This orthodoxy of John the Pharisees grudgingly admitted, even in their criticism of Jesus. John was therefore no heresiarch, but a bastion of orthodox Judaism, although as caustic in his remarks on the priesthood as many a prophet before him had been. Since several at least of the disciples of Jesus had been John’s followers before the Baptist’s testimony sent them away from him to follow Jesus (John 1:35–37), this strictly orthodox background of the apostles is important. Both to the Pharisees, and to John himself at times, it must have looked suspiciously as though these disciples had chosen an easier way in following Jesus. Although regular weekly fasting was not part of the law of Moses, by the first century such fasting had become an important part of the practice of Judaism, from which it passed into early Christianity, with only a change in the actual days involved.15 To the orthodox Jew this one minor point of fasting raised the whole question of the attitude of Jesus to the whole ceremonial law. He had already healed on the sabbath (1:31), though this had not yet become an issue; his disciples ate food without the prior ceremonial hand-washing customary in Judaism (7:2), and they even husked corn on the sabbath day (2:23). Taken together, this was highly suspicious: did this rabbi reject the traditions?
19–22. As often, Jesus answered the Pharisaic criticism at two levels. First, he replied on the superficial level at which these carping questions were usually asked. Then, having already demolished the objection of the Pharisees on their own premises, he proceeded to deal with the question at a far deeper theological level. Here one might paraphrase the question as, ‘in a time of joyous fellowship, who thinks of fasting?’16 Fasting is, in the Bible, a sign of disaster, or penitence or mourning, or voluntary abasement of spirit. The grief which finds expression in this fasting will come soon enough of its own accord, when the fellowship of the disciples with Jesus is broken;17 the disciples will have sorrow then, at his departure to the Father (John 16:20). To apply the analogy, which so obviously fits human affairs, it might be said that the time when Jesus was with his disciples on earth was in many ways an interim period and not normative for the church. No generalization can therefore be drawn from the practice of his disciples at that time, without careful comparison with the subsequent practice of the New Testament church, after Jesus had ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit had been outpoured.
But there was a far deeper question, which not even the disciples saw until their forcible expulsion from the ranks of orthodox Judaism in the days of the Acts. Was the whole structure of Jewish ceremonial, fasting naturally included, really consonant with the new spirit of the followers of the Messiah? A new spirit must find new forms of expression; that is the lesson of the parable. Indeed, the book of Acts shows with increasing clarity the utter impossibility of containing this new Christianity as a mere ‘Reformed Sect’ within Judaism, although fasting is known in Acts even in largely Gentile churches (Acts 13:1–3). It was no accident that not only the Judaizers but even the non-heretical Jewish-Christian churches known to Eusebius (both of whom continued to observe the law) died out in later centuries: they had tried in vain to put new wine into old wineskins. Whenever the fresh life of the Spirit breathes in the church, the same problem arises, as the church seeks for appropriate forms in which to contain and express the new life, without losing continuity with the old. Yet Christianity, for all its outward differences, was not a breach with Judaism, but its fulfilment (see on 1:2).
Neither to the ‘temporary’ nor to the ‘essential’ reason for the failure of the disciples to fast did the Pharisees give any reply; indeed, it is hard to see what they could have said. None the less, the two incidents with which this chapter closes, and with which the next chapter begins, show further clashes on two other points of ceremonial observance, so it is obvious that, on the wider issue, the orthodox Pharisees were still far from satisfied. Here it was the behaviour of the disciples, not Jesus himself, with which they found fault. It is very noticeable that the religious leaders were not able to bring anything against Jesus personally, not even the most trivial charge of breach of the ceremonial law. The sole proven charge against him was that of healing on the sabbath. That this charge would not stand in the religious court of the Sanhedrin as a true case of sabbath-breaking is shown by their failure to bring it forward at the trial of Jesus, when they were catching at any straw of evidence against him as a make-weight. Like Pilate, try as they might, they could find no fault in Jesus (John 19:4): their only way to achieve their goal was to use ‘false witnesses’ (14:57).
The disciples were charged with ‘working’ on the sabbath, probably on several grounds. Pulling ears of corn was ‘reaping’, and that was one of the thirty-nine activities specifically forbidden on the sabbath (Anderson). Schweizer also points out that even ‘walking’ was a breach of sabbath law, unless the distance was strictly limited. One wonders what the Pharisees were doing in the cornfields themselves: their sole purpose may have been to criticize the disciples of Jesus. In addition to ‘reaping’, the disciples not only pulled the ripe ears, but also husked them between their palms, according to Luke (Luke 6:1). The actual eating itself was of course not culpable, even in Pharisaic eyes. The disciples seemed to have acted in the matter quite unselfconsciously, and so not for the first time, we may be sure. But then, they had not been trained in the niceties of the rabbinic schools. We know how bitterly the Pharisees despised the ‘am hā-’āreṣ, the ‘people of the land’, the common people, ignorant of the law, and therefore considered accursed (John 7:49). Even the Lord was regarded with great suspicion as an unlettered rabbi (John 7:15), that is, one without formal training in the law at the feet of some recognized religious teacher. Such culpable ignorance displayed by his disciples with regard to subtle legal points would but condemn their master further in rabbinic eyes. It was, in the last resort, the professional jealousy of the theologians of Israel that hounded Jesus to death. None were so blind as those who boasted themselves of their theological insight.
Again, the answer of Jesus was twofold. First, he showed them that there was biblical evidence for the law of need taking precedence over the law of ceremonial,18 and instanced this is the case of no less a personage than David himself. Further, he showed that in David’s case this was not the mere question of picking and husking corn, but the much more serious charge of eating the bread of the Presence, which, after its solemn presentation to God, was hallowed from secular uses, and might be eaten only by the priests.
This action of David, though the Pharisees must of course admit it as an historic fact (whether or not it took place when Abiathar was high priest19), and also must admit that it stood unreproved in Scripture, they might nevertheless have deprecated, and regarded as at best a poor palliative of the offence of the disciples of Jesus, strict parallel though it was. Jesus must go further than this, to justify their action.
27. So Jesus now makes a far deeper claim. He claims that the Pharisees, with all their hedging restrictions, originally designed to avoid any possibility of infringing the sabbath, had ended by making the sabbath an intolerable burden (cf. Matt. 23:4). They had by now quite forgotten that in origin the sabbath was God’s merciful provision for his creatures. Humanity was certainly not created simply to exemplify and observe an immutable theological principle of sabbath-keeping, as some rabbinic extremists were quite ready to uphold. To do them justice, the same extremists were quite prepared to be slaughtered rather than to resist their enemies on the sabbath (Schweizer), and so they were at least consistent. But at the last, it was this stubborn ‘consistency’ that kept them from response to Jesus: they lived in a sealed world of spiritual blindness and hardness of heart.
28. Even this principle, that the sabbath was made for humanity, some Pharisees might accept, but Jesus goes further. If the sabbath was truly made for our spiritual and physical good, and not vice versa, then the Son of man is master of the sabbath, and can interpret its regulations as he sees fit to do. This, in fact, was what the rabbis had been trying to do themselves, though in a wrong-headed way. Once again, if Jesus is using Son of man as a personal title for himself at this point, and if his opponents understood his use of it so (neither point is certain), then the claim becomes even more pungent. It would mean that, instead of denying the charge, he freely admits it, but claims to have the absolute right to overrule the sabbath, because of his person and work as God’s representative. Such a claim leads naturally enough to the major clash over sabbath healing at the beginning of chapter 3. It is at last dawning on them that his sabbath healings (1:25 and 1:31) were no mere accidents, but undertaken intentionally because he regarded the sabbath as his by right. So they resolve to lay a trap for him, by making a deliberate test case; but as so often in the New Testament, the issue, when forced, moves them from the judge’s bench into the prisoner’s dock.
The other possibility is that Jesus here uses ‘Son of man’ merely as a synonym for ‘mortal man’. The meaning would then be ‘humans have precedence over the sabbath’: but this is less likely.
There is no evidence as to which particular synagogue this was, except that it was in Galilee. The likelihood is that it was in Capernaum, since the theological delegation from Jerusalem still apparently held its watching brief. This miracle concerned a man powerless to work until he received the healing touch of Jesus. One interesting early tradition20 says that he was a plasterer, to whom naturally the use of both hands was particularly important. Some of these extra-canonical details preserved in such sources may perhaps be true; it is hard to see why they should have been invented, if they prove no theological truth. Much oral material about Jesus must have lingered on in Palestine, at least until the disaster of AD 70 broke the living lines of tradition, as the exile had in 597 BC. This detail, however, sounds more like a later ‘preacher’s amplification’ of the text than a genuine memory.
2. The condemnation of the Pharisees is that they utterly failed to see in this man a case of need. All they saw was a possible ground of accusation against Jesus if he took advantage of this sabbath encounter to heal. By such moral blindness, they stood self-condemned, even before a word was spoken.
3. If the man truly desired healing, he must be willing to confess his need and to show his faith in the power of Jesus by standing up in the face of the whole congregation and displaying his need. To a sensitive person, such public display of a maimed limb would be a cup of shame, bitter to drink; but this costly confession of need Jesus often demanded (cf. the woman with the ‘flow of blood’ or haemorrhage in 5:33). In Israel, even an animal, if for presentation to the Lord, must be perfect, without a blemish: the blind or disabled were not acceptable (Lev. 22:22). No maimed Israelite could act as a priest of the Lord (Lev. 21:18).
4. The query of Jesus on this occasion, like the question about the source of John’s baptism in 11:30, was one which the Pharisees could not answer honestly and directly without at once abandoning their own theological position. Matthew 12:11, with the homely parable of the animal which falls into a pit and is at once retrieved by his owner, sabbath or no sabbath, makes the same point even more obviously. The Galilean farmers would have chuckled at that: it was after all an appeal to the commonsense of the ordinary man or woman, as was the question of Jesus here. Frequently, by Semitic idiom to do good or to do harm can simply mean ‘to do anything’, but here each part obviously has its full sense, for the two halves are strongly contrasted,21 as to save life or to kill. Yet everyone, by admitting the justice of Jesus’ question, admitted that it was therefore lawful to do good on the sabbath day; for to heal a helpless cripple was unquestionably to do good. Further, to abandon the helpless man would be to cause him to remain crippled; this would clearly be to do harm. Whatever course of action was chosen, something must be done on the sabbath day. The only freedom of choice was as to whether to do good or harm, to save life (better ‘heal’) or to kill. Technically speaking, on their own terms, a wrong deed would be a far greater ‘profanation’ of the sabbath than the good deed which they were scrupulously refusing to do. Mark does not here record the conclusion to be found in Matthew 12:12 ‘so it is lawful to do good on the sabbath’, but this is clearly the meaning of Jesus, whether stated or not. Mark usually leaves his readers to draw such conclusions for themselves.
5. This is the first reference in Mark to that hardness of heart or ‘refusal to respond’ experienced by Jesus, not only among Pharisees, as here and 10:5, but also among the common people (John 12:37–40), and even among his own disciples (6:52). Such ‘hardness of heart’ angered him when found among his enemies; it grieved and amazed him when among his disciples. ‘Hardhearted’ to us usually means callous or cruel, but to the Hebrew it meant a stubborn resistance to the purpose of God, the very opposite of that humility and gentle teachableness which God requires. It is a form of pride and, like unbelief, it is in part at least an attitude of the will. So, if wilfully sustained, it can end by becoming the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit (3:29). It should be noted that this is a sin to which, to judge from Scripture, the theologian and the religiously minded are more exposed than are the publican and sinner: and if any of us fears this sin, it is proof that we have not committed it. ‘Heart’ in Hebrew comes close to ‘mind’ in English: it is not primarily concerned with the emotions but with the thoughts and the will.
6. The result of the man’s faith and obedience (if the two concepts can be distinguished) was complete healing (5). Mark, alone of the gospel writers, tells us that from this moment onwards the Pharisees and Herodians22 began to plot the death of Jesus. That was equally the result of the same miracle; for grace can either soften or harden the heart, but it would not leave it untouched.
The Pharisees were outraged at what they regarded as a clear and deliberate breach of the law. But it is hard to believe that in their plot to kill Jesus they had already secured the backing of the high priestly authorities at Jerusalem, to whom as yet Jesus cannot have appeared a very formidable antagonist. Why the Herodians were involved in the plot is not so clear; whoever they were (see the preceding note), they can scarcely have been zealous for the law. Their anxiety, to judge from their name, may have been purely political.