Summary 

Sometimes, proximity brings greater animosity. Here in Mark 2 and 3 we have 5 stories in a row where Jesus engages in some conflict with the Scribes and Pharisees. They are near him and yet they don't see him for who he is. Rather, what they see is how he and his disciples live life in the wedding party and in the freedom of the Lord of the Sabbath. They can't stand that. And they are the religious folk. The truth is that this is a warning for us in the church who love our knowledge and love our rules and love our control. So often those things keep us from seeing and savoring Jesus.

Transcript

We come to the Gospel of Mark, and we're so grateful for these texts, these Gospel texts that speak to us of the life of our Lord and his specific teaching and what you were doing, the radical thing you were doing in Jesus, God becoming flesh, making his home among us, tabernacling among us, the one who spoke the world into being, the Lord of the Sabbath coming into this world. God, I pray that we would see you in your beauty this morning, that we'd be moved to greater devotion and delighted worship. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, I read an article this week by a man named Trevin Wax.


He is actually a professor at Cedarville University, where Ethan Yager is a student. And the title of this article was Denominations in an Age of Online Overexposure. I know that title is just riveting to you.
He actually is making some important points. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it. He's getting at some of the difficulties in church life in sort of this digital age that we live in, because the truth is, he says, that is particularly the case post Covid. But really, for the last 15 or so years, we engage with other people in the flesh less and less than we actually engage online, more and more. So we see one another on Facebook posts and threads and on X formerly Twitter threads and on Instagram posts.


And so we learn about one another's lives in these kinds of ways, and not just one another's lives, but our perspectives and our outlooks and our voting tendencies and all these kinds of things. He says this it's inevitable we may wind up surprised that they stream that show or support that politician or frequent that restaurant or recommend that author or oppose that law. The problem, he says, isn't necessarily that we don't see one another enough. It's that we see one another maybe too much, but in the wrong setting, in the wrong sense. Of course, he does imply this to denominational fighting, which I will say our denomination has plenty of, and it is partly because of this digital age that we live in.
But my mind actually went immediately to the Facebook, the Midtown Facebook page, which I have left and joined multiple times, like a dog returning to its vomit, because it is full of people just lambasting our beautiful neighborhood and our beautiful city and just fighting among each other. And I know, but actually I've never met some people on that group. And I'm like, I hope I sort of don't meet you, because I have this enmity in myself, and I don't. It's just fabricated because of this thing, you know, he gets into that kind of stuff. So he mentions this study from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that found that most often proximity to others actually often more often leads us to dislike someone than to like them.


He says this the closer your proximity to someone, the more likely you will get irritated at some point by their mannerisms, their habits or their opinions. As a side note, as I'm reading this, I'm reminded that GK Chesterton said the Lord tells you to love your neighbor and to love your enemy because so often they're the same person.
He also tells you to love your spouse. And that probably relates somehow. He says the old saying that fences make good neighbors holds up because the more visible someone is to you, the clearer their foibles come into view. And once you notice something irritating, you can't unsee it. Their quirks, their comments, their ways of doing things, minor annoyances can turn into full blown frustrations.


Proximity keeps those irritations always in view, which can lead to resentment, to apathy, then a cycle of enmity, he says. Church history is replete with stories of this happening in the physical world. Just one will suffice. Consider the official unity among certain Eastern and Western churches. Until migration patterns brought their distinctive worship practices into closer proximity.
Suddenly church leaders were debating the proper way to make the sign of the cross. Three fingers left to right or two fingers right to left. Some of you know that that's actually a significant debate, that he's not making that kind of stuff up. And Christians were aghast at their fellow Christians use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
They were united when they were distant to each other. Proximity led to the fracturing. And he says all this is actually exacerbated in this digital age in which we live, where we can be in one another's business all the time, where we can be digital peeping Toms, where we can see the opinions and habits of others, there's no end to the opportunities to just be mad at others.


Here's the truth though, that he's getting at our proximity often actually obscures reality. So often you kind of see in a way that you're actually not seeing right? You don't actually see the fullness and the beauty of these individuals of which you are low level seeming, you know, just mad at what I'm saying is. And what he's saying is we actually don't see each other properly, even though we see each other so often.
The scribes and the Pharisees have been spending time with Jesus. There's actually five stories in a row of the scribes and the Pharisees, or it says the scribes of the Pharisees interacting with Jesus. Maybe you remember two weeks back, there was the story of the paralytic who was lowered down. And their response, remember, was, why does he speak like that? He's blaspheming.


Doesn't he know that God alone can forgive sins? And Dale thankfully preached for us last week when I was away about the call of Levi. And what was their response there? Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?

And now the stories that we have that are right here before us, both these passages, they're there, present in the stories. And then actually next week they're going to also be present. They're close to Jesus. They're getting to see him a lot. They're getting to hear Him a lot, seeing his habits and his proclivities, all these kinds of things, and yet they are so far away.

The Pharisees are spending a lot of time with Jesus. They're close and yet miss it. They see him and yet don't see him. They hear him and yet don't hear him. And in this proximity to Jesus, their differences are grating at them. And his sort of ways of teaching and ways of being in the world are just causing them to just boil over with anger. That's actually where it leads to. Of course, they're missing Jesus, even though they're so close. And the first story that we have here in Mark, Chapter two, I invite you to, of course, to keep that open, has to do with fasting.
And what it's. What they're saying in that one is you aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing. And then the second story, the one that has to do with Sabbath observance and stuff like that, is almost the exact opposite. They're saying you're doing what you're not supposed to be doing.

I want to title those this way. Okay, the first one I want to look at with you, and I'm going to title it this way. Empty ritual and Full Hearts. This big divide here with empty ritual and full hearts. So, you know, we're starting there at 2:18.
These people come to Jesus and what they say is, hey, the real religious people fast. But your disciples aren't fasting. They're causing, you know, they're questioning, can you be a really religious person? Can you have the real kind of faith and not fast? You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And Jesus gives a really a pretty straightforward answer. He says this. They are not fasting because they are not sad because there is a party going on. That's what he says. Says they are not fasting because they are full of joy.

And why are they full of joy? Because they understand who I am. They are actually seeing me for who I am. They know that the bridegroom has come and there is no point in performing some kind of religious ritual that bears no relation on where their heart is. Their hearts are full of joy.
And what Jesus is doing in this, actually in both these stories, is he is getting. He's cutting the root of sort of religious formalism. Just religious, kind of, I've got all the answers. I know what to do. He's looking for those who have full hearts.
Now, you have to understand here that the Bible does not. In fact, the Bible invites us to fast at times. The Bible is not just all the time saying, no, don't do that. There's a proper time for it. But that proper time is most often the context of mourning, specifically mourning for sin and desiring to be close to God.

So that's why Jesus would say, hey, when the bridegroom leaves, that's the time to fast. But the bridegroom is here. Think actually it's interesting because some of these, it says, verse 18 says, now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. But actually in John chapter three, we can read John the Baptist say this. The other Gospel, John John Chapter 3, verse 29, says this.

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. So his ascetic way of being needs to actually go to the sideline because the bridegroom is present.

Now is the time for joy. Now is the time for rejoicing.
Jesus is teaching us that Christianity is really like a wedding party. Which, by the way, is largely why his very first miracle was keeping the wedding party going. Some of you know this. Jesus first miracle at the wedding of Cana was turning a whole lot of water into wine because they had run out of wine. Now you might think that a lot of Christians would say, well, if they've run out of wine, maybe they've had enough.
And Jesus turns about 750 Bah bottles worth of water into wine to keep the party going, okay, this is not a sideline idea to Christian faith. To be with Jesus is to be at the wedding party. The Talmud, which is a collection of rabbinic, Jewish rabbinic teachings which began right around the time of Jesus, and it kind of goes actually for a few hundred years. But there's a writing in the Talmud that taught that friends of a bridegroom were absolved of their responsibilities for prayer for several days after the wedding. Because the duty during the wedding celebration is this.

The duty is to rejoice. That's what the Talmud said. Your job at a wedding is to rejoice. And Jesus said, it doesn't make sense. They are seeing me for who I am. I'm the bridegroom for whom they belong. It you can't fast when the bridegroom is there. You've got to party.
Now, on the flip side, the Pharisees believed that religious rituals were, in a way, sort of meritorious. They could earn something. They were good because the thing that they gave you. And so why would you give up something that was giving you something, giving you God's grace? So they thought, well, you should always practice fasting.

Of course, the church is full of people like this today. You have to be doing a certain thing to be in God's favor. And so you better do it all the time. Jesus saying, no, these actions, even good actions that have their proper place, have no value if they are missing me, if they miss me, you miss it. All these things mean nothing. If you do not love the bridegroom, your fasting will mean nothing if it is not a desire to be present with God.

This is the big lesson that we're going to keep coming back to. But there is a kind of religion that is entirely empty. We all know this, but we need to hear it again, especially as church folk, maybe especially pastors. There's a kind of religion that's entirely empty religion, because it comes from an empty heart. Just does the rote rituals.
There's a kind of religion that is a full religion. On the other hand, because it comes from a full heart. That full religion knows when to rejoice, when to party and when to mourn and when to fast. Why? Because it knows Jesus.

I mean, there's a great joy of being with Jesus and there is a great sadness being apart from him. The fasting has its proper place. I mean, think about this. Why was mourning and fasting in relation to sin in the Bible? Oftentimes it's a time of repentance because sin always creates distance From God, Right?
It's a distancing. That's what Jesus says. When the bridegroom goes, then fast, because you want to be close to him. And why is feasting and partying such a remarkable aspect of the ministry of Jesus? Because he's there.

He came eating and drinking with sinners. Jesus is present. Where the Lord is, is the marriage supper, the wedding feast of the lamb. So Jesus gives two illustrations. And I was thinking about this.
Why does he give two illustrations? I think partly because we do. This is a hard thing for us to get. It's not just. Mark is not just writing these down because this is just what Jesus said to the Pharisees.
He knows that it is a religious inclination to think that just the doing of something is fine and the empty heart is okay as long as you're just doing. And he says, no, these two things are entirely incompatible. The full heart is what is needed. You cannot do the empty heart with the right rituals and be in right relationship with God. So he says, you know, there's this unshrunk patch that's used to like, mend a garment.
He said, it doesn't work. It just doesn't help at all. And he says, you put new wines, old wineskins, they just burst. It's incompatible. You can't do this.

You cannot have an empty heart and go through the right rituals and have any kind of true relationship with the Lord. It doesn't work.
So here's an interesting thing. Mark puts two stories together that are basically teaching the same thing. But like I said, they're kind of flip floppy, right? So the first one is, hey, you aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing. And the second one is, hey, you're doing what you're not supposed to be doing.

So the next part, I'm titling. Empty stomachs, but full heads, right? Because the disciples are hungry, and yet the Pharisees think they know it all. So now it's the Sabbath. The next story that begins in verse 23, which is the day of rest, right?

That God instituted actually at creation. This is a creation ordinance, which we heard from at the beginning of Genesis 2. And Jesus disciples, they're walking through a grain field. And what they're doing is they're plucking the heads of the grain and they're eating it. And the Pharisees do not like this.

They have a problem with this. So, you know, the last story was, why don't you fast? And this story is, wait, why are you breaking the Sabbath? And Let me say this, okay? The next story also pertains to the Sabbath.

So we're going to look at the big. A bigger idea of the Sabbath next week. But today, again, I want you to see that what Mark is trying to get at for all of us is this idea that we can come to God with the right rituals or maybe with the right ideas about him and totally miss Him.
We can think we have it figured out, his law and His Word and His ways, and miss Him. So the Pharisees ask, why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath? And the first thing I want you to know is that they are not doing that. They are totally doing something that's absolutely fine. Actually, they are not breaking the law of God.

Okay? Jesus consistently and always actually loves the law, and he tells us to do the same. Deuteronomy 23 actually gives a provision for those who are hungry to walk through a grain field and to pluck the heads of grain and to eat them. This was particularly way, actually in Israel. The poor were tended to and cared for and given food.

You actually weren't supposed to cut all of your fields down so that some people could come through and get grain, but they were told to do that with their hand and not a sickle. So if you didn't own it, you couldn't just come through with a sickle and just cut it all down. But if you walk through, you could come and you could take some of it. Okay? But my point here first is that this is totally fine.

There's no prohibition in the Old Testament that says you can't do this, and you definitely can't do this on the Sabbath. What they're doing is actually allowed by the law of God. But the Pharisees had added so much to the rules around the Sabbath that for the Pharisees, it seemed as though they were breaking it. They're saying, don't you understand our tradition? Don't you understand that we're the ones that know the law well enough that we can even add to it and your disciples are breaking it?

That's one thing we need to keep in mind. But interestingly, this is not the argument that Jesus gives. And I kind of. I just think that's interesting because I feel like I would have maybe said that if I was Jesus. You guys don't even know what you're talking about.
Deuteronomy 23, stuff like that. No, instead he goes a different route. He reminds them how David, the great king, the Lord's anointed went into the tabernacle when he was running from Saul, and he was given the consecrated bread that was only to be eaten by the sons of Aaron, the priests. And he was given that by the high priest. You heard that the high priest, Abiasar, his name is specifically mentioned.
But the point is that that bread was not for David. He wasn't supposed to eat that bread normally. And yet there is no way that the Pharisees would say that the high priest was wrong and the Lord's anointed David was wrong in taking and eating that.

I think that kind of begs the question, why is that Jesus argument. Why is that? Why is that a. Why didn't Jesus go to Deuteronomy 23 instead of why did he go there?
Well, I think we have the clue at the very end of the passage, the very last thing he says, verse 28. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. He's saying, do you see me?

You're okay with David, the Lord's anointed, going and taking the bread from the holy place. And you're coming after me. You're with me in all these stories. You're following me around. You're listening to me.
You're seeing me heal. And you're not seeing the Lord of the Sabbath, the one who created the Sabbath. You are missing what's right in front of you. See, the Pharisees, they made great displays of holiness. They love to pray in the open places for others to see them.

They had their prayers memorized. They knew the law. They could recite the Apostles Creed standing up here with no bulletin in front of them.
A church like ours, they knew when to sit and when to stand. And some of you don't know that even though you've been worshiping here for years. I'm not. I don't always get it right, you know, they knew what to say when they're given the bread and the wine.

But even in the midst of their fasting and their praying and their Sabbath keeping and their law studying, they're all good and right, all fine. There was no place in their life for repentance, for faith, for true holiness, because they could not see Jesus for who he was.
Which is to say, you miss Jesus and you miss it all, all of it.
Here's the interesting thing. Their proximity to Jesus obscured the reality of who he was, who was actually standing before them. Do you think David can eat the consecrated bread? Well, the Son of Man, who's the Lord of the Sabbath is right in front of you brothers and sisters, I hope the application for all of us listening right now is really clear. That's just that you can be really close to Jesus and be really far from him.

You can see him and totally miss Him. You can hear these words and not hear these words. You can have your theology, which means the study of God down pat, and miss God and sing your songs and miss the one who sings over us.

You can talk about weddings all day long and even the marriage, supper of the Lamb. And miss the party.
You can fast and miss the whole point of fasting, the nearness of God. You can go through all the right motions and you can lose your soul.
And unfortunately, sometimes those right motions invite us into actually missing it.

Barnhouse in his commentary, said, even today, those who have no more than formalism in religion attach fantastic importance to things that are trivial. We make the right motions and the exact words, the thing. And in doing that, we miss the Lord Jesus.

You can be close to Jesus, close enough to see his mannerisms and his habits and his opinions and live at enmity with Him. I mean, you can be close to Jesus, close enough to know when to stand and when to sit. You can know exactly where to turn in your Bibles to find Mark, Chapter two and all the rest. And you can actually miss him. Know your doctrine, the history of Christian theology, the history of God working in the church.
You can have it all right, and get him wrong.

You can live in a way that is, you know, close to Jesus, but obscures who he truly is, right relationship with him. You can be near him and not see him and not receive him for who he is. That's one way of being in the world and one way of being in the church.

But think with me. I love how these two stories are put together. And the other option that's before us, you know, we have this way. I mean, this kind of engagement with God is a way almost of controlling Him. We can say the right things and do the right things.

And if all we do is do these things, then we'll be right with Him. There's rigidity to that. But the other invitation here is this unbelievable invitation to freedom. I think there's this one way of engaging with God that is telling him what to do. You've got it all down.
And the other thing is coming to a party.

I don't know about you, but the party's gonna be a lot better than a life of control. Or there's the, you know, life control. Hey, this is exactly how you live the Sabbath or there's the freedom of walking through a field with your friends. And, you know, I like to think I want to translate that into like mushroom hunting on Sunday or something. Be like, man, look at this.

I found the lion's mane. Y'all come and eat this with me. What do you want? You want the freedom of life with Jesus?
You just want to grab onto a life that is your control. I think any of us look at that, and we think we want Jesus.

Mark gives us these stories together because he knows that the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, what they found was true. It's true. It's often true of Christians, often true of Christians, and maybe even particularly true of Christians that really like things done in a certain way. We have a, you know, 16 page bulletin occasionally that goes to 24 pages. There's good reason for all that.
But Mark knows that this is an inclination to think that in some ways we can control God. And when we do that, we actually miss him for who he is. Proximity does not mean relationship. In fact, sometimes it works against it.

But there's another way of being. And Jesus is inviting you into real relationship with him. And real relationship with Jesus always means freedom. I mean, it also means delighting in the law of the Lord. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the whole Bible, and that's what it's all talking about.

There's always an invitation to freedom. And Mark is putting these two stories together because he's saying this. Let me just end with this.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear true Lord, right there with you. He who has eyes to see, let him see Jesus for who he is, the bridegroom for whom your heart most longs. The Lord of the Sabbath invites you into a life of freedom. Let me pray for us. Lord, it is so tempting to think that we can go through the right motions and therefore be right with you.
God, we know that we can be so close to you and yet be so far, just like we can be with one another, living life together and yet so distant from each other. God, I pray that you give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive Jesus name. Amen.

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