Daily Archives: June 1, 2015

Take That, Pharisees!

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TAKE THAT, PHARISEES!

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields and, as His disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’ He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for the priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.’ Then He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ (Mark 2: 23-26).

What were the Pharisees doing? Trailing after Jesus to spy on Him? It seems like it.

Matthew added a cryptic comment to Mark’s version of this incident. On a previous occasion, when the Pharisees criticised Jesus for eating with the riff-raff of society, Jesus retorted, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matt. 9: 13).

Now the Pharisees were at it again. They had obviously not bothered to heed Jesus’ words. The disciples offended them because they were breaking their petty rules. Jesus had no time for nit-picking. He smartly put them in their place with the Word.

‘If you had known what these words meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ (Matt 12: 7-8).

Would they never learn? No one takes Jesus on and wins!

What was the issue here? That the disciples were hungry was of no consequence to the Pharisees. Far more important to them was the fact that it was the Sabbath and they had rules about the Sabbath that had to be adhered to, no matter what. So what if these men were hungry? Sabbath was Sabbath and the day took precedence over their need, so the Pharisees insisted.

But Jesus thought otherwise. Who made the rules anyway? That was Adam’s problem, at the beginning. He swept God’s rule aside, at the devil’s insistence, and made his own rules, only to discover that his ways did not work. And the whole of history is testimony to that. Funny, isn’t it that in spite of the mess humanity has made, we still insist that our way is better? Now that’s the height of folly, doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Will we never learn?

What is the basis of God’s government – the one Jesus came to restore by His coming? He summarised it in one sentence: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Mercy is what He applies in all His dealings with human beings – otherwise we would not even be here. He would have obliterated the whole earth long ago if it were not for His mercy. David celebrated God’s mercy in his magnificent song of praise – Psalm 103.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbour His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (Psa. 103: 8-10).

That’s how God runs His government and He expects the citizens of His kingdom to do what He does. James took up David’s refrain in his letter.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2: 12-13).

The mercy that God shows extends beyond those who belong to Him. Unlike the so-called “mercy” of the god of more than a billion people, who call him “Merciful” but mercilessly kill those who do not espouse their beliefs, the one true God is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus instructed (Luke 6: 35b-36)

To the Pharisees, rules were more important than people. To Jesus, people took precedence over rules, especially man-made rules that did not reflect the heart of God. So let us not follow the example of the Pharisees who rigidly insisted on doing instead of being. Let’s take a leaf out of Jesus’ book. After all, He is the mirror image of the Father, and we can trust Him to show mercy. Why shouldn’t we? We have His Spirit, don’t we?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

An Unexpected Story

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AN UNEXPECTED STORY

No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. (Mark 2: 21-22).

Jesus was good at interspersing His profound teaching with simple stories that unexpectedly made deep truths clear. This was one of them. A question about fasting – “Why don’t your disciples fast when John’s and the Pharisees’ disciples do?” – prompted Jesus to launch into a teaching full of hints about Himself and His coming passion, which His hearers obviously did not understand.

He had come to make clear to His people what they had misunderstood. He was no ordinary rabbi, following and adding to the already top-heavy list of dos and don’ts of what had moved from a lifestyle to a religion. His job was not to rubber-stamp the opinions of the sages, but to live out God’s Torah – His instructions and way of life so that His people would see His kingdom in action.

The bridegroom was on the scene. He had come to propose to His bride and to set in motion the process that would culminate in the glorious day when He would return to claim her and to take her to His Father’s house for the wedding. He had come to invite her into a brand new life. Like recently woven, unshrunk cloth; like new, unfermented wine.

The problem was that the new cloth and the new wine did not fit with the old. The old system and the new were incompatible. How could you “sew” this renewed walk of faith, love and freedom with Jesus onto the old “cloth” of religion with its intricate mesh of meaningless rules and rituals? How could you pour the “new wine” of life in fellowship with the Holy Spirit into the stiff, rigid old wineskins of self-righteous performance? It just would not work. Any attempt to blend the new with the old would ruin them both.

New wine could only mature in the new, flexible wineskins that had not yet stiffened with age and with use. Was Jesus implying that the “new wine” that He was introducing them to was alive with movement and expansion? It needed flexibility and room to grow. It was as mysterious and unpredictable as the wind. It was a life of interconnectedness with the Father through the Holy Spirit, a relationship of trust and obedience, based on something far deeper than the instructions they were supposed to follow.

This life was not so much about reading and following the “Book” as it was about living in intimate union with the Author of the Book. How much more effective than simply trying to get into the mind of the Author by reading His words! Now Jesus was giving His people the opportunity to get to know and understand the heart of the Author by living in fellowship with Him.  Once His followers grasped that, they would understand how futile it was to try please the Author by interpreting what He wrote as a rule-book rather than a love-story.

Did His hearers get the point? Old cloth and old wineskins were past their “sell-by-date”. There was no value in trying to make them last longer. They had served their purpose and would be replaced by something new and far better – life which the Holy Spirit would give them, freely and forever. This was not about resurrecting an old garment but clothing them with a brand new one. This was not about pouring new wine into old wineskins. This was about pouring the new wine of the Holy Spirit into new hearts, made clean and new through what Jesus would do on the cross.

A simple, homespun story – everyday things which they were familiar with, but packed with fresh insights into something no other rabbi had even offered, leave alone thought about. Did His hearers go away enlightened, excited, full of anticipation for what He would do for them? Much more than merely heal their bodies and make their lives a little easier to bear?

He was talking about wine – the stuff that went to their heads and made them temporarily jolly so that they would forget their troubles as long as its effects lasted. No, He was announcing that they would soon be drinking a wine so potent and so permanent that, in spite of their circumstances, they would be filled with joy that would not fade because the “wine” would live inside them forever. Much of their fasting was nothing more than part of the old “garment” and the old “wineskins” – no longer of use or value. They could dispense with that old life forever because the kingdom of God had come.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

A Cryptic Answer

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A CRYPTIC ANSWER

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, ‘How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting but yours are not?’ Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. (Mark 2: 18-20).

Members of the audience asked Jesus a straightforward question and got an answer full of mystery. ‘Why do the disciples of these guys fast and yours do not?’ They said nothing about bridegrooms and weddings. But veiled in Jesus answer were many cryptic clues, both to His identity and His destiny.

Did those who questioned Him realise that He was referring to something that had happened in the history of His people centuries before? When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, God led them through the Red Sea straight to Mount Sinai in the land of Midian, where God had met with Moses and called him to deliver his people from slavery.

On their arrival, God went through all the stages in a young man’s courtship of a maiden culminating in a marriage proposal. He asked them to be His bride – and He was, therefore, from then on, betrothed to Israel, their bridegroom, awaiting the wedding day when He would fetch His bride and take her to His Father’s house where He had prepared the bridal chamber for the consummation of their marriage.

When Jesus, in a veiled way, referred to Himself as the “bridegroom”, was He saying that He was the one who had betrothed His people to Himself at Mount Sinai? Was He telling them that He had arrived in person to propose to His bride once again, since His betrothed had rejected Him in the past? Why should His presence among them be a time of fasting? It was a time of joyous celebration because He would remove all hostility between them and the Father once and for all.

Their sins had separated them from God. They had persistently rebelled against Him and disobeyed His instructions. They had betrayed Him and made alliances with them enemy. They were unfaithful to the marriage covenant He had given them at Mount Sinai. They had not honoured their promise to remain loyal to Him in spite of His faithfulness to them.

He had come Himself to deal with their misunderstanding of who His Father really was, so that they would anticipate their life in Father’s house with joy when the wedding day finally came. Both John the Baptist and the Pharisees, who had gathered followers around them, could make no such offer. All they could do was to invite people to become part of the religious ritual they followed. Even John, who was the forerunner of Messiah, could offer them nothing but “fasting”.

Then Jesus made another cryptic comment. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. What was He talking about? He did not say that the bridegroom would go away. That was the normal procedure in the courtship process. Both He and His bride has preparations to make before the wedding. His was to prepare the bridal chamber back as His Father’s house. Hers was to separate herself from all other men and to prepare her wedding gown.

But taken away? What did He mean? Again this was a cryptic clue and a veiled message that He would be forcefully removed. Why? How? He did not give them details. There was a hostile element in this love relationship that wanted the bridegroom out of the way. They would get rid of Him and then the real reason for fasting would begin – not ritual fasting for religious reasons but grief because the bridegroom had been permanently removed – so they thought.

Jesus did not tell them the end of the story. He was under no obligation to inform people who had no attachment to Him about His future. That would come later when His own disciples were thoroughly convinced that He was who He said He was – the Son of God – and would bear witness through their changed lives, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that the kingdom of God had really come.

In the meantime it was perfectly okay for them to enjoy the presence of the bridegroom for a little while and not to get all religious about it.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

 

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

 

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com