FBC Morning Light – February 13, 2023

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope you're getting your week off to a good start today, and starting it off with God's Word. Maybe you've already done some reading in your Bible yourself today, and if so, that's wonderful.

Exodus, Mark 3, and Psalm 31 in the Daily Reading Plan

Let me help you out with that. We're reading in our Bible reading plan in Exodus, the last few chapters in the book of Exodus this week, and then also in Mark 3 today, in Psalm 31. There's an interesting verse in Mark 3, as Mark records an incident with Jesus and some of the Pharisees in the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

Matthew also gives us this account, but Mark adds a little detail that Matthew leaves out. Matthew adds a detail that Mark leaves out. So you might compare those two passages to see if you can find the differences.

Well, I'm going to tell you what one of them is. In Mark's account, here's what happens. Jesus and his disciples go into the synagogue, and in the synagogue there's a man there, verse 1 tells us, with a withered hand.

We don't know exactly what the malady is, but it would be a case where his hand is crippled up, he hasn't been able to use it for some time, and it says, so they watched him closely, they watched him closely, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

Well, who's they? That would be the Pharisees, they're watching him closely. And the reason they're watching him closely is the Pharisees had this notion that to heal somebody on the Sabbath day would be a violation of the Sabbath law.

That is, you're not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath, you're supposed to cease from the work that you do every other day of the week. And so their thinking is that to heal somebody, for a physician to do his job on the Sabbath, would be a violation of the Sabbath.

He'd be working. And for Jesus to perform a miracle and to heal this man who would be utterly hopeless without a miracle from the Son of God, they look at this as being a Sabbath violation. So, they're watching Jesus.

Is he going to do something? Is he going to heal this man? And they do so with the purpose of wanting to accuse him of violating the law. And then they could say, you see, he's not a good rabbi, he's not a good man after all, he's violating the law.

Jesus' Anger at Legalism and the Hardness of Tradition

So what does Jesus do? Well, Jesus tells the man with the withered hand, he says step forward, and then he asks a question to the Pharisees. He says, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?

They say a word. They kept silent. Now, Matthew's Gospel, here's, I'm gonna give it away, in Matthew's Gospel, he adds the point that if you see somebody's ox in a ditch on the Sabbath, wouldn't you help him get that ox out of the ditch?

Of course you would. And so then he goes on, Mark continues in verse 5 with his narrative, and he says, when he, Jesus, had looked around at them with anger, with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. And then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him. Now what I wanted to point out was this detail that Mark adds in verse 5, that when Jesus looked around at them with anger, with anger.

This is the only time in the New Testament, in the Gospel records, that the word that's translated anger is used of Jesus. In fact, I did a quick concordance search on the word anger, and it's the only place where the English word translated anger is used of Jesus.

And here, this only occasion when the word is used of Jesus, he is angry with these Pharisees who want to prevent him from healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath day. And the word anger is a really strong word, too, by the way.

Other places it's translated wrath. The Greek word is orge. It communicates a strong passion, and this is indicating to us the depth of heart that Jesus has toward this behavior of the Pharisees. Isn't it interesting that the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is said to be angry, or in the Gospels, where Jesus is said to be angry, is with the most religious people of the day.

They have this meticulous system of trying to maintain their purity in their religion, and yet Jesus is angry with them. Why? Why? Because what these men have done, these that they elevate to a level of divine revelation, a divine mandate that is so strict that it prevents the showing of mercy to someone in need.

Jesus, with that kind of an attitude, with that kind of a religion, is angry. I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of a situation. I have. I've known of colleagues in the ministry who have had such an attitude of anger, not toward those who are hypocritical, and not toward those who are violating God's Word by their traditions, but by holding the traditions.

I've seen men express tremendous antagonism toward those who violate their traditions about certain kinds of clothing that you can wear to church, and things of that nature, and in so doing, they drive people away from church.

Jesus gives us some insight into the attitude of the divine when we take his Word, what he commands, and then we add to it, and we extrapolate from it, and then we elevate our additions and our extrapolations to the level of divine mandate, even to the point where we won't be gracious and kind and compassionate toward those who are in need.

Jesus was angry with that. Let's make sure that he has no cause to be angry with us. So our Father and our God, we do pray today that you would deliver us from this kind of pharisaical, hypocritical attitude that elevates our traditions and our extrapolations to the level of divine revelation, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well listen, have a good Monday. I hope your week gets off to a great start today. Good day.