Welcome
to my Gospel of Mark Series. During 2012-13, each week, I will write a
post about the Gospel of Mark as I review and explore each of the 16
chapters and how it may be applied in our daily lives. My goal is to
understand and pray the Gospel of Mark. I hope you will join me on this
journey as we travel through the liturgical season of Year B. In
today's post, we explore chapter 3:1-6 which is Jesus heals a paralysed
hand.
The
last of the five conflicts, like the first, is caused by a healing done
by Jesus. Again He deliberately confronts His opponents. These are
presumably the Pharisess mentioned at the end of the story. They look,
waiting to see if Jesus will heal the man with a paralysed and shrunken
hand.
Ignoring
the opposition, Jesus tells the paralysed man to come and stand in
front of everyone. The Jews did interpret the Sabbath law to allow
actions to heal the sick only when there was danger to life. Jesus is
more radical ‘is it allowed on the Sabbath to do good or do harm?” As he
puts to them this simple question, He looked around upon His silent
opponents with strong feeling of anger, because He sees hardiness of
heart and a refusal to understand. Mark has mentioned the emotions of
Jesus once before (I:41).
Dramatically, in full view of the Pharisees, Jesus heals the man’s paralysed limb. again He acts with power and authority.
This
story may also reflect a more liberal attitude of early Jewish
Christians in Mark’s day towards the Sabbath as a practice that was
based on the behaviour and a clear teaching of Jesus. For Christians
Sunday became the special day of the week.
The
final result of this new teaching of Jesus and the dramatic healing He
performed is not wonder among the people but rejection by His
oppponents. The Pharisees, religious leaders join together with the
Herodians, political leaders, and go off to plot His death. Such
radically new teachings of Jesu endanger both the tradtional teaching of
the Jewish religion as well as the established structures of Jewish
politics under Roman domination. This malice and ill will towards Jesus
will be there through the rest of His time in Galilee and reach its
terrible climax later in Jerusalem.
In our journal and/or our discussion group we may wish to reflect on this passage as follows:
- Name the key points that you have learnt about the person of Jesus in this passage of scripture?
- Reflect on the keywords in this passage for they contain the substance and purpose of all the things Jesus said and did-
- Ponder what Jesus teaches here:
- Contrast the positive toward life of Jesus with the naroow attitudes of religious and political leaders opposing him.
- Consider ways that I keep the sacred law of the Sabbath “‘keep holy the Sabbath Day”’
- Consider what changes we will make to keep holy the Sabbath Day
- Consider my relationship with Jesus in the light of this Gospel passage.
- Reflect on how the Scribes and Pharisees may have felt hearing this teaching from Jesus. Is there a scribe or Pharisee in me?
- Try to feel something of what Jesus felt when He saw the attitudes of the Pharisees and the Herodians. Make a list of areas in my life that need a change of heart and develop an action plan on how this change of heart might occur. (eg name an area and name one/two changes that you will implement with God's help.
- What impact does Jesus’ teaching have on you (3:1-6).
- How has this passage spoken to you- what does it say to you personally?
It is important to remember that St Mark wishes us to know the person of Jesus.
What does this passage of scripture tell you about the person of Jesus?
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