“That’s not allowed…” Tension builds in this second chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The excitement and novelty of Jesus’s miracles has begun to wear off – and resentment begins to show.
Over the next few months, my church is embarking this Sunday on an experiment – What if we all just sit down and read, really read, the Gospel of Mark? Not try to harmonize the Gospels or fill in the gaps or paint a complete picture of the life the “Historical Jesus…”
What if we just take two months, two chapters per week, and READ Mark’s account of Jesus as it is written?
For my part in this endeavor, I have written and narrated (I, personally, not anything AI) story-style videos that closely follow each chapter. They are, as best I can describe, a hybrid paraphrased translation with historical and cultural notes thrown in as needed.
The video for chapter 2 is below. (If you missed chapter 1, find it here.) The full script I am reading from is pasted below the video, in case you’re one of those people who wants to read along.
Children’s activity books are (and will be) available to accompany each chapter. Sign up to my newsletter to have them delivered in PDF format to you weekly, ready to print (and yes, the chapter 2 activities are available for download immediately upon sign up). Click here if you’re interested.
After a while spent teaching and preaching out in the country, Jesus returned to the city called Capernaum. And after a few days, people started to catch on, and found out what house he was staying in.
Then so many people gathered together that there was no space left inside the house where Jesus was staying, with people crowding in outside the door to hear him speaking the Word—that is, the matters, stories, or teachings about God.
And four people came carrying a paralytic man—bringing him to see Jesus.
But they couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd at the door, so they tore up the roof over Jesus’s head and lowered the stretcher down to him with the paralytic man lying on it.
And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic man: Child, your sins are forgiven.
But some of the Scribes—that is, people who were highly educated and worked for the synagogues keeping records and making copies of Scripture, and writing down all the important teachings of the Jewish people… Some scribes were sitting there, thinking to themselves:
Why is he talking like this. It’s blasphemy! Who is able to forgive sins if not the One God?
Now at once, Jesus knew inside his own spirit that what they were thinking. “Why are you thinking these things?” he said to them.
What is easier: to say to the paralytic man: Your sins are forgiven? Or to say: Get up and take this mat you’ve lying on and walk about.
And now, so that you might know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins upon the earth… He turned to the paralytic man and said:
Get up, I say to you, pick up your mat, and go on to your own house.
So the man got up. And immediately, after picking up his mat, he walked out in front of everyone. So, naturally, everyone who saw it was amazed, and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!
Then Jesus went out to walk along the sea again—that is, the Sea of Galilee, which, remember, is really a lake. And a whole crowd of people went out to meet him. And so, he taught them.
As he walked on, Jesus saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in a tax booth—because, back then, people came regularly to pay their taxes to the tax collectors at actual booths. No one in any time and place has ever really liked paying taxes. But at this point in time, the Jews living in Judea and Galilee had a particular hatred for tax collectors. Most tax collectors were fellow Jews, but they were employed by the Romans, whom the Jews saw as enemies illegally occupying and oppressing them in their own God-given homeland. Tax collectors were therefore seen as traitors or collaborators… And it didn’t help, either, that tax collectors tended to be rich. Despite all that, though, Jesus said to this tax collector, Levi: Follow me. And, just as shocking, Levi got up out of his chair, left the tax booth behind, and followed Jesus.
And then, Jesus even went to dinner at Levi’s house. Many other tax collectors and otherwise “sinful” people were there, eating at the same table with Jesus and his disciples—for many people were now following him.
And when the Scribes and the Pharisees—that is, the religious teachers and leaders everyone looked up to—saw Jesus eating with all these sinners and tax collectors, they didn’t like it. They didn’t confront Jesus directly, though, but instead muttered to his disciples: Why is he eating with these kinds of people?
But Jesus heard them, and said: “The strong, or healthy, have no use for a doctor, but those who are sick do need one. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
Now, the disciples of Jesus’s predecessor, John the Baptist, and the disciples of Pharisees were all fasting—that is, going without food for a certain period of time in order to focus on prayer and contemplation. Or, that was supposed to be the reason for fasting, anyway… So they all came to Jesus, saying, “Why do all of John’s disciples, and all the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”
“Think about a wedding party,” Jesus said. “Do the members of the wedding party sit around in prayer and contemplation while the groom is with them? No, of course not! It’s a celebration!
Eventually, of course, the groom will leave and the party will end. Then they will get back to fasting. But not while the groom is with them. The wedding is not the appropriate time for such things.
No one uses a brand new piece of cloth to patch a hole in an old piece of clothing. The first time you wash it, the new piece of cloth will shrink and become too small for the hole it was intended to cover. It will rip away, and leave and even bigger hole behind it.
For much the same reason, no one puts unfermented wine into a used wineskin. As the wine ferments, it stretches the sides of the wineskin. A new wineskin will stretch to accommodate the fermenting wine. But the used wineskin has already been stretched as far as possible. It won’t stretch anymore, but will burst, spilling the wine and destroying the wineskin.
Now one Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields. And as his disciples walked along behind him, they began plucking off the heads of grain to eat them.
Naturally, some Pharisees saw them, and said: “Hey, look what they’re doing on the Sabbath. That’s not allowed!”
Because to those who were very strict about Jewish traditions, even something as simple as picking grains of grass constituted “working” on the Sabbath.
So Jesus said to them: Haven’t you ever read about what David—the greatest King in Hebrew history—did when he was in need and hungry? Not just him, but the people he had with him, too? How, way back when Abiathar was the High priest, David entered the house of God and ate the “bread of the presentation” which only the priests are allowed to eat? And then he gave it to the people with him too. Look, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Therefore, the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.
–> Chapter 3 (coming next week)
