Day by Day

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Matthew 26:1-13

A BEAUTIFUL ACT

Here, set between pieces of information about the gathering storm that will break over Jesus before the week is out, is a story of tender devotion that has, as Jesus predicted, been told all over the world.

Jesus and the disciples were resting in the home of Simon the leper—probably one of the persons Jesus had healed.  John’s Gospel indicates that the woman with the ointment was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, which places the scene in Bethany.

With her loving intuition, Mary perceived the tragic meaning of Jesus’ predictions concerning his conflict with the authorities.  With characteristic generosity, she came to him in Simon’s home bearing the vessel of ointment she had probably been saving for her own and her family’s anointment after death.  It was a costly substance, worth as much as an average man might earn in a year.  Either in sympathy or in loving protest of the way Jesus was about to spend himself, Mary poured the entire amount of ointment on his head, so that it ran profusely through his hair and into his clothing.  The room was immediately filled with the sweet, thick odor of death.

The disciples, sensitized to the needs of the poor, were outraged.  (John’s Gospel pins the blame for their outburst on Judas the traitor.)  Why wasn’t the ointment sold for the benefit of the poor, if she wanted to honor Jesus?

But Jesus commended the woman.  She had recognized that they were in the presence of the Lord of the new creation.  There were other resources for the poor—and this example was never intended to gainsay the importance of caring for them.  But Mary had prepared the King for his burial.  Her grasp of the situation was better than the disciples’, and her deed would always be associated with the community’s proclamation.

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Matthew 26:14-25

THE PERFIDY OF JUDAS

Sometimes even strong persons break under the pressure of relentless conflict.  Something snaps in them, and they do unpredictable things—things absurdly out of keeping with their usual character.

It may have been that way with Judas.  Surely something in him had recommended him to Jesus as a disciple.  But in the contstant battle with the authorities in Jerusalem he reached a point where he couldn’t take it any longer.  Maybe he thought Jesus was wrong to speak of dying instead of fighting; or, as some have suggested, perhaps, he thought he could provoke a revolution in which Jesus would emerge victorious.

At any rate, Judas agreed to deliver Jesus into the hands of chief priests for thirty pieces of silver, which according to Exodus 21:32, was the price of a slave.  By today’s standards, the deal was cut for about four or five thousand dollars.  Ironically, Judas enslaved himself and vilified his name forever in the transaction.

How did Jesus know? There were many telltale signs in Judas’s behavior.  One of them was his dipping his hand into the bowl of bitter herbs that were part of the Passover meal. The rule in the Essene community at Qumran was that people dipped their hands in the bowl in hierarchic order; that is, in the sequence of their status.  Judas’s dipping his hand with Jesus suggests a breach of etiquette on his part—as though he were choosing equality with his Master.

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Matthew 26:26-35

THE FIRST SUPPER

We usually call this meal the Last Supper.  But why shouldn’t it be called, instead, the First Supper?  It was, after all, the beginning of the tradition that has been central to the Christian community ever since.

The Gospel of John accorded this meal several chapters.  Why did Matthew spend so little time describing it?  Perhaps he was more concerned with the actual Passion story than with its embodiment in a symbolic meal.  He wanted to show the human drama being played out beyond the table, in Judas and Peter and Caiaphas and Pilate and all the others whose stories held so much interest for the Christian community.  Thus he hastens on from the bare fact of the supper’s institution to describe Peter’s protestation of faithfulness—a protestation we know to be ill-fated.

The hymn that Jesus and the disciples sang before going out was probably Psalm 118, which contain the words:

With the LORD on my side I do not fear.

What can mortals do to me?

The LORD is on my side to help me;

I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD

Than to put confidence in mortals (Ps. 118:6-8)

But Peter and the other disciples apparently forgot what they had sung.

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Matthew 26:36-46

PRAY TO BE SPARED THE TESTING

Professor David Daube has reminded us of a rule among the Jews. That whenever one of the group celebrating the Passover fell asleep—not merely dozed but fell into a deep sleep, so that he could not answer a question—it was the end of the celebration.  Perhaps this explains the puzzling way Jesus kept returning the disciples as he prayed; he did not want the Passover celebration to come to an end.

There is great pathos in this picture of Jesus, deeply saddened by the betrayal of Judas and the impending events of the next few hours.  It was entirely natural for him to seek strength through prayer, for it had been his discipline at earlier times to spend many hours in prayer.

What did he pray at this time?  He prayed that the dreadful hour of testing might simply go away if possible—that he might be wrong about the series of events he saw rapidly building to a climax.

He also instructed the three disciples to pray a similar prayer for themselves.  But they were tired and did not realize the seriousness of the hour, so they failed to pray as they were bidden.  And with what enormous consequences!  Jesus came out of Gethsemane refreshed in spirit and ready to endure the worst the authorities could do to him.  If the disciples had prayed, they too might have been refreshed, and, instead of fleeing, might have died by Jesus’ side.  It is a tremendous thing to ponder, isn’t it?  Prayer can actually get us into trouble, or it can keep us there if we are already in it!

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Matthew 26:47-56

NOT WITH SWORDS’ LOUD CLASHING

The irony of verse 25 is continued here as Judas calls Jesus Master and kisses him.  It was considered impudent of a disciple to kiss his master before the master first kissed him, and Judas once more demonstrated his feeling of equality with Jesus.

John 18:10 tells us that the unnamed disciple who drew his sword was Peter.  The fact that a mob had followed the chief priests and elders to the site enhances the possibility that this action was very significant.  It might easily have signaled the eruption of local warfare, for probably many in the crowd as well as in the entire city were prepared to follow Jesus in an armed rebellion.

Surely in the early Christian community, too, many felt that Christians should do more to defend themselves against imprisonment and persecution.  Why not train secret militia to offset the power of the corrupt authorities?  But the example of Jesus, and his words about not taking up the sword, have had great influence through the ages on the Christian attitude toward violence.  In our own time, they were persuasive to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom influenced millions of oppressed people.

It is the royal demeanor of Jesus here that causes us to question his use of power for selfish purposes in the stories of the fish with money in its mouth (Matt. 17:27) and the withered fig tree (Matt. 21:18-22).  Such tales are simply incongruent with the behavior of one who offered himself so gracefully to his own executioners.

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Mark 1:40-45

THE MESSIAH AND THE LEPER

Most of us have never known what it means to live as an outcast.  But here was a man for whom most of the world was off-limits.  He had leprosy, one of the most dreaded diseases of all times.  The law forbade him normal contact with healthy people.  He was required to remain always at a distance and call out a warning of uncleanness.

What great faith the man must have had in Jesus’ power to heal, to have transgressed this strict social rule and approached Jesus.  He came and knelt, a practice usually reserved for royalty and great servants of God.  What confidence he showed, in both Jesus’ power and compassion!

Verse 41 is problematic in the manuscripts. Scholars agree that the ancient texts reading “moved with anger” are to be preferred  to those reading “moved with pity.”  Some scribe, finding anger an inappropriate response by Jesus to this situation, probably changed the wording.  But why would Jesus have been angry?  Would it have been at the disease itself?  At the man for breaching the social rules?  Or because the man was intruding on his plans to continue preaching the realm of God?  We can only speculate about the reason.

Whatever his feelings, though, Jesus dealt compassionately with the man.  He touched him—a startling thing, for lepers brought both spiritual and physical defilement—and made him whole.  Then, fearing his reputation as a healer would interfere with his preaching, Jesus enjoined the man to remain silent and go to the priest for the ritual cleansing and restoration prescribed by the law.

But the man predictably disobeyed Jesus’ warning and soon the demand on him as a wonder-worker was so great in the cities that he had to retreat to the countryside.

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Mark 2:1-12

THE FORGIVENESS IS AMONG YOU

Here we enter a strange section of Mark’s Gospel.  Between verses 2:1 and 3:6 he tells five stories about Jesus’ conflicts with the authorities.  In these stories, Jesus suspends his emphasis on being silent about the works he does; in fact, he seems intent on being known through his works.  This suggests that Mark had this body of stories intact from and earlier source—perhaps from Peter—and inserted it here in a text otherwise more of his own telling.

The first story is a very dramatic one, of four friends who brought a paralyzed man to the house where Jesus was staying and found such a crowd of people that the only way they could get their friend close enough to Jesus to be healed was by digging a hole through the clay roof and letting him down from above.

Jesus saw the man’s obvious condition, yet began not by healing him but by forgiving him.  It isn’t clear why he did this, for he did not usually equate illness with sin.  But it instantly inflamed the scribes, who believed it blasphemous for any human being to arrogate to himself the power of forgiveness, which was God’s alone to give.  Jesus responded to their outburst by referring to himself as the Son of Man—a messianic title—and commanding the paralyzed man to take up his mat and walk home.

The fact that “they were all amazed and glorified God” (v. 12) suggests that even the scribes were won over and joined the crowd in applauding God for what had been done before their very eyes.

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Mark 2:13-17

JESUS AND THE OUTSIDERS

Many people are careful about those with whom they are seen, especially if they hold public office of any kind.  We need to remember this to understand the importance of this conflict story.  As the one proclaiming the long-awaited realm of God, Jesus daringly identifies himself with the wrong people, thus risking the disapproval of the scribes and Pharisees who were the solid citizens of their time.

The Gospel of Matthew speaks of the man here called Levi as Matthew.  Some biblical scholars think he is the same James, also identified as a son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:18).  The important point, of course, is his occupation.  He was one of Herod Antipas’s customs collectors in Capernaum, the port through which northern travel around the Sea of Galilee ordinarily had to pass.  Such minor tax officials were held in almost universal disdain as thieves and liars.  The “sinners” of verses 15 and 16 may have been the “people of the land,” who had not had the opportunity to study the law as the scribes and Pharisees had and were therefore shunned by them.

For Jesus to call Levi to be a follower and to eat at his home was unthinkable to the scribes and Pharisees, not only because of the character of these people but also because the meal was certain to be ritually unclean.  It was virtually impossible for such officials to avoid contamination in dealing with non-Jews, and they were notorious for failing to pay tithes on their own foodstuffs and for neglecting the rules about the proper cleansing of utensils and the proper killing and preparing of food.  Jesus had thus scandalized the solid citizens by his action.

Mark’s point, as in the preceding conflict story and the story of the leper (1:40-45), is that the Messiah is above contamination.  Instead of the sinner’s rendering him sinful, he makes the sinner whole!

Jesus underscores this with an analogy.  It is right for people to avoid the sick, lest they too become infected.  But the same rule does not apply to the doctor, who visits the sick to make them well.  Likewise, Jesus is above the ordinary rules governing righteous behavior; his mission is to restore righteousness to sinners.

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Mark 2:18-22

SONS OF THE WEDDING

Each religion has its own characteristic tone.  Hinduism, with its emphasis on reincarnation, reveres life.  Confucianism accenting filial piety, is conscientious.  Christianity, because of its emphasis on the heavenly realm in our midst, should resound with joy and celebration!

This is the point of this conflict story involving a question about why Jesus’ followers did not fast as John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples did.  Why should they fast now? Jesus asked.  They were celebrating the great eschatological wedding—the ultimate wedding—that God has promised for so long.

Fasting wasn’t a legal requirement among Jews except on the Day of Atonement.  Those who did fast at other times had some special reason for doing so.  John’s followers may have been fasting because he had been taken away.  This would explain Jesus’ saying in verse 20 that his own disciples would fast when the bridegroom was taken away.  The Greek word for “taken away” is probably a reference to Isaiah 53:8, which speaks of the Divine Servant’s being “taken away” and “cut off from the land of the living.”  It thus implies a violent death and is a reference to the crucifixion.

The small parables of the cloth patch and the new wine, which we met in Matthew’s Gospel, emphasize the newness of the experience of the first Christians.

The point of both parables, placed in this grouping, seems to be that disciples of Jesus should not be expected to be mournful and long-faced like their predecessors in Judaism, for what is happening to them is of another order.  It is a time for celebration and dancing.  We are, as the Greek says literally and the text translates “wedding guests,” “sons of the wedding.”

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Mark 2:23-28

THE MOST SCANDALOUS STATEMENT

As in the other conflict stories, the point here is that Jesus is the Lord of everything, including the law.  He could eat with people who were not ceremonially clean (vv. 15-17) and he and his followers could pluck grain on the sabbath.

The law permitted taking as much grain from a stranger’s field as one could reap with the hands (Deut. 23:25), but it also forbade reaping on the sabbath as one of the thirty-nine activities not permitted on the holy day (Exod. 34:21).  The penalty for violating the sabbath was death by stoning, although violators were to be given one warning.  This may have been a warning instance.

But Jesus answered with authority by citing the time David and his men entered the tabernacle and persuaded Ahimelech the priest to assuage their hunger with the holy bread consecrated for the use of priests and temple servants (1 Sam. 21:1-6).  The Pharisees never spoke ill of David for this, and here was one greater than David, the Messiah himself.

“The Sabbath was made for humankind,” Jesus reminded them, “and not humankind for the sabbath” (v. 27).  This was not an uncommon saying among rabbis at the time, but other rabbis did not behave as Jesus did.  In the context, as Ernst Kässemann has said in Jesus Means Freedom, this is probably the most scandalous remark Jesus ever made.  It cut across in an instant the artificiality of a religion that had devolved into mere law-observance.  And, in the end, the attitude voiced here resulted in Jesus’ crucifixion.

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Mark 3:1-6

THE URGENCY TO DO GOOD

This is the last of the five conflict stories, and once more involves the sabbath, which lay at the heart of the Jewish legal system.  The rabbis permitted healing on the sabbath only in cases where persons’ lives were in danger; otherwise, healing was regarded as work and a violation of sabbath law.  As no reason is given why the man with the paralyzed hand could not have waited another day, we may assume that Jesus was openly challenging the injunction against sabbath healing.

In one sense, Mark makes the same point in all of these stories.  Jesus is encountering the scribal interpretations of the law.  He is the Messiah, and therefore Lord of the law.

In Jesus’ eyes, it is important to do good for people whenever possible, even on the sabbath.  Doing good obviously takes precedence over doing nothing.  As he puts the question in verse 4, it is no wonder the scribes and Pharisees are silent; they had either to agree with him or sound like inhuman monsters.

The healing is done very openly.  The words “Come forward” in verse 3 imply that he stood the man in the middle of the crowd.  The act is a purposeful demonstration of Jesus’ messiahship.

If Mark counts the reprimand for reaping on the sabbath (2:24) as the single warning accorded sabbath violators before stoning them to death, his conclusion in 3:6 is a natural ending for the story as well as for the entire section of conflict stories.  Now the Pharisees go out to plot Jesus’ death. They counsel with the followers of Herod Antipas, who held political jurisdiction over Jesus, and whose help would be important in securing his death under the Roman occupation.  The die is cast.

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Mark 3:7-12

THE SIMPLE FOLK RESPOND

Dmitri, in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, says that God will be kept alive in the prisons even if allowed to die among intellectuals and respectable people.  It is an age-old truth.  Again and again in history it is the little people, the outcasts, the simple folk, who understand and respond to the call of God when God is neglected in the finer circles.

After the five conflict stories that represent Jesus’ failure with the religious leaders of his  culture, Mark balances the account by depicting the enthusiastic response of the common people.

Jesus has withdrawn from Capernaum to more rural areas around the Sea of Galilee, and great crowds follow him.  They come from every part of the Holy Land except Samaria, which most Jews disregarded, and the Decapolis, or ten Greek cities, which were less Jewish than other parts of the country.

Typically, the people want only what Jesus can do for them and show little regard for his personal well-being.  There are so many of them and his ministry is so demanding that he has the disciples keep a boat handy for getting away for rest or safety.

It is the demons themselves—the agents of Satan—who recognize Jesus’ real identity.  They fall prostrate before him and cry out for mercy, probably in the screams of their poor victims.

And Jesus, true again to this strange theme in Mark’s Gospel, orders them not to reveal his identity.

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Mark 3:13-19a

THE NEW ISRAEL

These verses assume a special force from what has preceded them.  First, there are five conflict stories summarizing Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.  Then the Messiah turned to the common people, withdrawing to the seaside to teach and heal them.  Now he goes up into the hills (going to the mountains always symbolized an important action or event) and commissions twelve followers to be his special helpers.  They too are common folk.  And they are to be the pillars of the new Israel, as there had been twelve leaders of Israel in the days of tribalism.

Again, as in the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John (1:16-20), the initiative comes from Jesus.  In the Old Testament, God called the heroes of the faith.  Now the Messiah, the One coming with the heavenly realm, exercises this function.

Note the special dimensions of the call: The disciples are “to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons” (vv. 14-15).  Normally the disciples of rabbis followed their masters to learn their teachings, in exchange for which they provided foot and a place to sleep for the rabbis.  But Jesus is not ordinary rabbi; he teaches “as one having authority.”  Therefore, his disciples have a special assignment—to proclaim God’s realm and extend the healing ministry of the Messiah.

Before anything else, though, they are to “be with him.”  It is a penetrating thought, isn’t it?  How many times we attempt to do the work of Christ without first being with him—without waiting in his presence to receive his Spirit and guidance.  But being with him, or allowing him to be with us, is the only way we can really begin to do his work.

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Mark 3:19b-30

“THE OTHER SIDE”

Chaim Potok, in his novel My Name is Asher Lev, tells the story of a young artist who is misunderstood by his family and friends.  As Hasidic Jews, they regard his enormous talent as coming from “the Other Side”—from Satan—and try to discourage him from using it.

Jesus encounters a similar response when he returns to Capernaum with his newly appointed disciples.  The scribes from Jerusalem have spread the word that his power is from Beelzebub, the prince of demons.  Even his family has heard this word in nearby Nazareth and has come to take him home.

But Jesus is forthright.  He calls the lie-mongers to him and addresses them in parables.  “Satan’s work is to bind and destroy,” he says in effect.  “I am freeing and healing.  How can you say that is Satan?  It is clearly against him”.

Verse 27 may be a reference to the temptation in the wilderness (1:12-13), when Jesus won an initial victory over Satan.  Having thus bound or inhibited the strong one, he is now proceeding to plunder his house, setting the captives free.

The rumor his enemies from Jerusalem have spread, says Jesus, is unforgivable.  People can be forgiven almost anything.  But to hinder the coming of the divine realm, which is what the scribes are guilty of, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and will be held against them forever.

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Mark 3:31-35

THE REAL FAMILY

These verses must be read in connection with verse 21, with verses 22-30 as a long parenthesis between them.  It is after the scribes have spread their slander that Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive to take him home.

We should easily find sympathy for them.  They have not been at the heart of the controversy all along.  They are simple folk and would have a great natural respect for the opinions of the learned scribes, especially as the scribes came all the way from Jerusalem.  They think their son and brother is sick, and they want to take him home and care for him.

Jesus’ reply to those who tell him his family is there may seem callous if taken alone.  But we must note that the Gospel writer does not tell us what may have followed in the way of a reunion with them, and that his point here is to complete the narrative about the flare-up of opposition to Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus is still talking about the realm of the Spirit.  “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asks rhetorically (v. 33).  His eye sweeps the room, filled with the once lame and blind and diseased he has healed, the simple folk who hang upon his teachings.  “Here,” he says.  “Here are my mother and my brothers?  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (vv. 34-35).

He has appointed the twelve to be the leaders of the new Israel.  In this realm of the Spirit, blood ties will not be the determining factor.  The rabbis will not come in merely because they are the sons of Abraham.

Kinship will not secure a place for anyone.  It is the followers—those who do the will of God—who will be Jesus’ family.