Mark 2:18-28 | II Corinthians 5:16-20
The tension - or balance…you choose - Jesus holds between the old and the new is remarkable. Many are done with the past and want nothing of it. Others pretty much live there and can’t see the present. Jesus, walks in both, with an eye on the future.
The Pharisees were trained to hold on to the past. It was exactly their job to uphold the given Law. We really can’t blame them. And yet, Jesus came and taught a spirit within that Law that was fresh and new…and yet original (“old”).
Perhaps one of his best descriptions of this tension comes in his short commentary on the nature of sabbath-keeping: “The Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the sabbath.”
Mark 2:18-28
John’s disciples and the Pharisees had a habit of fasting. Some people asked Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but yours don’t?”
Jesus said, “The wedding guests can’t fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they can’t fast. But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
“No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes; otherwise, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear. No one pours new wine into old leather wineskins; otherwise, the wine would burst the wineskins and the wine would be lost and the wineskins destroyed. But new wine is for new wineskins.”
Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. As the disciples made their way, they were picking the heads of wheat. The Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! Why are they breaking the Sabbath law?”
He said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he was in need, when he and those with him were hungry? During the time when Abiathar was high priest, David went into God’s house and ate the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. He also gave bread to those who were with him.” Then he said, “The Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the Sabbath. This is why the Human One is Lord even over the Sabbath.”
II Corinthians 5:16-20
So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now. So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!
All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.
So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!”
Prayer
God,
I still remember that sermon in which the preacher declared with certainty, “Jesus would never own a photo album.” I hated the notion. But it has stuck with me. And I think the preacher may be on to something.
Lord, I can’t help but feel as though we really are the sum of parts of the past. We stand on shoulders, build on foundations, tread paths already been trod. And yet, your Spirit beckons us forward.
Help me as I seek to live in the tension mastered by Christ, to deeply value the past, but only as a means to live in the present as we walk into the future.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.