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Eating with Jesus
Mark 1:40-2:17
You can
tell a man by the company he keeps – so the saying goes. Well then, what do we make of
Jesus? Jesus lived and taught the
most pure, uncompromising way of life ever conceived. Yet He was known universally as ‘the
Friend of sinners’. What does that
say about Him? It’s a question
that hung over Jesus His whole life.
Look at chapter 2 and verse 16:
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw [Jesus] eating
with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked His
disciples: "Why does He eat with tax collectors and`sinners'?"
Jesus
keeps company with rotten sorts of people. The poor, the weak, the unclean, the outcasts – the
sinners! Why? What does this say about Jesus? And what does it say about His
followers?
Because
Jesus’ response in verse 17 is telling:
On hearing this, Jesus said
to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I
have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
We’ll
think about this verse in a minute but effectively Jesus is saying: Yes I
keep company with sinners.
Because I’m the spiritual doctor and these are my patients. In fact, says Jesus, I only keep
company with sinners. “I have not
come to call the righteous but sinners.”
In a sense, Jesus only eats with sinners.
Well
that’s important to know. Because in a few minutes we are going to, in a
very real way, eat with Jesus.
It’s the Lord’s supper we’re going to eat – a meal with
Jesus. And we know that Jesus eats
with sinners. So let us
ask afresh this morning. What
does it tell us about Jesus, that He eats with sinners? And what does it say about us, that
we eat with Him?
This
morning we’re going to look at three stories from Mark about three
outcasts who meet Jesus. A leper,
a paralytic and a tax collector – they are total outsiders who end up
receiving the grace and power and cleansing of Jesus. At the same time, the religious
insiders – the Pharisees and the teachers of the law – are frozen out of
the kingdom. Jesus turns every
religious expectation on it’s head.
This is revolutionary.
Here is the Lord God Almighty walking the earth and He does NOT
keep company with the good. He
explicitly says in verse 17 He has not come for the righteous. Instead He keeps company with the
bad. What does this say about
Jesus? What does it say about us
– the followers of Jesus?
Let’s
dive into the first story. Verse
40:
A man with
leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees, "If you are
willing, you can make me clean."
Only
recently have they found a cure for leprosy. Leprosy in the first century destroyed your life and cut it
short. It disfigures you, you
lose fingers and toes. This man
would have looked a complete mess coming to Jesus. Part of why he would have looked a
mess is because the Old Testament law required lepers to look a
mess. Leviticus 13 says this:
45 "The person with (leprosy) must wear torn clothes, let his hair
be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, `Unclean!
Unclean!' 46 As long as he has the infection he remains
unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. (Lev 13:45-46)
Leprosy
made you a spiritual and social outcast.
You were unclean – and if people touched you, they became
unclean. So you were commanded to
live away from towns and cities.
You were destined to be a spiritual and social outcast and there
was really no hope of cleansing.
In many ways leprosy’s modern equivalent is AIDS in terms of life
expectancy and the social stigma attached.
When I
worked for a church in London, I got to know a guy my own age who we tried
to help for many years. We tried
to get him off the streets and off the drugs. But one day we took him out to a café for lunch and that
day told us what we’d dreaded all along.
He had tested positive for HIV.
Whenever I remember it I get the same sinking feeling I had that
day. And I remember he had a
number of sores on his face that were open and drops of blood were
forming as we ate. As calmly as I
could I suggested he mop his face with a serviette. I completely lost my
appetite and the conversation dried up.
I shrank back from this unclean man.
Well what
will happen in Mark 1, when this unclean man approaches
Jesus? Because here He is meeting
the LORD of Israel. The One who
could condemn Him. And all the
religious types would have expected the Lord to drive this man away – to
drive him back outside the camp.
To shout out ‘Unclean! Unclean!’, to reject and shame him. But what does Jesus do?
41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his
hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be
clean!" 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was
cured.
This is
the very reverse of religion.
Religion expects that this man’s uncleanness will transfer from
the unclean man to Jesus. That’s
how religion works. There’s bad
stuff out there, and you have to keep it at bay because if the bad stuff
comes near you, you will be infected.
Jesus turns that on its head.
Jesus infects the man. He
gives the unclean man a good infection.
Can you
imagine the scene in that London café.
Reaching out to the man with HIV.
Touching his face, getting his blood on you. But healing his sores and cleansing
his whole blood stream. That’s what Jesus does here.
He
reaches out and touches a man who almost certainly had not felt human
touch in a very long time. And far
from the man infecting Jesus, Jesus infects the man with cleansing. Immediately the leprosy left him and
he was cured.
Now from v44, Jesus
tells the man to go to the temple because there are some Old Testament
sacrifices designed for just this situation. The leper was supposed to present two live birds to the
priests. One of which was killed
and the other was released into the open fields. And it was essentially saying that
uncleanness deserves death, but this bird takes my place. And as the death is provided, I go
free. That was just an Old
Testament picture of how God deals with uncleanness – death is demanded,
but a sacrifice dies instead so you can go free.
Well this leper
doesn’t do the sacrifice Jesus asks Him too. But later on in Mark there is a sacrifice. And one that doesn’t just picture our
cleansing, Mark show us a bloody sacrifice that actually cleanses. The true sacrifice is Jesus dying on
the cross. Because as Jesus died He
was considered unclean. He, the
LORD God Almighty, was dying outside the city gates – outside the camp,
along with all the lepers. He
was, in the words of Isaiah, ‘like one from whom men hide their
faces.’ Jesus died the death of the
unclean, the spiritual outsider, the lonely, the despised, the ugly. He was the sacrifice – the ultimate
sacrifice – and by His wounds we are healed.
In religion, the gods
stay far away and we mortals work towards them, trying to be good. Jesus stands that on its head. Jesus
comes down among us to touch the untouchables and even to become the
unclean One, so that He can bless not the good, but the bad.
Let’s look at the next
story in chapter 2. From verse 3,
four friends are desperate to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Verse 4: they dig a hole in the roof
and lower their friend down in front of Jesus. Verse 5:
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son,
your sins are forgiven."
Now we get shocked by
that verse, but not for the same reason as the religious types got
shocked. We’re shocked because
we’re think Jesus has got His priorities wrong. We think, the first thing this guy needs is to walk. Jesus thinks the first thing this guy
needs is forgiveness.
And that’s shocking to
us. Jesus thinks being forgiven
is more important than your health, more important than money or getting
a job or a family – all of which would have been virtually impossible for
this paralytic. But no Jesus
thinks forgiveness is the priority because if our sin remains unforgiven,
it doesn’t matter if we have the finest health, can outrun Usain Bolt,
get the greatest job, loads of money and a great family. If we only go home today with a
clean bill of health, we might have a terrific life but a horrendous
eternity. Jesus knows what’s most
important. Forgiveness is the
priority.
Have you been forgiven
of your sins by God? Do you know
the forgiveness that only God can pronounce on your life? If you don’t – that’s your priority. More than anything else we need to be
forgiven.
How do we get this
forgiveness? Turn to Jesus, He
has authority to forgive your sins.
Good news. But it shocks the religious
types. Do you see in verse 6:
6
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7
"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can
forgive sins but God alone?"
This is the really
shocking thing. How can Jesus
offer forgiveness?
Imagine if, after the
service, _________ comes up and hits you in the face. Then imagine I go up to _________ and
say ‘I forgive you’ – what would you say? You’d say push off Glen, you’ve got nothing to do with
this. I can’t forgive sins if
they haven’t been against me.
Well then what’s Jesus doing forgiving this man’s sins?? The teachers of the law are right –
only God can forgive sins, because ultimately our sins are against
God. So then if Jesus forgives
sins, who does He think He is??
Well to prove who He
is, Jesus does heal the paralytic.
Verse 10, Jesus says to the religious types:
10
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to
forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, 11 "I
tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12 He got
up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed
everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything
like this!"
The Son of Man can
forgive us our sins – He has all the authority of God come to earth. He is ready, willing and able to
forgive anyone. His forgiveness
gun is on a hair trigger, and there’s just one thing that sets it
off. Verse 5: Faith.
That’s what prompts
His forgiveness in v5. Jesus sees
faith and the words fly out of His mouth – Son, your sins are forgiven.
Now what does faith
look like? Is it a strange
mystical sensation? A funny
feeling in the stomach? A state
of consciousness which only the very spiritual can attain? No faith looks like tearing a hole in
a roof because you want to get to Jesus.
That is faith. Coming to
Jesus with all your need. That is
faith. That’s all that faith is –
coming to Jesus in all your weakness and sin. When Jesus sees that, He always
forgives. No-one has ever come to
Jesus in weakness and sin and been turned away. No matter how great the sins, how awful your uncleanness,
how powerless you are – Jesus always forgives those who come to Him, because
that’s faith.
And of course, that’s
the complete opposite of how the religious types respond to Jesus. The religious think that they are
clean and strong and righteous and so they keep their distance from Jesus
and remain unforgiven. The
outsiders run to Jesus and are forgiven.
Which are we this morning?
Let’s look at the last
story of the three. From verse 13, we find Jesus teaching again and then
in v14 He sees Levi sitting at the tax collectors booth.
Now when you hear the
word “Tax collector”, think Arms Dealer.
In the 1st century, if you were a Jewish tax collector,
you were working for the Roman occupying force – the enemy. You were taking far too much money
from your own people and giving it to the hated Romans. Which is why in v15, “tax collectors”
can be lumped in with that mass of people called “sinners.” They were people who should have been
ashamed of themselves – the baddies.
Now this tax collector
called Levi was sitting there on his tax collecting booth – in the midst
of all his guilty shame. And
Jesus reaches right into that world and commands this rotten white-collar
criminal “come follow me”. Jesus’
recruitment policy is like nothing seen on earth. Jesus actively seeks out the ungodly,
the sinful, the despised and draws them in.
He wants to
keep company with sinners.
And so v15 – to
celebrate, there’s a party that is every religious person’s
nightmare. Tax collectors and
sinners everywhere. Unclean
people contaminating everything! And Jesus is at the centre of this banquet
– the life and soul of the party.
And so we return to
verse 16:
16
When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the
"sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples:
"Why does he eat with tax collectors and `sinners'?"
Jesus pipes up from
the centre of the party and says what are perhaps my favourite words in
the bible.
Verse 17:
17
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not
come to call the righteous, but sinners."
This explains
EVERYTHING. Why do lepers run to
Jesus? Why do the paralyzed tear
holes in roofs just to get to Him?
Why are the outsiders and the unclean and the weak and the sinful
attracted to Jesus? Because He’s
the Doctor. He is the Spiritual
Doctor for sick sinners. And Jesus
says ‘If you know that you are sick, you will love the Doctor and you
will draw near to Him. If you
don’t think you’re sick, you won’t have any time for the Doctor and
frankly the Doctor doesn’t have time for you.’
I am a male,
so I never go to the doctor. I
complain about every little cough and cold, but I don’t go to the
doctor. When I do I like to save
up all my little niggles and sicknesses so when I go I have a decent list
of ailments. Why? Because no-one sits down with their
doctor and says, ‘I’m a picture of perfect health, I thought you’d be
impressed.’ They won’t be
impressed, you’re wasting their time. Doctors are for sick people. And Jesus is for sinners. He is NOT for the spiritually
healthy. Jesus is NOT FOR people
who think that they are righteous.
If you think you are righteous this morning, if you think you are
spiritually healthy – Jesus has nothing to say to you.
Written
across the gateway of heaven could be the sign: ‘Sinners Only! Sinners Only! The righteous need not apply.’
We’re about
to enjoy the Lord’s Supper. The
sign above the communion rail could read the same: Sinners Only! The Righteous need not apply!
If you come
up to this rail you are, in a real sense, eating with Jesus. Which means you must be a sinner. No-one righteous should come up to
this rail. No-one healthy should
come up to this rail. Jesus eats
with sinners. He only eats with
sinners. So if you come you are
saying ‘I am like the leper – an unclean wretch’. You are saying ‘I am like the paralytic:
powerless.’ You are saying ‘I am
like the tax collector – a sinner who should be ashamed of
themselves.’ This morning we are
eating with Jesus and so we are saying to Him and to each other ‘I am
sick, I am a sinner, I am unclean, I am weak, I am ashamed of myself.’
That’s what
this meal is about. Because this
meal celebrates the cross of Jesus Christ. There His body was torn apart like bread. His blood was poured out like
wine. And on the cross He became
the ultimate outsider so He can welcome you in. He became weak and died so He can strengthen you. He became sin on that cross, so He can
forgive you.
And all He
wants from us is that we come to Him in faith. Remember what faith is?
It’s coming to Jesus in our need.
So if we have faith, if we come to Jesus with our need, we will
hear the Doctor say to us His patients:
“This is my body broken FOR YOU.”
“This is my blood poured out FOR YOU.” Come to the rail in your need this morning and hear Him say
personally to you in your uncleanness:
“I am willing – be clean.”
Hear Him say to you who need forgiveness: “Son, daughter, your
sins are forgiven.” Come as the
sinner that you are and receive the Doctor’s care.
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