Rehashing Meribah (Mark 8:11-21)
Rehashing Meribah
Mark 8:11-21
Introduction
· The key question which Mark poses to us is the last one: “Do you not yet understand?”
· Authors sometimes have moments where they almost reach through the page and grab us by the throat and force us to pay attention.
· Jesus is speaking to his disciples—which is to say that he is speaking to us.
· Are you getting it? Are you seeing? Do you hear the message? Have you received it? Are you trusting in Jesus?
· A fitting question to end the first major section of Mark, and one which presents us with a barbed challenge. Do you understand?
· Israel never really has gotten it—not even from the beginning.
o Exodus 16 & 17.
§ Exodus 16—Immediately after parting the sea, God tests Israel to find out what is in their hearts. Grumbling because there was no bread. So, Yahweh says that he will fill them with bread “then you shall know that I am Yahweh your God” (Ex 16:12). He gave them Manna—“What is it?” Yet on the sixth day they were to gather twice the amount and they were to rest on the seventh day—which they did not do. They failed the test, because they did not believe that God was trustworthy.
§ Exodus 17—Israel returns the favor. Now there is no water, and so the people come and quarrel with God’s man. In unbelief it says that they “test the Lord” (Ex 17:2). “test” means to see whether or not you really are what you claim to be.
· It is good for a teacher to “test” a student to find out if the student really understands. To pass the test is to perform the work successfully.
· It is bad for a student to “test” a teacher to find out if the teacher really will do what he/she said. The teacher often passes the test by sending the student to the principal.
§ But the question in this test was really in 12:7: “Is Yahweh among us or not?” This is the precise question asked by Mark. Is Yahweh, in Jesus, among his people? Or is he not?
o Isaiah 6:9-10 — continually they prove that they do not understand that God is among them. They don’t see. They don’t hear. Their hearts are hard and therefore they test the Lord by refusing to trust his word or repent.
§ True before the exile. Isaiah’s preaching revealed God to Israel, and called them to repentance and faith—and they did not. So the promise is given, keep preaching, they won’t listen.
o Jeremiah 5:14–29 – This is still true at the time of the exile
§ They were sinful, but mostly hard hearted. They needed to hear the word of the Lord because they were “foolish and senseless…who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears but hear not.” (5:21). They had a stubborn and rebellious heart, and their heart did not fear the Lord. Therefore, they were tottering on the edge of judgment.
o Ezekiel 12:2 — true after the Exile.
§ The son of man dwells among a people who “have eyes to see but see no, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house.”
o All of which begs the drastic need of a change of heart. (Ezk 11:16-20; Yahweh’s parting word)
· You can easily see what Mark is doing.
o Jesus provides bread for the people in the wilderness, and therefore tests them to see whether or not they will obey the commandments
o Jesus is then tested by the people in their leaders who come and quarrel with him about a sign from heaven.
o Then he turns to the disciples and he warns them don’t be like the Pharisees and like Herod.
· The question hangs around the identity of Jesus. In fact, the point of the whole first section of Mark was to do precisely that—show us who Jesus is and call us to trust in him. So he ends: “Do you not yet understand?” Do you see him? Do you see who he is? Is Yahweh among us, or is he not?
· Every single one of us has to answer that question.
· There are some who are still hard in their stubbornness of heart. You see the glorious works of Jesus in his people. You know of the power that exists here in the church. You understand the gospel message and perhaps even profess it. But underneath still lies a heart of stubbornness—a heart which in one way or another still cries, “Give me a sign! Prove yourself to me! Demonstrate that you really are trustworthy!”
· Yet the rest of us still must answer that question each day: Do you understand? Are you seeing? Because whether or not you see will then push you down one side of the slope or the other. We can harden our hearts, refuse to see, refuse to remember, and fall deeper and deeper into unbelief leading to death—or we can soften our hearts, throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, confess our blindness to him, and truly see him.
· So, let us look at, first how Israel Tests Jesus, and then at how his disciples are called to trust Jesus, that we might have soft and understanding hearts.
I. Testing Jesus (Mark 8:11-13)
· He is not back on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee
· The Pharisees are there. They “came” and began to argue with him.
o This very clearly mirrors 3:22f—they came with accusations and Jesus sets them straight.
o Also incorporates 7:1—the Pharisees are coming with the intention to discredit him by showing he didn’t follow their manmade laws.
· They were seeking a sign
o This is an interesting thing to note in Mark. Greek semeion, which is only used one other time in Mark 13:4, where the disciples ask what the sign of the last times will be, and Jesus tells them.
o We might be tempted to think, “What has Jesus been giving them all along? What are his works?” But Mark never actually calls them “signs” like John or Matthew do. Usually Mark just calls them by what they are “He healed many. He cast out demons.” Otherwise, he calls them “mighty works”—displays of power more than indications of the presence of another reality or indications that a new phase of redemption is here.
o What does this mean, then? They were seeking a “sign”—an indication that he was in fact sent from God, that the end of the ages really was at hand.
o “Sign from heaven”—meaning that it had a different character, or that it was astronomical, in the heavens, which was always associated with the end.
· To test him—they wanted to make sure that he was trustworthy, but springing from an assumption that they have already made—Jesus is demonic. Jesus is lawless. Jesus is a sinner. Therefore, Jesus must be discredited.
o Catch 22. On the one hand, if he performs the sign, he admits that he is only validated within the understanding of the Pharisees—which would then make him accountable to their manmade traditions. On the other hand, if he doesn’t perform the sign, they can go around saying, “Why won’t he just show us!?”
· This grieves Jesus. What discourages Jesus? It is this kind of reasoning. Jesus doesn’t want to have to prove himself. He wants to be trusted—he wants to be believed. Yet his people come and test him—prove yourself faithful! Prove yourself trustworthy! Dance when we say dance, jump when we say jump.
· He refuses. “Why does this…?” An exasperated question.
· Why does he refuse? Because he won’t play their game. Jesus refuses to be contained by humanly devised systems of proving his faithfulness. He only accepts those who come to him on his terms. And those terms are faith.
o We do this: “Jesus, save my kids and I’ll be happy! Jesus, fix my marriage and you’ll be faithful in my eyes! Jesus, give me this or that job or thing or house and then I’ll see you as provider. Give me a sign from heaven!” It’s precisely the same.
o This grieves the Lord.
· Illustration: Imagine if, after decades of marriage, and countless displays of love and affection, a wife went to a husband and said, “Give me a sign that you love me. I don’t know if I can trust you unless you give me some sort of sign.” That grieves the husband, but also says something about the wife. She hasn’t been paying attention. She hasn’t bee seeing things objectively. Now, let’s say that he does. How is she going to interpret that, if that’s her heart? “Well, that’s nice, but can I really believe that he loves me? Give me another.”
· “Dead men really do bleed.”
· Proof presented to unbelief will do nothing except harden unbelief.
· In parallel texts, Jesus adds that no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah—referring to his resurrection. And, in those other gospels, the point is that they would have a sufficient sign. But Mark leaves that out. That’s a big and purposeful omission. Why?
o Notice that you never actually see the resurrected Jesus in Mark. You just see the empty tomb.
o This reinforces Mark’s central point—we don’t see until we trust, and we don’t trust until we give up our obsession with knowing on our terms. If Jesus were to give them a sign—according to Mark’s point—he would undermine the whole message!
o Trust me! Trust me! To give a sign would be fundamentally wrong because it would preclude faith. You would have sight.
· So, upon seeing their hardened unbelief, in a highly significant symbolic act, “He left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.”
o Eventually, Jesus does leave.
o Be warned. Do not persist in unbelief. You will eventually run out of chances, and he will leave you on the shores of unbelief as he retreats into impenetrable mystery.
II. Trusting Jesus (Mark 8:14-21)
· The disciples witnessed this encounter, and are with him in the boat. Which provides a very important counterpoint to the story: Will the disciples prove to be like the hard-hearted Pharisees? Or will they see?
· Background: they forgot bread. Whoops! All the bread that was supplied, they only ate enough for right then and there! Meal planning.
· Interaction w/ Pharisees fresh on Jesus’ mind, so he instructs v15
o What is the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod? If you look at the other places where leaven is used, you get the idea of spreading corruption. Yeast spreads throughout the whole loaf and eventually affects the whole thing.
o What is the corruption? There are several layers to this.
§ Both the Pharisees and Herod did not understand Jesus. Herod thought he was John. Pharisees thought he was demonic.
§ Therefore, both of them did not believe Jesus. Herod was too obsessed with pleasure. Pharisees believed in their own abilities.
§ Herod walked the way of license—total freedom from the law
§ Pharisees walked the way of legalism—enslavement to the law and manmade traditions.
o We also must recognize the same temptations in our own spheres. The ditches are the same. On the one hand, you can utterly disregard the law and say, “Whatever I want to do, that I will do”—plummeting you headlong into sin. On the other hand, you can stake all your hopes on the law—i.e. on yourself—and say, “I can do it!” Neither is true.
· While he was saying this (imperfect tense), the disciples began to talk about the fact that they had no bread. Mark doesn’t give us the dynamics. From the parallels we learn that the disciples thought that Jesus was talking about bread. They thought Jesus was saying, “Don’t take bread from the Pharisees or from Herod—a mirror image of what Jesus said not to do in chapter 7, because bread isn’t the problem, the heart is.
· This is a difficult thing to unwind because it just appears that the disciples are plain old dumb. We are inclined to say, “Ummm, don’t you remember all the bread Jesus just created?” How can you be so thick? Yet it seems that’s precisely what’s going on.
· But it makes more sense when you see it in parallel to Chapter 6:52. There he feeds the 5000, then walks on the water, and concludes by saying that the disciples did not understand about the loaves. The unbelief exhibited by the disciples has to do with Jesus’ identity, not just Jesus’ abilities. Their hearts were hardened and they did not understand but were completely amazed. He had passed them by and they perceived it not.
· So, here again, after feeding a multitude, here are the disciples on the boat not understanding about the loaves. In other words, in mistaking Jesus’ meaning about leaven, they demonstrated that they didn’t really understand who he was. They didn’t believe.
o True on the physical level—Jesus can feed them!
o True on the spiritual level—Jesus’ feeding them was always meant to show them who he is.
· So, Jesus addresses the problem
o Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? — guys…you’re missing the point! This isn’t about physical bread!
o Do you not yet perceive or understand?
§ Mark 4:12 — Isaiah 6:9-10, are you still like the rest of them?
§ Mark 7:13 — again regarding food, are you still without understanding?
o Are your hearts hardened?
o Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? Chapter 7—chapter 4
o Do you not remember? —remember not being recalling facts but holding it at the center of your mind. Have you kept in mind what I’ve done? Do you hold it in your heart? Do you treasure it?
· He points to the past…
o Remember what I showed you when I fed 5000? And 4000? Not only can I feed you bread here and now, but I am Yahweh.
· Do you not yet understand?
· Though they had seen with their eyes that he had fed the multitude and heard with their ears the teaching of Christ, they had not yet seen or heard him.
· Yet there is hope here: Do you not yet understand? They will next week.
· And as Jesus will say to Peter, “It was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” Unless the Spirit of God moves, we will never hear or understand.
Concluding Applications
· Jesus is not so unloving as to satisfy the demands of our unbelief. Unbelief might demand proof all it wants, and if Jesus was to give that proof he would only drive the unbelief deeper. Jesus does not want to be tested. He wants to be trusted. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test!
o How often do we, thought? Some of you do while evaluating the gospel. I recently heard a Jewish person say something like, “Unless Jesus appeared and revealed himself to me, I wouldn’t belief.” To which Jesus says, “Even if a man should raise from the dead, even then he wouldn’t believe.”
o There is no evidence which unbelief will find appealing. But humility is very easy to convince! Therefore he does not give us proof, he overcomes our unbelief by giving us his Spirit! Only then does proof sound convincing.
· Nothing grieves the heart of Christ more than unbelief. He “sighed deeply in his spirit.” How many times had he offered himself to his people! Not only in his earthly life, but also in his preincarnate state. He would later say, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matt 23:37). How often would Jesus have gathered you! Yet how often do you prove unwilling!
o Hear Christ’s heart! We are wounded most deeply by the things we love most dearly! An insulting word from a passerby does nothing to us by annoy us, but an insulting word from a best friend will cut us deeply. So here, Jesus is deeply wounded by the rejection of the Pharisees. What does this show us except his great love for sinners!
o If Christ, or a friend, or a parent, seems exasperated by your stubbornness, do not interpret that as hatred—interpret it as love! And let it melt your heart toward Christ.
· Do not let the world’s grime get in the way of your vision of Christ! Avoid the leaven of the world!
· Confess your unbelief to the one who can make you believe. We need to face our unbelief. We are stubborn and hard-hearted
o How many times have we seen him provide for us, and how many times have we turned back to him and doubted? “Why don’t we have bread!?”
o How many times has he pointed us toward his law, and how many times have we come back to him and said, “No, I’m going to do it the way I want”?
o How many times has he tenderly drawn our hearts out to himself and convicted us of our sin, only for us to take that conviction and shape it into a new list of humanly-manageable external obligations?
o We just don’t get it. We are the blind. The deaf. The lame. The mute.
o And we need to own it if we are ever going to change. This is why we stagnate in life. We stagnate because we believe that following Jesus is a matter of willpower, not a matter of faith!
o Schoolbus on ice illustration.
o So, start confessing. And confess until you confess. Doubt yourself. Admit you’re wrong. Say that you don’t know how. That you aren’t strong enough. And do it until you believe it.
o Then, when we have come to realize that we are blind—he will open our eyes.