Jesus, Son of Man
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Good Morning, Please open your Bibles to Mark chapter 2&3 we are going to be in between two chapters today. And we have a ton of ground to cover today, so we are just going to Jump right in....
Jesus says 3 little words that will rock and shake his ministry. They will shake the religious leaders…
Some people will believe Jesus when he says these words, they have faith in who Jesus is …
But others see this word as blasphemy and they to want to kill him...
And it occured to me that often there are two reactions to Jesus in the gospels…Now there are more, but primarily there are two Reactions
Either people want to praise him or they want to kill him
So if you haven’t been with us on the book of Mark so far that’s cool I am just going to catch you up real fast:
Recap
Recap
In the first week, Mark really wants us all to know who Jesus is. It becomes so clear through the Old Testament texts that Jesus is Yahweh incarnate, in the opening lines of the gospel tells is that this is good news…That somehow this guy Jesus is going to lead a new exodus from sin…And he is leading us to a new creation
Then in the second week, we looked at Jesus immediately going into the desert, passing the test from Satan and then starting to drive off demons, he healed people of their sicknesses and then he forgave sins...
We immediately see from Jesus a ministry of Power
And then this past Sunday, Jesus is really starting to get in trouble. He is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners
He is giving a voice to the hated and marginalized people in society and the religious people are just ready to have a fit.
And one of the things that I love about Jesus is that he knows what he is doing…He knows it is going to cause an uproar, but he doesn’t shy away from doing things that will upset the balance
So in Mark we have already seen one Sabbath story…If you were here a few weeks ago that was the story where Jesus heals a demon possessed man in the synagogue
But we are going to get two more stories that center around the Sabbath that I think reveal a lot about Jesus...
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Sabbath 1:
Jesus & his disciples are picking heads of grain on the sabbath: So they are not actually breaking the law, they are breaking tradition:
The Sabbath is so impotrant that
The Gospel according to Mark Lord of the Sabbath (2:23–28)
The Talmud describes the Sabbath as a holy ordinance of God and ordains that whoever observes the Sabbath becomes a partner with God in the creation of the world and brings salvation to the world
So it is a little tough to understand this all because we live in a secular society not a religious society.
In a secular society you don’t keep sacred days
But in a religious society where absolutely everyone kept the same traditions…it would have been very noticeable if someone did something different that everyone else
In other religions there are sacred places but in Judaism there is sacred time
So when they ask Jesus, why are you breaking the Sabbath…He basically replies that King David did the same thing...
So now Jesus who is an ancestor of David, compares himself to David...
Just this alone, Jesus comparing himself to Israel’s greatest king will perk the ears of the Pharisees
And then he uses this opportunity to re-teach the sabbath
He says hey the Sabbath was made for man…not man for sabbath...
In other words:
Humans were not made to keep Sabbath rules, but rather the Sabbath was made to bless humanity
See the rules over the years had turned the Sabbath into a burden to keep but Jesus restored the true meaning of the Sabbath...
Then we get to the verse that will probably make everyone listening to Jesus very uncomfortable
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
This statement right here is massive
Jesus calling himself the Son of Man is a huge, huge claim and in the book of Mark
All through the book of Mark you see Jesus saying things related to the son of man, Here is a list in your notes:
The Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10)
The Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10)
The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28)
The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28)
The Son of Man must suffer, be rejected and die & rise again (Mark 8:31, 9:9, 9:31, 10:33, 14:41)
The Son of Man must suffer, be rejected and die & rise again (Mark 8:31, 9:9, 9:31, 10:33, 14:41)
If anyone is ashamed of the Son of Man, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them (Mark 8:38)
If anyone is ashamed of the Son of Man, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them (Mark 8:38)
The Son of Man came to serve not to be served & to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)
The Son of Man came to serve not to be served & to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)
Woe to the man who betrays the Son of Man (Mark 14:21)
Woe to the man who betrays the Son of Man (Mark 14:21)
They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds sitting at the right hand of God (Mark 13:26, 14:62)
They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds sitting at the right hand of God (Mark 13:26, 14:62)
Son of Man is Jesus favorite title for himself. You will see Jesus call himself Son of Man not just in this gospel but in every other gospel
Jesus is calls himself Son of Man 82 times between the 4 gospels...
He uses the phrase all the time...
And this is one of the phrases that really makes the Pharisees want to kill Jesus
So what is so charged about this phrase?
So today I want to step a little bit out of the book of Mark to show you why this phrase is just so charged
If you don’t know what I am about to share with you, you might just skip over it and not think much of it...
But I think that having this fuller picture of who Jesus is actually presents for us a choice…The choice of how will we respond to the Son of Man?
So stick with me because we are about to go through a lot in the Bible and I will try not to loose any of you in the process:
Ok we have to start with the beginning
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Two things are super Key here:
1. God gives all of humanity his image
2. God gives humanity the job of ruling over all of creation
Now why would God do this?
Why would God create human partners to rule over all of creation?
Because it has always been in God’s character to partner with humanity.
Sure God can just do it all himself but instead he partners with humanity and works through us.
God wants to build a human family
And he starts with the first man and woman, Adam and Eve
They got to experience this rule over creation and living in the shadow of the tree of life
But instead of ruling over the animals, they let the animals rule over them....
Ok let’s look at Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Ok we are going to play a little game called human or animal...
The Serpent: human or an animal?
Ok who was supposed to rule over who?
And I am not sure that I need to wait till the end of this sermon to ask the question:
Are you ruling over the beast of sin or is it ruling over you?
Are you ruling over the beast of sin or is it ruling over you?
I say beast because this is how sin will be referred to later in the bible…Animal like, beastly…In the book of revelation, Sinful kingdoms will want to give the mark of the beast…Starting way back at Genesis 3&4 we see that sin is a beast that desires to rule over you!
All of the sudden just a couple verses later Adam and Eve will abandon the tree of life for the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil....
All because instead of doing their job and ruling over creation, they were ruled by it!
So it was after the sin of Adam and Eve that God made some very specific curses and promises and some of these are really cryptic
And to the serpent this is what he said:
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
Basically what God is saying is that there will always be a struggle between the serpent of sin and humanity but that one day God will raise up another human one who can actually crush the serpent
And because of this crushing of sin, Humans will begin to be able to fully live as children of God and rule and reign with God again
So this sets up this question of who is the offspring of the woman…The offspring of a woman that is a boy could also be called, a Son of Man right?
So all through the Old Testament there is this sort of under ground question...
Who is the man who is going to finally crush the serpent of sin?
Was it Moses? Well no, he was great, but as great as he was the serpent of sin was still coiled around his heart
Maybe it was the giant slayer, David…I mean he killed Goliath…But he would show later on that the serpent still had a grip on him when he committed adultery and killed his loyal friend
Solomon showed pretty quickly that it wasn’t him
and all though the old testament we see that these sons of men were flawed and they still allowed the beast of sin to rule over them
So then comes a very confusing Bible passage that literally everyone in Jesus’ day would have talked about.
So we are going to look at Daniel 7 for a minute…Now there is so much here but I only want to show you one thing so there is so much we are going to skip...
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.
Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.
“The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.
Ok so Daniel had a dream…and his dream is like Genesis 1 in Reverse…
Instead of God calming the chaotic waters like he does in Genesis 1, these 4 beasts come up out of the water
And these 4 beasts are the evil kingdoms of Babylon and the ones that will come after Babylon...
But wait a minute…why are they called beasts?
Any time we read about Beasts in the Bible it is this kind of sly way of saying, Sin is ruling over humans.
These beastly kingdoms are evil and have the serpent of Genesis 3 at the heart of all that they do.
So the question that Daniel might have is oh my goodness. Who can stop this serpent?
When will the offspring of the woman crush the head of this stupid snake????
When will we ever be free?
So later in this dream that Daniel has…he sees the ancient of days which is God himself and then he says this:
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
So Daniel is saying…I see this son of man coming....And this son of man will have authority over all of these beastly kingdoms
What Daniel is saying is that he sees a human one who will finally be able to crush the serpent of sin...
A human who will be a new and greater Adam...
A human who will pass the test where adam failed
A human who can actually approach the throne of God…one who will be worshiped from all nations tribes and tongues
A human one who will have everlasting dominion and power and will have a kingdom that will never pass away! And this human one will be called the son of man....
So its no wonder that when Jesus says:
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Or that the son of man has authority to forgive sins
Or one day you will see the son of man coming on the clouds...
The religious people freak out!
I mean Is Jesus saying he is the guy that Daniel 7 talks about?
Could Jesus be saying that he is the one that Genesis 3 talks about? The one who can actually rule with God to break the power of sin?
This is a huge claim!
I don’t think it is any shock that this happens next …So lets jump back into Mark for a second
Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.
Why are they looking for a reason to accuse Jesus?
Well Jesus is stirring the pot, especially running all around Israel calling himself the Son of Man!
Holy cow....The pharisees are probably thinking we need to get this crazy guy out of the synagogue
So now this is a shift in the pharisees…They were upset that Jesus was eating with sinners and healing on the sabbath…
Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
So now Jesus actually heals the man with the shriveled hand...
I bet he was happy he came to church that day
But he asks this rhetorical question because he knows their heart...
Which is lawful on the sabbath to do good or evil?
I mean Jesus here is literally saying…will you bow to that serpent of old or will you overcome it?
So Jesus doesn’t break the Biblical sabbath at all by healing this man but he breaks the Sabbath codes and heals on the sabbath...
As a result, the irony of this passage is that the pharisees go and break the sabbath too
They have no power to kill people so they go to the Herodians…Who spoiler alert…In Mark 6 Herod will kill John the Baptist....He has the power to kill
So Jesus does good on the Sabbath and the Pharisees do evil, they plot to kill Jesus
Application
Application
What I hope that you will see today is that Jesus is the Son of Man
The one who is coming in the clouds
The one who can forgive sin
The one who has all dominion, power and authority
And I think the challenge today is to believe that. I think that was the challenge for those who were witnessing Jesus’ ministry…Is this really the guy? Is this really the son of Man?
And I think the call for today is to believe that Jesus actually is the son of man…He is the one who can crush the beast of sin
He is the one who has power and true dominion over all of life!
Maybe you’re here today and you have that serpent wrapped around your heart.
And that serpent keeps squeezing tighter and harder
The challenge is to believe, to have faith that Jesus actually is the son of man…
To come to God and say Lord…I need you to break the power of sin in my life!
This is what Jesus came to do!
You’re not the snake crusher....
You can’t do it
You don’t have the power
The only way to rule over the beast of sin is to surrender your life to the Son of Man