Mark 3:7-12

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and  Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The people came to Yeshu from five districts, so anxious were they for physical healing. And they were also ready to listen to him as Son of Man. But it seems that they were not ready to understand what the demons definitely did. The demons knew that he was the Son of God.

Yeshu waits patiently for us; he does not force us to understand.

Mark 3:1-6

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked round at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Yeshu knew full well why the Pharisees were present in the synagogue; it was for envy. It was because he was good, and popular with the people on account of his healings and teachings. Yet for them there was loss of face, for Yeshu was just a carpenter, one of ‘the common people’ who lacked religious training; and he was a Galilean too, so unlikely even to be of pure Jewish stock.

So what to do? He had already shown himself better than they at interpreting the scriptures. Ah! he could be discredited if he were found to break the religious Rest Day laws!

But even then, on this occasion, he interpreted the scriptures better than they did, saying that right deeds are more important than right thinking.

Defeated again, they decide that he must be killed.

Mark 2:23-28

One Sabbath he was going through the cornfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck ears of corn. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did , when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any  but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And 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.”

Yeshu declares that the day of rest was given for man’s well-being, not so as to burden him with many rules.

As for Yeshu calling himself Son of Man, this man has the authority even to decide that religious tradition is  not good!

Who truly is this man?