Six Incidents In The Life of Jesus Which Reveal His Unique Power and Authority and Lead to the Pharisees Plotting Against Him (1:40-3:6).
Jesus' ministry having been established, and the presence of the Kingly Rule of God having been demonstrated by His power to cast out unclean spirits and heal, we are now presented with a series of incidents which reveal more of Who He is. Through them the glory of Jesus and Who He is, is brought out. The subsection commences with the healing of a seriously skin-diseased man. Such a man was an outcast from society and no one would go near him, or expected him to come near them. But attracted by what he had heard the man seeks out this new prophet. He no doubt remembered how another great prophet, Elisha, had helped Naaman so long ago (2 Kings 5), and felt that a new Elisha might be here. Jesus will later use this incident, among others, in order to demonstrate that He is the Coming One (Matthew 11:5).
This is then followed by a series of incidents in which He reveals His authority on earth as the Son of Man to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12), demonstrates that even the outcasts are welcome to come to Him for healing of soul because He is the Healer of men's souls (Mark 2:13-17), calls on all to recognise the joy that there should be because of His coming as the Heavenly Bridegroom in order to establish something totally new (Mark 2:18-22), reveals that as the Son of Man He has authority over the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28), and publicly heals the man whose arm is withered on the Sabbath day, revealing that He has come as the Restorer (Mark 3:1-6). In all this He was challenging the norms on which Jewish society was based, which were that the ‘unclean' had to be avoided, forgiveness was the prerogative of God alone, outcasts and sinners were best avoided and had to be ostracised, pious men were to evidence it by fasting and mourning, and the Sabbath was to be honoured according to the letter of the Scribes and Pharisees, with the needs of men taking a very subsidiary place. But Jesus brings out that He is turning everything upside down. He makes clean the unclean with a word, He forgives the unforgiven, He meets up with outcasts and sinners who have demonstrated repentance, He declares that because He is here it is not a time for fasting, and He brings compassion into the interpretation of the Sabbath Law on the grounds that the purpose of the Sabbath is to benefit man, not in order to be a sign of piety. And all this because the old is past and the new has come, and because He has come the introducer of a new age in which the needy are important.
It will be noted in passing that following the incident of the skin-diseased man we have five incidents from the life of Jesus. which all follow a literary a similar pattern, that of commencing with an incident which then leads on to a final saying. These may well have been patterned on a regular presentation of the oral tradition used in the churches which had been provided by Peter or the other Apostles.
Analysis 1:40-3:6.
This whole subsection may be analysed as follows:
a Jesus heals a leper with a touch and a word and sends him as a testimony to the priests in Jerusalem (Mark 1:40-45).
b The healing of a paralytic - the Scribes criticise Jesus for declaring that the man's sins are forgiven and learn that ‘the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins' (Mark 2:1-12).
c The ‘astonishing' immediate calling of Levi, an outcast public servant, to be a disciple (Mark 2:13).
d Jesus and His disciples feast in Levi's house along with many public servants and sinners, and the Pharisees grumble (Mark 2:14-16).
e Jesus makes clear that He has come as the Healer of those who acknowledge that they are ‘sick', that is, not of those who claim to be righteous but of those who acknowledge themselves as sinners (Mark 2:17).
d The disciples of John and the Pharisees fast, and they grumble because Jesus' disciples do not fast, at which Jesus points out that because He has come as the Bridegroom they should not fast because it is a time of rejoicing, for He is introducing something so totally new and incompatible with the old that fasting would be out of place (Mark 2:18-20).
c He illustrates the fact that the new ways have come to replace the old (Mark 2:21-22).
b The Pharisees criticise Jesus' disciples for eating in the grainfields on the Sabbath and learn that ‘the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath' (Mark 2:23-28).
a Jesus heals the man with a withered hand with a word, as a testimony to the Pharisees (Mark 3:1-6).
Note that in ‘a' a sin diseased man is healed, who is a picture of the need of Israel, and in the parallel a man with a withered hand is healed who is also a picture of the need of Israel. The first contains a message to the Jerusalem priesthood, the second a message to the attendant Pharisees, that the Healer and Restorer of men is here. In ‘b' He reveals Himself as the Son of Man Who forgives sins on earth, and in the parallel as the Son of Man Who is Lord of the Sabbath. In ‘c' Jesus calls to be a disciple an outcast from Jewish society, and in the parallel points out that He has come to introduce a world with new attitudes. In ‘d' Jesus and His disciples feast because the new age is here, and in the parallel the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast because they are still in the old age. Centrally Jesus has come as a Physician to make whole those who are spiritually sick.