Notes on Matthew 8-9 and Mark 2-5; Come Follow Me lesson for March 4-10

At a friend's suggestion, I am trying to put together my thoughts before the week begins so that I can better prepare for our own family's study.  We've divided it up different sections the last two weeks among the older kids (ages 10+) and it's been pretty successful.
 
This week's reading has so much depth. I think I might have to start focusing on just a few parts from each week's lessons rather than comment on everything I found interesting.  But then, I find so many interesting things in the scripture passages that I don't know what to leave out!

Healing a Leper  Matthew 8:1-4  

  • I love that we have so many of these one-on-one encounters with Christ.  He had all power, and yet he didn't do away with sickness or heal multitudes with a word.  Instead, he healed those who came to him, one at a time, and according to their faith.  To some, he forgave their sins as well as healing their bodies.
  • In this case, the leper comes and humbly professes his faith, "if thou wilt," or "if you wish, you can make me clean."  The leper knows that Christ has the power to heal him, but it seems that he doesn't know if Christ will do it for him or not.  He seems to have faith in Christ, no matter the outcome.  Do we have that same faith, to say to God, "I know you can fix this/take this away/heal me/grant me strength/forgive me, but is this your will?"  
  • Having faith doesn't mean that we know the outcome.  It means trusting in the Who, not necessarily the What.

The Faith of a Roman Centurion Matthew 8:5-13 

  • The Centurion seeks relief for his son or servant, it's not clear which (the Greek is ambiguous, from what I understand).  He doesn't feel worthy to have Christ in his home so he asks for Him to be healed at a distance.
  • Christ comments on the upside-down, unexpected nature of his kingdom in this way:  "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.  And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."  This is a common theme with Christ's ministry -- from the 10 virgins, to telling people that God can make stones into the children of Abraham, to inviting the Samaritan woman at the well.  The gospel is for all who will accept.  Some of the very people who should embrace it because of their heritage and privileges will reject it.  Are we going to be among them?  Or are we humble enough to see everyone around us as a brother or a sister, to match the faith of a centurion, or publican, or leper?

Stilling the Storm Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41 




  • Christ is sleeping through a storm so terrible that this disciples believe they are going to die.  I love Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talks about that kind of tired:  For those of you who earnestly seek to bear another’s burdens, it is important that you refortify yourself and build yourself back up when others expect so much of you and indeed take so much out of you. No one is so strong that he or she does not ever feel fatigued or frustrated or recognize the need to care for themselves. Jesus certainly experienced that fatigue, felt the drain on His strength. He gave and gave, but there was a cost attached to that, and He felt the effects of so many relying on Him. When the woman with an issue of blood touched Him in the crowd, He healed her, but He also noted that “virtue had gone out of him.”11

    I have always been amazed that He could sleep through a storm on the Sea of Galilee so serious and severe that His experienced fishermen disciples thought the ship was going down. How tired is that? How many sermons can you give and blessings can you administer without being absolutely exhausted? The caregivers have to have care too.
  • I love how Mark is a little bit stronger on how faithless the disciples were.  Matthew says the disciples woke him by saying,"Lord, save us: we perish!" while Mark says they were a bit more blunt, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?"  
  • In both accounts, Christ rebukes their lack of faith.  "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?"  Do we continue to have faith in the midst of a terrible storm?  Or do we only trust God on days of fair skies and beautiful breezes?  What can I do to strengthen my faith?  Would Christ gently rebuke me for similar lack of faith in Him?
  • If you find yourself in the midst of your own tempest, you need to hear this song: 
  • The story behind the song is very sweet.  "According to a passage in the book Our Latter-day Hymns: The Stories and the Messages, by Karen Lynn Davidson, the author says, “Mary Ann Baker was left an orphan when her parents died of tuberculosis. She and her sister and brother lived together in Chicago. When her brother was stricken with the same disease that had killed their parents, the two sisters gathered together the little money they had and sent him to Florida to recover. But within a few weeks, he died, and the sisters did not have sufficient money to travel to Florida for his funeral nor to bring his body back to Chicago.”

    Of this trial Baker said, “I became wickedly rebellious at this dispensation of divine providence. I said in my heart that God did not care for me or mine. But the Master’s own voice stilled the tempest in my unsanctified heart, and brought it to the calm of a deeper faith and a more perfect trust.”
  • The lyrics are:  
Master, the tempest is raging! The billows are tossing high! The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness, No shelter or help is nigh; Carest Thou not that we perish? How canst Thou lie asleep, When each moment so madly is threat’ning A grave in the angry deep? 
Chorus:  The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will, Peace, be still! Peace, be still! Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea, Or demons or men, or whatever it be, No waters can swallow the ship where lies The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies; They all shall sweetly obey Thy will, Peace, be still! Peace, be still! They all shall sweetly obey Thy will, Peace, peace, be still! 
Master, with anguish of spirit I bow in my grief today; The depths of my sad heart are troubled— Oh, waken and save, I pray! Torrents of sin and of anguish Sweep o’er my sinking soul; And I perish! I perish! dear Master— Oh, hasten, and take control. 
Chorus 
Master, the terror is over, The elements sweetly rest; Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored, And heaven’s within my breast; Linger, O blessed Redeemer! Leave me alone no more; And with joy I shall make the safe harbor, And rest on the blissful shore. Peace Be Still, peace be still, Peace, peace, Be Still!

Christ's Miracles:  Man stricken with Palsy Matthew 9:1-8 



Christ's Reaction to Those who want to follow him, Matthew 8:19-22

  • "And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."  I wonder if, besides Christ using these words to gently tell the scribe it's not going to be an easy path to follow Christ, also shows the condition that all men have because of the fall.  We have left our spiritual home with God and will not have a place to lay our head peacefully again until we are reconciled to Him and brought home to him.
  • Verses 21-22 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead. 
  • The student manual says this about the burial practices at the time:  "Respect for parents was very important in Jewish culture and included the responsibility to provide a proper burial for them when they died. After preparing a body for burial and placing it in a tomb, family members typically returned a year later to place the bones in a stone box called an ossuary, which remained in the tomb as a secondary burial. If the disciple was speaking of his father’s secondary burial, the Savior’s response would seem to communicate that now was the time for the man to serve a mission (see Luke 9:59–60). The man could be at peace about letting his deceased father remain in the tomb with other dead members of the family. It is also possible that the Savior’s response could be understood, “Let the [spiritually] dead bury their [physically] dead.”

    In either case, the Savior’s words do not mean it is wrong to mourn the loss of a loved one or give proper respect at a funeral. Rather, these words emphasize devotion to the Lord as a disciple’s highest priority.
  • Whichever the Lord meant in this passage, it is clear that at times responding to Christ's call will involve some sacrifice and some hard choices.  There will always be reasons and excuses to hold back or to delay, but we need to be willing to follow Him wholely and completely.

Calling of Matthew/Levi Matthew 9:9-13 

  • Matthew was a publican, or a tax collector.  From the New Testament Student Manual:  The term publicans (Latin, publicani) refers to men who were responsible to the Roman government for overseeing the collection of taxes in Israel, as well as to those who worked for them and actually collected the revenue. Tax collectors were required to pay a fixed amount to the government each year, but they were free to collect as much from the public as they could. Thus, in Jesus’s day, publicans were one of the most corrupt and detested groups of people among the Jewish populace. Jews who became publicans were often excommunicated.
  • As Julie Smith explains, "While Jesus was able to make symbolic allusions to the Hebrew Bible by calling fishermen, calling a tax collector was a shocking thing to do: it made him look sympathetic to the Romans and would have offended Jewish sensibilities. In fact, this story isn’t so much about the call of Levi per se as it is about who Jesus thinks is fit to be a disciple—and his answer would likely have stunned just about everyone."
  • We can see proof of that shock in the way the Pharisees reacted to Christ eating dinner with Matthew in his house.  They were shocked and immediately critical and it seems like they expected others to also be immediately critical.  
  • From the New Testament Student Manual:  In the ancient Near East, sharing a meal with others meant much more than simply eating and drinking together. It was a sign of fellowship; it indicated that a bond of friendship and peace existed or was at least being offered (see Genesis 31:43–54; Exodus 18:12; 2 Samuel 3:12–21). The Savior often used the occasion of sharing a meal to extend the invitation to repent and obtain forgiveness. On a number of these occasions, pious Jews criticized Jesus for dining in fellowship with people they regarded as sinners (see Mark 2:15–17; Luke 15:2; 19:1–10).

    Those regarded by the pious Jews as “sinners” could have included not only people guilty of breaking commandments but also people who did not live in accordance with the Pharisees’ traditions—people whose daily work was considered unholy (like publicans) and people who were not Israelites (like Samaritans and Gentiles; see Acts 10:28). 
  • I love this insight into Levi's sacrifice to follow Christ from Julie Smith "In a sense, the call of Levi represents a heightening of the previous call stories: while it would have been possible for the fishermen to return to their fishing, either occasionally or full time, it would not have been possible for Levi to resume his post after abandoning it."
  • Do I have that kind of commitment?  To leave behind my old self for Christ?  What would Christ have me leave behind to more fully follow him? 

Casting out Devils and a Herd of Swine, Matt. 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20

  • This is an interesting story, with some saying it has parallels the people of the time would have seen with the Exodus story of Pharoah and his army drowning in the sea.
  • My favorite part of this story is at the end, when the man wants to come with Jesus.  Mark says, "And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.  Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel."
  • This reminds me that Christ has a different purpose for each of us.  Other men, like Matthew, were called to follow him, but this man was asked to stay where he was and to share the gospel there.  It may have been because he was a Gentile (which might be hinted at by the presence of the pigs, not a food the Jews would touch) and it wasn't time for the Gentiles to join Christ yet.  Or it may have been that Christ recognized that the man's family needed to be with him and rejoice with him at the beautiful change that had taken place.  Or it may have been that he needed to begin the work there to convert the people of Decapolis (a ten-city area on the east of the Sea of Galilee).  Or perhaps some combination.  In any case, following Christ means following his commands to us as individuals and seeking out His light to direct us in our daily efforts and in our daily walk.  It isn't enough to keep the ten commandments and do basicly good things; we need to seek out what the Lord's will is for us today and individually.

Question about Fasting and the Sabbath Day

  • Christ teaches that His disciples don't fast because he is with them as the bridegroom, but that later, they will have plenty of time to fast.  This reminds me that there are times and seasons in our lives for various things.  There are times to mourn and times to rejoice, times to fast, and times to gather in joy and love, times to tend babies day and night, and times to more fully engage in family history work or temple work.  What season are you at in your life?  Can you find contentment with what you are able to do rather than feel discouraged by what can't fit into your life right now?  
  • There's a lot that could be said about the Sabbath disputes, but I think I will just add this short quote about Mark 3:4-6:  The Savior’s questions, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” set the stage for a vivid teaching moment (Mark 3:4–5). Some rabbis had determined that only in emergency situations was it permissible to save a life on the Sabbath. Of course, it would have been just as unlawful to murder on the Sabbath as on any other day. Yet ironically, after the Savior did good by healing the man’s hand, the very people who thought He was guilty of breaking the law—and who imagined themselves the keepers of the law—began on that Sabbath to plot how to destroy Jesus (see Mark 3:6).
  • It makes me so sad to see how little the Jewish leaders cared for their people.  Here in front of them are people healed from lifelong afflictions, and instead of rejoicing with them, they look to find fault with the Sabbath-day activities -- "Hey, you former cripple!  You aren't supposed to be carrying a bed on the Sabbath!"  or "This man heals on the Sabbath day!"  How does someone get to be so cold that they care more about their legalistic interpretations of the Sabbath than they do about the happiness of the people right in front of them?

Redeeming us from the Fall:  Jarius's Daughter & the Hemorrhaging Woman, Matt. 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43







  • Wow, of all the stories I studied this week, this sandwiched story of Christ on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus healing first the woman with the issue of blood and then calling the daughter of Jairus back to life was the most mind-blowing.  There is so much more going on than I saw at first.  
  • For one thing, in telling the story-within-the-story this way, it highlights the differences and similarities between the two.  The woman's healing was public, while the girls' healing was in private.  The number twelve is used in both -- she had the blood problems twelve years, the daughter of Jairus was twelve years old.  Jairus obviously loved and cared for his only daughter, while the woman was likely alone and an outcast, yet invited by Christ to have that same care from a loving father when he addressed her as "Daughter."  
  • I wonder what Jarius was thinking as his urgent mission to bring Christ's healing to his daughter was interrupted by this woman.  Was he tempted to be annoyed and angry at the woman's audacity?  Was his faith strengthened by Christ's healing of this woman?  Was He poignantly moved by the father's love shown to her by Christ, particularly in light of his own deep concern for his own daughter?  
  • This woman, being unclean according to the law of Moses, would have had a very solitary life, and may not have been touched by another person for years -- if she had been touched, that person would also been considered unclean.  Can you imagine her desperate desire for healing that caused her to spend all her money on useless physicians?
  • When we realize that Christ loves everyone around us even more than we love our own children, it can change the way we view others. 
  • I love that the scriptures share that Christ invited just Peter, James, and John, and the girls' parents to witness this miracle.  Spiritual, sacred things are to be kept sacred and not for the masses to mock -- remember the injunction to give not that which is holy to the dogs?  I think this shows Christ demonstrating what that looks like.  This is a dignified, beautiful, quiet miracle He is about to perform.
  • If you have the time, I highly recommend reading Julie Smith's article, A Redemptive Reading of Mark 5:25-34. Of all that I read this week, this is the one that taught me the most.  I will quote some select passages from it below, but the whole article is definitely a must-read.
  • Julie lays out the case that the story of the woman with the issue of blood re-enacts and redeems the fall.  
Mark’s account of the woman with the hemorrhage has extensive verbal parallels to the story of the Fall: the texts share nearly a dozen terms,8 and the same concepts, if not the same words, are found in many other instances.9 But more significant than the shared vocabulary are the thematic associations. Because menstruation was regarded as one of the results of Eve’s sin10 and was linked with sin in general (Lamentations 1:17 and Ezekiel 36:17-18),11the hemorrhaging woman is associated with Eve. More broadly, the woman’s condition of ceaseless menstrual hemorrhaging is a magnification of the normal female condition. These associations make the hemorrhaging woman the ideal narrative re-creation of Eve in her fallen state.
The plot of Mark’s story tracks the plot of the Fall closely. In both, the thought process behind the woman’s decision-making is narrated (Genesis 3:6 and Mark 5:28); the audience knows what each woman is thinking as she takes the initiative to act in a difficult situation. This is unusual for any biblical text and even more so for a female character. Further, both stories feature a transgressive touch: Eve is commanded not to touch the fruit (Genesis 3:3),12 and the hemorrhaging woman must not touch Jesus.13 And just as Eve’s touch leads ultimately to death, the hemorrhaging woman’s touch causes a delay during which time Jairus’s daughter dies (Mark 5:35). In Mark, many people are touching Jesus, but the touch of the bleeding woman is distinct (Mark 5:30-31). It parallels Eve’s touch, which led to unique consequences and similarly ushered in death. Because the hemorrhaging woman is most likely standing,14 it is possible that she touches Jesus’ side or ribs. While speculative, this would be another point of contact with the Genesis text and suggests that, since Eve came from Adam’s rib, the woman in Mark’s story is re-establishing contact with the source of her creation, this time in the form of the mortal Jesus. . .
Because a woman’s initiative was the catalyst for the Fall, it is crucial that Mark’s story of redemption from the Fall also occurs by the initiative of a woman. Indeed, one of the things redeemed in this story is woman’s initiative. 
In addition to these extensive similarities, there are profound differences between the stories. These divergences allow Mark’s story to “redeem” the Fall. So while both stories feature a transgressive touch which changes the nature of the woman’s bodily experience and results in new knowledge for her, the change in Mark’s text reverses the change in the garden: Eve’s touch results in her entry into the fallen world and the end of the perfected state of her body, while the hemorrhaging woman’s touch results in her body returning to a (more) perfected state.
Another inversion occurs in the response to questioning: after the Fall, when Adam is queried, he focuses on Eve, and when Eve is questioned, she focuses on the serpent (Genesis 3:9-13). There is a pattern of avoiding responsibility by ascribing responsibility to someone else. In contrast, the hemorrhaging woman told the whole truth when she was questioned (Mark 5:32). Her response shows that this time, “Eve” (in the role of the hemorrhaging woman) took complete ownership of her own actions, and this, in terms of the narrative, leads to Jesus’ claiming her as his daughter (Mark 5:34). The refusal to accept responsibility is one of the hallmarks of the Fall. The hemorrhaging woman inverts this plot point by wholeheartedly accepting responsibility for her actions. Being Jesus’ daughter means that the woman has a closer relationship to him than she previously did; this also inverts the Fall where Eve becomes estranged from the presence of God as a result of her action. Through Mark’s story — through the woman’s accepting responsibility — the breach in the relationship between the woman and the divine is healed.

  • Beautiful thoughts here, and the parallels to Eve are very compelling.  They remind me of this symbolic painting of Eve and Mary:  

(source)


What have you learned from studying this week?

Comments

Unknown said…
thanks for posting these ideas.
Megan said…
I’m so grateful you take the time & effort to post your insights & links to other resources. Thought-provoking, as usual.