Author: Stephanie Stewart

“Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus” (Mark 3:6)

 

Read Mark 3:1-6 (paying special attention for verse 6)

 

Does anything stand out to you in verse six? Does something seem odd about the verse? Feel free to record your thoughts.

 

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You might wonder to yourself, “Who were these Herodians?” The Herodians were people who supported Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas is the same person who had John the Baptist arrested and beheaded. Because of their high position in society, the Herodians were more interested in maintaining the social and political status quo (Garland 109). To say it a different way, they did not like anyone stirring up the social waters. The Pharisees, while they were interested in observing God’s law, saw no problem in collaborating with those who did not care all that much about the law. But what is even more intriguing is that they were collaborating with them in order to break that law. Look back at Exodus 20:13. It clearly says, “You shall not murder.” Why would they do this? According to Joel Green, the first century Jewish culture was heavily influenced by a social system called the “patronage ethic.” This system made it much easier for those higher up the social ladder to earn a large income (Green 201-203). Since the Mosaic law was their key to social prestige, Jesus threatened the authority of the Pharisees when he challenged their understanding of the law; but this also meant that he threatened their pocketbooks. Hence, the Pharisees were seeking to kill Jesus, in part, because their livelihoods were at stake. All in all, it appears that the Pharisees were looking to break the Mosaic law for the sake of their own self-interest. There is a special word to describe behavior like this: hypocrisy.

Our blindness to our own hypocrisy was recently made very real to me.  About a year back I was struggling in my relationship with my mother. One night, over dinner, I was criticizing her in several ways; among them was how she was not very encouraging to me. I was quick to point out what she was doing wrong and how she needed to “change.” However, I have recently had a complete change in the way I understand how my mom relates to me. In all reality, she has no choice but to remain aloof if I am going to lack grace in the way I relate to her. Instead of practicing forgiveness and love I was practicing bitterness and hostility.

Sometimes it is easy for us to focus on what is “wrong” in others and forget that we have faults too. The Pharisees didn’t see it that way. David Garland astutely observes, “These critics are so blindly cynical that they are incensed when Jesus does good and saves a life on a holy day, but they have no qualms about doing harm and plotting death on that very same day with the secular powers that be” (Garland 109). Ask yourself, have you perhaps been blind to your own faults and your own struggles?

 

Lord, open my eyes to areas where I have not been honest with my own struggles.

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