Day 84: the Ditch on Either Side of the Gospel

Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand. In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him. Mark 3:1–6

Physically speaking, I’ve been in a “fluffy” season for over a decade now—interspersed with brief periods of leanness when I can actually feel my hip bones while lying down on my back. Therefore, I’ve been to multiple Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig “weigh-ins.” And the one thing I’ve noticed is that no matter what the time of day or time of year, most of us wear as little as possible when we weigh in. It might be the middle of an ice storm in February but doggone it, I’m still going to wear the thinnest nylon running pants or shorts in my closet, a wisp of a T-shirt, and flip flops or shoes I can easy slip off. I don’t even wear much jewelry on those terrible, horrible, no good, standing-on-the-scale-next-to-a-perky-weight-management-counselor days because Every. Single. Ounce. Counts!

Defining your relationship with God solely based on the Law can be just as depressing because Every. Single. Infraction. Counts. Every impatient word in traffic. Every unkind thought in a slow checkout line at the grocery store. Every lapse in judgment. Every minute of insecurity. They all add up to tip the scale toward fantastically flawed. There is simply no such thing as a perfectly law-abiding human. Paul says it bluntly and succinctly in Romans chapter 3: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23 kjv).

It’s no wonder the Pharisees were grouchy; they were surely emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted from trying to uphold the facade of moral perfection! Sadly, instead of owning up to their faults and receiving forgiveness and healing from the One who already knew the truth about them anyway, their hard hearts withered to the point of conspiring with the Herodians to kill Jesus.

The fact that the Pharisees and the Herodians—basically the biblical version of the Hatfields and McCoys—put aside their huge animosity toward each other so as to form an alliance against Jesus is significant. The Herodians represented the ruling power and hedonistic culture of Rome. Which means they were pluralistic, polytheistic pagans. They pretty much acted like entitled fraternity boys with fat wallets and no scruples. Which means they were the absolute opposite of the pursed-lipped, allergic-to-fun, law-abiding Pharisees.

These two crews coming together to take down the Son of God is as radical a concept as the leaders of the red states and the leaders of the blue states coming together to back the same presidential candidate. It highlights the shocking similarity between unrestrained immorality—I’m going to do whatever feels good to me in the moment!—and restrained moral conformity—I’m going to follow the rules better than anyone else even if it kills me! In both cases, the practitioner is attempting to be their own god. And both approaches lead to self-righteousness, to an ironic “we’re so much better than people who think they’re better than other people” type of arrogance. Yet all the while, both sides are just adding more and more weight to the scale of sin. Praise heaven for Jesus, who did away with all our sin, whatever form we tend to lean into!

• What similar personality traits have you noticed in modern-day Pharisees and wild-as-a-buck partiers who avoid Christianity like the plague?
• Which extreme—religiosity or secularism—do you tend to gravitate toward if you’re not careful?
• How are the sins of legalists and the sin of hedonists surprisingly alike?