Mark’s Gospel

Worship

 

GCSE Texts and Exercises

The Sabbath

Read these words then answer the questions.

The Sabbath is the day of rest.

The Jewish people of the time of Jesus believed that God made the world in six days. On the seventh day he rested. To remember this, they believed that God had told them, the Jews, to keep every seventh day - that is Saturday - as a Sabbath, a rest day.

This day became very important for the Jewish people. When they kept the Sabbath they were showing people how important their faith was to them. Jews sometimes preferred to die rather than ignore the sabbath.

But sometimes Jews worried - what was work and what was not. How could they be sure that they were keeping the sabbath properly? At the time of Jesus the Pharisees tried to make the Sabbath easier to keep by explaining - in very great detail - what you were allowed to do and what you were not allowed to do on the Sabbath day.

The trouble was that it became more important to keep the rules on the Sabbath than actually to do good. Some Jews thought that it was more important to rest than it was to help someone. Jesus disagreed. This got him in a lot of trouble with some religious leaders.

Jesus healed people on the Sabbath. He said people were more important than laws. He said he knew better than the religious teachers. They didn’t like this at all.

Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the First Day of the Week, which is not Saturday, but Sunday. This was the day when they met together for Mass, and it came to be the day which Christians made their Sabbath. Many Christians believe that it is wrong to work on Sundays, unless it is absolutely necessary, and that shops should only be open for essential things.

Activity

There are plans to open local shops on Sundays, and some local Christians disagree. Write a letter to a local paper giving your point of view.

Jesus heals someone
on the Sabbath Day

    The man with an evil spirit

    Mk 1: 21-28

    21 Jesus and his disciples came to the town of Capernaum, and on the next Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach.

    22 The people who heard him were amazed at the way he taught, for he wasn’t like the teachers of the Law; instead, he taught with authority.

    23 Just then a man with an evil spirit in him came into the synagogue and screamed,

    24 "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you here to destroy us? I know who you are - you are God’s holy messenger!"

    25 Jesus ordered the spirit, "Be quiet, and come out of the man!"

    26 The evil spirit shook the man hard, gave a loud scream, and came out of him.

    27 The people were all so amazed that they started saying to one another, "What is this? Is it some kind of new teaching? This man has authority to give orders to the evil spirits, and they obey him!"

    28 And so the news about Jesus spread quickly everywhere in the province of Galilee.

     

Questions

Copy out the questions and answer them in your files.
  1. What was the name of the town where this story took place?
  2. What did Jesus begin to do in the synagogue?
  3. Why were the people amazed?
  4. What did the man with an evil spirit say to Jesus?
  5. What did Jesus say to the spirit?
  6. What happened after Jesus spoke?
  7. What did the people say to one another after this happened?

More Questions

  1. In the story, Mark shows that Jesus has authority. How does he do this?
  2. What is there that happens in this story that would get Jesus into trouble with the religious leaders? Think carefully about your answer.
  3. Do you believe that there are such things as evil spirits? (Give reasons for your answer).

Question about the Sabbath

    Mk 2: 23-28

    23 Jesus was walking through some cornfields on the Sabbath. As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the ears of corn.

    24 So the Pharisees said to Jesus, "Look, it is against our Law for your disciples to do that on the Sabbath!"

    25 Jesus answered, "Have you never read what David did that time when he needed something to eat? He and his men were hungry,

    26 so he went into the house of God and ate the bread offered to God. This happened when Abiathar was the High Priest. According to our Law only the priests may eat this bread - but David ate it and even gave it to his men."

    27 And Jesus concluded, "The Sabbath was made for the good of human beings; they were not made for the Sabbath.

    28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

More Questions

  1. Why did Jesus have arguments with the Pharisees about things like the Sabbath?
  2. Many Christians today say people should not have to work on a Sunday. How would this passage help them to decide about the kind of work people can do?

 

Activities

Do a Newspaper Front page - ‘Jesus breaks the Sabbath’. Include words and a picture to tell the story. You could interview Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees to get their point of view.

 

The Man with the withered hand

    Mk 3: 1-6

    1 Then Jesus went back to the synagogue, where there was a man who had a paralysed hand.

    2 Some people were there who wanted to accuse Jesus of doing wrong; so they watched him closely to see whether he would heal the man on the Sabbath.

    3 Jesus said to the man, "Come up here to the front."

    4 Then he asked the people, "What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save someone’s life or to destroy it?" But they did not say a thing.

    5 Jesus was angry as he looked round at them, but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and wrong. Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and it became well again.

    6 So the Pharisees left the synagogue and met at once with some members of Herod’s party, and they made plans to kill Jesus.

Questions

  1. Where did Jesus meet the man with a paralysed hand?
  2. Why did some people there watch Jesus closely?
  3. Why did these people think it would be wrong for Jesus to heal the man?
  4. What did Jesus ask the man to do?
  5. What question did Jesus ask the people?
  6. How did Jesus feel when they did not answer his question?
  7. What did Jesus do then?
  8. What did the Pharisees decide to do after this healing?

More Questions

  1. How did Jesus disagree with the Pharisees’ ideas about the Sabbath?
  2. Why - do you think - were the Pharisees so angry about what Jesus did?

Activities

  1. Imagine that you are the man who had the paralysed hand. Write a letter to a friend explaining what happened to you.
  2. Imagine you are one of the disciples. You agree with Jesus’ ideas that the Sabbath should be for helping people. Design a leaflet with the title ‘The Sabbath is for doing good’, to argue that Jesus is right and the Pharisees are wrong.

The Eucharist I

How it all began

Read this passage then answer the questions

    The Passover

The Eucharist began in the Jewish Passover Festival. This was when God saved the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Even today, the Jewish people have a holy meal every year to remember this. At the first Passover they sacrificed a lamb and ate it. They put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost so that the angel of death would ‘pass over’ their houses. The story of the Passover is in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament.

In modern times the Jews still have a lamb bone on the table as part of the Passover meal, but they do not eat it.

On the night before he died, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. He showed that he was the Passover Lamb, who would die so that people’s sins would be forgiven.

At the Passover meal he took the bread and said ‘This is my Body’ and the wine and said ‘This is my blood’. He told his apostles to do this celebration again, in memory of him.

Questions

Copy out the questions and answer them in your files

  1. Where does the Eucharist come from?
  2. What does the Passover remember?
  3. What meat did the Jews eat at the first Passover?
  4. What did they do with blood from the sacrificed lamb?
  5. Do the Jews still eat Lamb at the Passover today?
  6. When did Jesus celebrate the Passover meal with his disciples?
  7. What did Jesus (and Christians today) compare Jesus with in the Passover?
  8. What did Jesus say over the bread at the Passover meal?
  9. What did Jesus say over the wine at the Passover meal?
  10. What did Jesus tell his disciples to do in future?

Activities

Draw a diagram or poster showing the connection between the Passover and the Eucharist. For example, with words and pictures link together the Lamb, Jesus and the Bread and Wine.

 

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