Mark 8:14-21--The Leaven of the Pharisees and Herod

Mark 8:14-21
English Standard Version

The Leaven of the Pharisees and Herod
14 Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

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This event is shortly after the Feeding of the 4,000 when there were seven large baskets of leftovers.  Somehow, all of them forgot to bring any of that bread with them as provisions for this journey or any other bread for that matter.  Jesus was not talking about bread when He told them, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod."  These are the religious and the political leaders of the Jews of the time.

Jesus spelled it out more clearly for them (and I'm so glad he does this for us too when we miss the obvious things) by asking, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?"  Then He challenged them to remember the miraculous provision of how five loaves fed 5,000 people and there were 12 small baskets leftover and how He used seven loaves to feed 4,000 people and there were seven large baskets of leftovers.  So, then, it is fair that He asked them, "Do you not yet perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?"

This is a sharp rebuke as Jesus is quoting from several Old Testament prophets speaking of how the nation of Israel did not want to see the things of God that He was trying to show them and tell them.  Having eyes they did not see and having ears they did not hear and having minds they did not understand the spiritual things of God.  Jesus is asking them how they just saw these signs and have already forgotten that Jesus will provide and take care of them.  They have no need to worry about bread, just like the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness had no need to worry about bread when they were fed with manna from heaven.  Jesus is the Bread of Life that is greater than the manna from heaven (this is a discussion He has with the Jews in the gospel of John after the Feeding of the 5,000), and even if our bread doesn't come down with the dew every morning, it is just as much God's provision that we receive our daily bread.  Therefore, we remember what Jesus taught His disciples at the beginning of His public ministry in the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew 6:11 asks in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," and Matthew 6:25-26 says, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

The disciples had already forgotten these first things that Jesus tried to teach them (we are no better).  Jesus doesn't have much time left on this earth to be with them and teach them these things, so we'll see that He's a little frustrated with the fact that He's been with the so long and taught them and shown them so much and yet they still don't understand even the simplest things that he's trying to say as "leaven" was almost always a symbol for sin when used in a statement like "the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod."  Sin ruins the "clean" lump of dough that was unleavened and works its way throughout the whole lump until the whole lump of dough becomes leavened.  There is no way to simply cut the bad part out and save the good part--the leavened lump must be thrown away and you must start over to make a new lump of unleavened dough.  There also must be great care taken when making unleavened bread that no yeast (leaven) is anywhere in the entire house as it might be airborne and contaminate the unleavened dough--the whole house is meticulously cleaned and swept to make sure no trace of leaven remains.  We too must inspect our own lives like this and be sure that allowing a little sin to take root in our hearts will ruin us, our families, the congregations that we belong to, our local communities, and the nations of the world that we belong to.  There is no such thing as "private" sin that doesn't affect anyone other than you, and, even if so, you are too valuable to God to let you pollute and destroy the work of art that He has crafted (see Ephesians 2:10).

So, then, Jesus' last question to His disciples is one that also should be ringing in our ears, "[How then] do you not understand?"  It's a stinging indictment, but one that we need to hear that we need to be careful to not be spiritually blind, deaf, and dumb--such people are those who are destined for God's judgment when "their foolish hearts are darkened," and God further hardens their hearts (see Romans 1).  We cannot be the blind leading the blind--the Pharisees were blind guides who claimed they could see clearly, yet we will see that even the physically blind had better spiritual eyesight than the Pharisees in the next section of text that we will talk about tomorrow, Lord willing.