The Pharisees and the Yeast of Herod

 

The Pharisees and the Yeast of Herod

 

Mark 8:14-20 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And Jesus warned them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of the yeast of Herod.” But they began to murmur among themselves, “Because we have no bread.” But Jesus, knowing this, said to them, “Why are you murmuring because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or understand? Are your hearts dull? Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said, “Twelve.” And when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said, “Seven.”

Jesus performed the miracle of feeding four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and two fish. The Jews who saw this miracle should have believed, “This is the Son of God,” but instead, they tested Jesus and demanded a greater sign. It depends on whether you see Jesus’ miracle with human eyes or with God’s eyes. When viewed with human eyes, it becomes the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

After Jesus performed a miracle and was on his way to Dalmanutha across the lake, the disciples saw that they had only one fish to eat and said to Jesus, "We did not bring any because we remembered the bread left over from Jesus' miracle." If you truly know Jesus, you do not have to worry about what to eat. The disciples forgot for a moment that Jesus is the Son of God. However, the Pharisees, on the other hand, demanded more signs after seeing Jesus' miracles. They wanted him to prove that he was the Son of God. The disciples said that Jesus was the Son of God, but they did not achieve the faith that Jesus wanted, and the Pharisees only intended to make Jesus fall even after seeing Jesus' miracles.

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Leaven causes bread to rise. The Pharisees should have realized that Jesus is the Son of God through His miracles, but they only try to see His weaknesses in order to make Him stumble. People may think that way when they see with their fleshly eyes. However, the essence of the leaven that Jesus speaks of is related to sin. Leaven symbolizes sin. Leaven causes rise, but it also changes the original. Therefore, leaven symbolizes falsehood.

The leaven of the Pharisees was that they could not see the work of Jesus and made Him stumble. That was hypocrisy and being an outcast. They should have seen the work of the kingdom of God through Jesus’ miracles, but it seems that they were using it to further belittle Jesus. They were a group of priests chosen by God, but they were very hurt when a country bumpkin dared to call himself the Messiah and perform miracles. That’s why the Pharisees only thought of ways to kill Jesus. They continued to think only of capturing and killing Jesus. This shows that the Pharisees’ hearts were filled with sin, just as leaven spreads in bread.

『Beware of the yeast of Herod.』 Herod was a descendant of Esau and was not an orthodox Jew. After the Hasmonean dynasty he had established through the Maccabean Wars was destroyed by Rome, he was at war with Octavianus and Antony (the Actine War). Herod lied to Octavianus that he was a Jew and made a false deal with him, saying that if he made himself the king of Judea, he would help Octavianus become the Roman emperor. In the end, Herod became the king of the Jews. And he rebuilt the temple on a grand scale to win the favor of the Jews. He was always hearing news of the emergence of the Messiah from the Jews.

However, one day, he heard a rumor that the Messiah had been born. Herod thought that in order to continue as king, he had to kill all the Messiahs who had been born. He called the scribes together and asked them where the Messiah would be born, and they said it was Bethlehem. That was how the tragedy of the babies dying in Bethlehem occurred. His greed to become king and his wrong thoughts to keep his position as king continued to spread like yeast, until he reached the point where he was slaughtering children.

Herod's leaven is passed down to his son. Herod Antipas, whose name means "the son of a hero who took his father's place," was the second son of Herod the Great and the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (4 B.C.-39 A.D.). Herod Antipas remarried his niece, Herodias, his half-brother's wife. When John the Baptist rebuked him for remarrying his brother's wife illegally, he did not repent of his sins but instead imprisoned the innocent John the Baptist.

Herod Antipas committed the sin of immorally remarrying his brother's wife. However, his sin did not end there. In order to justify Herodias' illegal remarriage, he eventually brought about another sin of killing John the Baptist. In this way, human sin is not something that ends once and for all, but has the property of causing other types of sins to be committed derivatively and serially. In James 1:14-15, it says, "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death."

The reason Jesus told his disciples to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod” was because the disciples at the time also thought of Jesus as the Messiah who could overthrow Rome. That’s why they argued about who was the greatest, and they wanted to sit on Jesus’ right and left when he became the King of Kings. When you look at Jesus with human desire, that thought spreads and infects like yeast. That was the heart of the disciples. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees for money. He must have believed that Jesus would have tremendous power as the Messiah.

However, when he saw Jesus being insulted and dragged to the cross, he hung himself. Greed gives birth to sin, and sin gives birth to death. Likewise, when Jesus stood on the cross, all the disciples ran away. The wrong thoughts of desire continue to spread like yeast. That is why Jesus warns that thoughts that spread like yeast bring destruction. The yeast of the Pharisees and Herod today would be humanism based on the principle of superstition. Those who use the name of Jesus to do business, and countless humanistic religious acts such as passing the church down to their sons are the yeast.