Wednesday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 17, 2024

Mark 3, 1-6

Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.

One of the most useful tools found in modern translations of the Sacred Scriptures is that of the division of its books into chapters and verses.  Attempts were made in the late classical era and early Middle Ages to do this with individual books, and then, later, with all the books together when the Bible began to be copied into codices, the forerunner of the modern book.  Some systems divided a single book such as a Gospel into a hundred chapters while others divided the Book of Revelstion into seven books.  The system that caught on was devised by Stephen Langton (d. 1228), Archbishop of Canterbury, in the early 1200’s.  By his time universities were being established in the larger cities of Europe and a pressing need for this division developed for classes featuring lectures on the biblical books.  In 1551 the French printer and publisher Robert Estienne printed an edition of the Vulgate Bible, including in it the standard chapter divisions of Stephen Langton and adding verse divisions of his own.  These divisions became universally accepted.  As useful as these are, the modern reader needs to keep in mind that these divisions are not the work of the original  authors and ought to be ignored when reading long portions of the biblical text.  The chapter and verse divisions sometimes make it seem that one recorded event or speech has ended and something new begun, leading to confusion and misinterpretation.

For instance, the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading: “Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.”. Hearing this at Holy Mass, and not knowing what went before this text in the Gospel, we would not know where the synagogue was located and who “they” were who watched Jesus “closely”.  Reading the whole of chapter two and then reading this beginning of chapter three of the Gospel according to St. Mark we know that the synagogue was almost certainly that of Capernaum (especially since the text actually says Jesus entered the synagogue “again”, a word missing from the lectionary reading). We also know that “they” are the Pharisees who had accused the Apostles to Jesus of a very serious sin against the law of the Sabbath.  That is, ignoring the chapter headings here we can better see that the Pharisees have launched a concerted effort to discredit Jesus going back at least to his call of the tax collector Levi.  They do this, Mark emphasizes for us, in the face of the Lord’s numerous miracles that prove his divinity.

“There was a man there who had a withered hand.”  If this was the synagogue at Capernaum, then it was the same one in which the Lord had cast out an evil spirit from a man weeks or months earlier (cf. Mark 1, 23-26).  Since the Lord did not see the man at that time, that he might heal him, this man would be a visitor from another town either passing through or visiting relatives.  He might also have heard of the wonderful works the Lord Jesus had performed and he wanted to be healed too.  “So that they might accuse him.”  That is, the synagogue services took place on the Sabbath so they wanted to catch Jesus performing some work in order to discredit him for doing it at that time.  We should note that the Pharisees take for granted that it is by his own power that Jesus is able to heal: he is not merely the conduit of God’s power.  At least implicitly, they knew who he was.

“Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  The Pharisees would answer that neither good nor evil should be done on the Sabbath: no work of any kind should be done.  They even numbered the steps they took.  But God had established the Sabbath for doing good: for worshipping him and helping others, activities not easily done during the workday.  Jesus also speaks ironically, contrasting the good he is about to do with the evil the Pharisees intend to do: “The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.”

“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart.”  Jesus is not angry and grieved because of their hatred of him but because they are acting against their own interests.  The Lord Jesus loves these men.  He came down from heaven to suffer for them too.  But they are fighting against their own salvation.  Rather than watch him, withholding judgment until they could gather all the facts, they take his good works for others as personal attacks against themselves.  And they would see his miracles, be unable to deny them, and still persecute him.  It was as though they were trying to get themselves damned to hell.  This is what angered and grieved Jesus.  Mark puts the object of the Lord’s anger very concisely: “their hardness of heart”.

“He stretched it out and his hand was restored.”  Note here that to all appearances, Jesus does nothing more than give a command.  When the man stretches out his hand it is healed as though he had healed it himself by that action.  But the Pharisees have made up their minds to kill Jesus.  The casual reader might wonder that if Jesus can perform such miracles, surely he could make himself safe from the Pharisees: either power resides in him or it comes from God.  Either way, they could never succeed.  They must have known this and yet their hatred exceeded all limits and drove them to act against reason.  We see this fervent determination to do evil in people all the time.  They would not be happy in heaven.