Wednesday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, January 19, 2021

I’m still sick, but I’ll finally get to see a doctor on Wednesday morning.  Please keep praying for me!

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.

It seems in this reading that Mark is continuing a narrative he began with his telling how Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath.  It would help to explain the end of the reading in which the Pharisees are so antagonized that they are willing to league themselves with the Herodians in order to destroy Jesus.  Just prior to today’s reading, the Pharisees, who had accused the Lord’s disciples of breaking the Sabbath, were reduced to silence by the Lord insisting that he was the Master of the Law rather than subject to it.  The Pharisees were aware of the miracles he had performed and could not argue against this, though they boiled within themselves.  Now, in today’s reading, the Lord and his disciples have crossed the grain field and entered a town, the name of which we are not told, though undoubtedly it was situated in Galilee.  Since it was the Sabbath, the Lord followed his custom of going to the synagogue in order to teach, commenting on the Law and the Prophets.  

“There was a man there who had a withered hand.”  Alternatives to “withered” include “parched” and “dried up”.  Evidently, he did not suffer from leprosy or he would not have been permitted inside.  The hand was useless though.  We see this verb used in Mark 11, 20: Jesus cursed the fig tree that had no figs though it was the season for them, and the tree is said to have “withered” as a result.  The direct style Mark employs here: “Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand” makes it seem that the Lord came purposefully to this synagogue on this day specifically to cure this man of this condition.  “He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come up here before us.’ ”  Jesus wastes no time but addresses the man, who has presumably stood in the back among the crowd.  The Greek tells us that Jesus actually said, “Stand up in the middle.”  And then the Lord addressed the Pharisees, probably sitting in places of honor in the front: “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  This might be better translated, “to save a life or to kill it”.  Now, this is a curious question.  Jesus equates the healing of the hand, which he clearly intends to do, with the saving of a life.  Conversely, he equates taking no action with “killing” this life.  The Pharisees do not know what he is asking, or sees his words as a trap, and they do not respond.  

“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart.”  The English does not do justice to what Jesus did.  The Greek says that Jesus looked around “with wrath” or “passion”.  This is the same wrath with which he will condemn the wicked at the end of the world.  His furious reaction to the hardened hearts of the Pharisees may seem a little overblown when we consider the bare facts, but something more is going on here.  The man’s withered hand signifies Israel while the rest of the man signifies the Gentiles.  It is “withered”, as the fig tree will be withered because it has become dead in sin and faithlessness.  This is also signified by the hearts of the Pharisees themselves, which are “hardened” — withered and useless.  The Lord would restore life to the hand — to Israel — but the Pharisees would prevent him.  We can see from this what the Lord means when he equates the healing of the hand with “saving a life”, whereas not acting allows it to remain dead — “kills” it through inaction.  And just as the Lord turned with anger from the unrepentant Israel in the days before he suffered, so here he turns with wrath from the teachers so many in Israel preferred to him.  But the Lord continues to feel compassion for the man and he heals his hand.  The Lord does not need the Pharisees in his plan to save the world.  Their hatred for him renders them useless for this purpose.

“The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.”  Ironically, the Pharisees answer the Lord’s question to them by going out to plan his Death even as he heals the man’s hand.  Their anger and envy have reached such a pitch that they become entirely irrational and they join with the detested Herodians in order to destroy him: they join with the forces that killed John the Baptist.  They would kill him themselves but they want political cover.  Of course, the miracle means nothing to them.  It often happens with us that we become so hardened in our opinions that any fact that contradicts them or does not support them becomes a personal attack that must be crushed. 

People of that sort are very difficult to pray for, let alone to convert, and they may prove dangerous to believers.  But as the Lord died for them too, we pray and give good witness, striving to be our Lord’s faithful instruments in the redemption of the world.