“Man with a Withered Hand”
Text: Mark 3: 1-6 Esv
1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Come here." 4 And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. †
introduction
Have you ever felt exposed and ashamed? Has there been an event in your life that revealed something about you you would have preferred to have kept hidden but nonetheless was dragged into the public square for all to see and by which they judge you? Think about it. For some of you, there is an easy, obvious and perhaps painful answer. An arrest, a noisy divorce, a scandal, a bankruptcy, an alcoholic episode—the details are easy enough to imagine, and certainly painful to remember for those that lived through them. A car parked on the neighbor’s front lawn, a visit from the police because the neighbors called out of fearful concern, your name and picture in the local paper—pictures of exposure. In particular, they are pictures of the exposure of either sin, foolishness or frailty and with these pictures comes a black cloud of shame, shame shame.
Our text this morning is the coming together of three narratives: one of the Pharisees, another of the man with the withered hand, and the third, of Jesus. A full appreciation of our text requires some backstory in order to highlight the unique revelation of Jesus in this account. All have something to say about the interplay between shamefulness and wholeness, and all will reveal how Jesus sets the upside-down world right-side up.
1. The Pharisees
What we know about them is that they have a reason to be in the synagogue, but that reason has nothing to do with helping people or seeing God’s glory at work. They are not there to worship. Rather, their purpose is malignant; they have gathered in agreement to accuse Jesus. They want to see if he will violate the Sabbath Law as they interpret it.
Previously, Jesus defended his disciples for picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath. The result was that all the Pharisees texted each other and spread word quickly that Jesus was a law-breaker. So hearing he would be teaching at synagogue, they converged, took their seats in their front row pews, sat with their arms crossed and waited for him to make a mistake so that they could criticize him, judge him, and exclude him from their circle.
The text tells us Jesus was angry—indignant—with them because of their “hardness of heart.” What is hardness of heart? Consider:
•collective self-interest
•preservation of their own codes
•preservation of their own esteem
•preservation of their prestige
•no interest in Jesus’ mission
•no humility
•no acknowledgement of their own sin
•no respect for true God
•no compassion/empathy for the man
The narrative of the Pharisees is an upside-down world. They see themselves as whole, the man with the withered hand as flawed, and Jesus as shameful. Their interest is in preserving their own power and rejecting the new wine of the spirit that Jesus brings in favor of preserving their crusty old wineskins.
2. The Man with the Withered Hand
Scholars have questioned whether a man with a withered hand would have been allowed into the synagogue at a;;. He definitely would not have been allowed into the temple in Jerusalem, but synagogues \ in Galilee may have had lighter restrictions.
Our first question is simply Why is he there? Perhaps he was a plant—bait—by which the Pharisees sought to trap Jesus. Maybe he was there for the same reason all the crowds made way toward him; namely, in the hope against all hope that maybe, just maybe, he might be healed and made whole.
Life in Jesus’ day would not have been easy for a man with a withered hand. Not only would people have been basically ungracious to him, but many would have assumed that he suffered the affliction as a result of sin—either his own or his parents—and therefore kept him toward the bottom of every social ladder. It’s not unlikely that he would have kept his hand hidden as much as possible, tucked away inside his cloak like a shoplifter or Napoleon.
We can imagine him sitting there in the back row by the door, quietly, humbly, careful not to draw any attention to himself. We can imagine him sitting there hoping that after the teaching, this Jesus might invite people who need healing to come forward. He would go up with the others and wait his turn.
His life had been one of affliction and shame, but this Jesus offered the chance of hope and wholeness. In the key moment, Jesus calls him to stand front and center. This doesn’t mean standing where he is—the last row with his back to the wall—but “stand up in the middle”—to stand in the place of the rabbi with the eyes of every prominent local Pharisee eyeing him down. It would have been mortifying.
As the man stands there uneasily, Jesus poses a legal question to the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to destroy?” The Pharisees take in the question as the man wonders what all this has to do with him. Jesus, full of compassion, looks to the man and says, “Stretch out your hand.” This is total exposure. What is a “withered hand” but a hand that cannot be stretched out? Jesus asks him to do the very thing he cannot do and it all happens front and center in the synagogue with all the local eminent leaders watching him. Is he going to have his shame—his ugly, gnarled hand—now become the object of everyone’s laser-focused attention?
Jesus looks him in the eye with reassurance and something in the man begins to speak more powerfully than his fear, stronger than his shame, and he is drawn to simply obey. And as he wills to obey and begins to draw the hand out of his cloak, it happens: face-to-face with Jesus, the impossible, the unthinkable, and the unreasonable suddenly became clear and solid—the impossible hope comes into focus—and he feels blood pumping into his fingers and muscle mending. As he seeks to obey and stretch out his hand, his hand stretches out, and for the first time—perhaps ever—a beautiful, complete, whole, restored hand reaches toward Jesus. In Jesus’ face he sees a love and a power beyond all earthly power.
Jesus takes his hand and holds it up; the gathered people (except for the Pharisees) go wild and glorify God.
In an instant, the man’s former life of fear, shame and affliction is gone and he lives in a new light. He who was afflicted and shamed is made whole by the power and presence of Jesus.
3. Jesus
From Jesus’ point of view, we see the upside-down world of Mark. Jesus surely knew that the Pharisees would be gathering a political force against him. He saw their faces when he healed the leper. He knew what their reaction would be when he and his disciples picked grain and ate it on the Sabbath. He knew that as he entered the synagogue that day, there were lots of prominent synagogue leaders who were there to oppose him—who wanted to see him go down in flames. Even so, he enters and teaches.
All the local, Pharisaical luminaries are in the best seats—front row Pharisees all around—and Jesus knows they’re only there for one reason: to get him.
Whether he taught first or stepped right up to the challenge we don’t know, but the moment comes and Jesus seizes the day. The Pharisees may have meant the poor man with the withered hand to be there as bait, but Jesus would kill several birds with one stone. He sees the man and—unlike the Pharisees—cares about him. Jesus is not hard-hearted, but soft-hearted, huge-hearted, open-hearted—whatever expresses the opposite of hard-heartedness—and he calls the man front and center.
As the man shyly steps forward, the Pharisees begin to salivate—Yes! He’s taking the bait!—but if Jesus and the man were the only two people there, he would have done the same. He sees the brokenness, the shame, and he will do whatever is necessary—no matter the cost—to restore this beloved child of God to wholeness.
Jesus asks the Pharisees, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" The Pharisees are silent, perhaps out of mere disrespect (most hostile people are only nasty behind another’s back), but perhaps because they didn’t have an answer. The Pharisees saw reality in terms of obedience to the Mosaic Law—they were legalists—so they had no way of responding to a question that was out of a bigger world and perspective than legalism. Jesus doesn’t ask, “Is it good and right to heal?” but “Is it legally valid?” It’s like asking, “Is it legal to improve the law?” Either way, they are silent and Jesus is indignant over their hardness of heart. None of them cares about this man. They are content to simply use him as bait, as a pawn in their little scheme. Whether he is healed or not doesn’t register to them on the man’s account; they just want to undermine Jesus.
Jesus heals the man and immediately their cause has new ammunition. Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Blinded by their legalism, they set out to have Jesus not undermined but destroyed.
The Bible Mirror
As we submit ourselves to the Word today, where are you seeing yourself mirrored? We may all have something of the Pharisee or man with a withered hand about us. We do well to look for our own resemblances.
Do you have anything of the Pharisee in you? Are you motivated to protect and defend old wineskins—old ways of doing things that served your own prominence? Are you perfectly satisfied with the world as you have it ordered? Are you more interested in power and politics than compassion? Worded otherwise, is your heart on the hard side in need of some softening? The good news for you is that Jesus desires your wholeness. Our central calling is to recognize him as Lord and to submit ourselves to his rule no matter what the cost. Jesus is coming, and when he brings his kingdom no other kingdoms will be allowed to stand. We would all do well to abandon them sooner rather than later.
Maybe you identify a bit more with the man with the withered hand. Maybe your heart is shamed; maybe you feel like the walking wounded. Have others have put you down, pushed you aside, made you to feel inferior or less than whole? Maybe you have a kind of withered hand hidden in your own cloak this morning—something that would be shameful to reveal. The good news is that Jesus wants to heal you but he may be waiting for you to act.
We cannot heal or change what we will not acknowledge.
Do you want to be healed? Do you want to feel whole? That withered hand must come out of the cloak. Jesus calls us to do the very thing we feel to be impossible. “Stretch out your hand,” he says. Jesus will take away whatever shameful thing we confess. He will remove it. He will make us whole. Do you want that? You’ll need to come down, front and center—in whatever you meaningfully can.
If you’ve ever been afraid of being exposed, Jesus is your terror. For the Pharisee, Jesus exposes and shames hard-heartedness. For the withered, he exposes withered-ness, but only in order to have it healed. Either way, we sit here before Jesus—who alone judges us—and offers his compassion to those who come forward in brokenness. Here he stands, will you come forward?
†