You would think a man getting healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath would be a good thing, right? The God Who heals shows up, a miracle takes place right in front of their eyes. Grounds for celebration and worship, right? Not everybody thought so.

Here is the video link to today’s podcast:

Mark 3:1-6 the man with the withered hand

The audio links are to the right i.e. Spotify and iTunes.

Here is the transcript for todays podcast:

Mark 3:1-6

the Pharisees see healing on the Sabbath as wrong… 

3 Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

4 Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

Hinted at in Jesus’ question i.e. 

“Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”

is the thought that to NOT do good on the Sabbath is wrong, and to NOT save life on the Sabbath is wrong. Jesus focus was on the morality of it all, where the Pharisees focused on the man-made regulations concocted since God went silent 400 years earlier.

As I said previously, in the 400 silent years between the last manifestation of God through Angels, Prophets, or Theophanies, the rabbis spent their time studying the word of God (Torah) and tried to apply it to every part of life – an admirable quest, to be sure. So someone would ask the question  – “if we are to not work on the Sabbath, what is included in the term work?” The rabbis and scholars would then build a list of activities that constituted “work” and thusly these became canon – almost on a par with Torah itself. By the time of Jesus, healing this man on the Sabbath was, according the man-made regulation (NOT God-made), illegal.

Jesus addressed this elsewhere:

I ran across this in a board discussion on Reddit, and it really makes sense.

Question:

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath Torah law says He sinned. How is that possible?

Answer:

(John 5:17)

“In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

Notice the passage says “in his defense”. He doesn’t say “in his defense” that he wasn’t working. He adopts an entirely different defense. He insists that his Father is always working “and so am I”. However it wasn’t sin. You were allowed to break the custom of sabbath for a justifiable reason:

(Matthew 12:5)

“Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?”

So how do we reconcile all of this? God rested on the seventh day, so we should rest on the seventh day. We worship on the Sabbath – the Sabbath is a day set aside where we particularly focus on and declare the worthiness of our God. Anything that declares the worthiness of God is good. Healing on the Sabbath is good. God is glorified.

The sabbath was, therefore, only a custom. However the principle of sabbath is not custom. That is something moral. Moral laws always apply.

So for example you could break the sabbath in order to perform a healing and it is not sin—you are innocent. Alternatively, you could NOT break the commandments about adultery, or murder, etc., so that you may perform a healing, since those things  i.e. the commandments are a matter of morality. They always apply. 

The customs of the Old Covenant have since passed away, but the moral aspect of that covenant endures. Hence the apostles began keeping the “principle” of the sabbath itself—since we as God’s people owe Him a time for worship. That is a moral thing.

Jesus gets angry

5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Why was Jesus angry? He was all about glorifying His Father. An event such as this which SHOULD result in praise of God and be an impetus to worship the God Who heals, instead insulted the religious leaders, which then insulted Jesus.

About verse 6… definitely a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend…”

Frank Stirk Author of “Light and Darkness” (2022) says “From the moment that Jesus began his public ministry, tension began building between him and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. With each sermon preached, with each miracle performed, the buzz about Jesus got stronger. People by the thousands from all over were flocking to him.

Jesus had compassion on these people, saying they were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). They were doubly oppressed – under the political thumb of Rome and under the religious thumb of Jerusalem. They had never seen or heard anyone like him before. On the other hand, the religious elites were growing increasingly worried. They began following Jesus around, listening to what he said and watching what he did. They ended up so alarmed at Jesus they joined with the Herodians to plot his death.

This in itself is extraordinary, because the Pharisees and the Herodians were themselves sworn enemies. The Herodians had been installed by the Romans to rule over Galilee. To the Pharisees, the Herodians were traitors to Israel. But to the Herodians, the Pharisees were in denial by clinging to their old and outdated religious traditions. And yet out of pure self-interest, they both saw Jesus as a threat to their authority. They were terrified that if he was allowed to stir up the people much longer, the Roman authorities would intervene and ruin everything for everyone. And so, he had to die.

Stirk, F. (2022). Light and Darkness. https://www.impactus.org/daily-devotional/light-and-darkness

As a corollary thought to the article cited above, it might do to remind ourselves that when the totally political party (Herodians) joined forces with the totally religious world (Pharisees) the true believers were the ones that suffered, and ultimately the nation itself (Israel) was destroyed. Sure sounds like a commentary on modern times to me.

Blessings,

Paige