Gospel

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.

Reflection

It's rare in a gospel passage that we have an insight into what Jesus was feeling. This one is very interesting. He was experiencing the resistance from the church that he came to transform, and it made him sad and he was grieving it.

At the same time, he was really angry. And what I believe is so important in this is to realize that Jesus had the same longings that we have for the freedom from those things around us that seem to be blocking us from the greatness, the beauty of who God is in our life. It's all right to be angry and to be sad that the world is where it is and teaches the things that it teaches that keep us from the kingdom.

But you have to know that you have, as Jesus did, the power to heal and to bring life. 

Closing Prayer

Hypocrisy was one of the things that we could see clearly that Jesus was revealing as he worked with the Pharisees. They acted as if they were living the life that God had called them to through the temple discipline. But they weren't anywhere near what they were supposed to be. This was the sadness in Jesus, not so much that they didn't believe in him, but that they wouldn't receive what he offered. And we asked this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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