They watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure him on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
They were aware that Jesus had the power to cure the man, yet this did not move them to awe, but rather jealousy. It was possible for a heart to become so hardened that it lost the ability to even recognize the good one's enemy. Surely this is still common in politics where opposing sides are never willing to let their rivals take credit even for something legitimately well done. Even when it is hard to ignore the good thing that was accomplished there always seems to be a 'Yes, but' leading into a condemnation of the motivation or a critique of how it might have been done better. When God himself is actively at work it can be even more polarizing than politics. When we see God accomplishing things which are humanly speaking impossible to accomplish we should rejoice. But sometimes because of our ego-based self-image we instead feel threatened. God does things his way and not our own. Indeed the way he accomplishes his work seems to imply judgment on our own, on the ways in which we are finally disinterested in those deserving of compassion, on the ways in which we are more interested in protecting our pride than in seeing others healed.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord (see Isaiah 55:8).
Jesus was intentional about this cure, initiating it himself, and making it front and center in the synagogue.
“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?”
He desired it to be an opportunity for compassion to win against pride in the heart of the Pharisees so that they could celebrate the good he desired to do. The Pharisees themselves were the ones doing evil by seeking to condemn Jesus, work from which they did not rest on the sabbath. At the end of the passage the "Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death", demonstrating the point. They were fully invested in destroying life on the sabbath. But Jesus desired to save life, not only that of the man with the withered hand, but even the Pharisees. We can see this from his grief when they would not receive the lesson.
But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart
We are sometimes the man whose hand was withered, needing Jesus to give us healing in order to be able to live lives God intended for us. At such times it can be difficult to come to Jesus because it feels at first like being exposed, like some deep defect within us is now on public display. But that quickly fades when we receive his healing touch. His words encourage us, "Come up here" or "Rise up", drawing us into the power of his own resurrection.
At other times we are more like the Pharisees. We are only interested in God's will when it happens on our timeline and according to our plan. When this attitude characterizes us we become suspicious and critical of genuinely good things that are not convenient for our ego or the story we tell about ourselves. Can we celebrate the good wherever we find it, or only when it reminds us of ourselves?
If we judge by appearances we may have some initial success as did the Philistines, including Goliath. However, we will almost certainly underestimate the value of those who are smaller, less strong, or younger. We will instead assume the world is correct when it says that strength and power are absolute values. If those values are threatened we ourselves we feel as threatened as did the Pharisees. We need to entertain a different worldview, one that recognizes that the secret to success does not lie in the craftsmanship of our weapons, nor on our numbers, nor on our strength, but rather in whether or not we have aligned our purpose, our battle plan, with that of the Lord.
You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar,
but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts,
the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted.
The Pharisees fought in their own name. They failed to realize the great freedom that comes when it is not our own battle that we fight but that of the Lord. The battle of the Lord is always, in the end, a battle to do good and to save lives. But in human beings it first must emerge from the cocoon of the self-protective ego that insists on evil to keep itself safe. But when it does, when we realize that the battle belongs to the Lord, it is then that we know victory.
For the battle is the LORD’s and he shall deliver you into our hands.
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