The Withered Hand

S. Mark iii. 1–6

For the third time our Lord is confronted by the Pharisees on the question of Sabbath observance. A week has elapsed since He defended the action of His disciples from their objections to plucking the ears of corn; and now they are waiting for an opportunity to renew the charge of breaking the Law. It was either in the synagogue at Capernaum, from which they had followed Him the previous Sabbath, or possibly it may have been in the neighbouring Sepphoris, which Herod had lately made his capital, and where one of the five Sanhedrims held its sittings, that He saw a man whose hand had been withered, and had lost its power. It is interesting to find from S. Jerome, who quotes from some apocryphal additions to S. Matthew’s Gospel, that he was by trade “a stone-mason, who had depended for his livelihood on manual labour, and that he pleaded for the cure to avoid the disgrace of begging his bread.”

If this tradition- be a true one (and there is no reason to doubt it), then we can understand that the circumstance of his poverty would tend to aggravate the bitterness of the Pharisees. They could not bear that Jesus should bestow favour upon the labouring class, because they held the poor in the lowest contempt, and regarded ignorance as an unpardonable offence. ‘’The rabble, that know not the law, are accursed.” His partiality to them was consequently a great blow to Pharisaic pride; and we are not surprised that the common people rejoiced in the change of treatment that they received, and nocked to His feet, and “heard Him gladly.”

Now, no sooner did the Pharisees become aware of the poor man’s presence in the synagogue, than they were filled with satisfaction. They felt sure from what had taken place before, that Jesus would be prompted to heal him, and would break the Sabbath in doing so. They determined, therefore, simply to bide their time, and, like beasts of prey, to pounce upon Him directly He should fall into their toils. They had attacked the man who had carried his bed, then the disciples in the field, but now they have Christ Himself almost within their grasp.

They had heard wonderful things of Him, but they little knew that He could read their thoughts, that their inmost heart was laid bare and open before His all-searching eye, and their excitement must have become intense when He uttered the command, “Stand forth.” It was a compassionate effort on His part to change their hearts by the sight of the man’s helpless infirmity, and to prick their callous consciences. But there was no sign of relenting, no turn in the current of their malignant intentions, and so the question was directly put, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath-days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” The man was not in danger of his life, and he would have survived undoubtedly had no cure been wrought. But that question implied, that not to give health and strength, not to restore the vital power when the restoration lies within your reach, is equivalent to taking it away. To leave a good deed undone is hardly less sinful than doing a bad one. Such was no doubt the direct force of the question which our Lord put; but it is extremely probable that beneath the broad principle thus laid down He covered an allusion to the designs of the Pharisees upon His Own life. And if their hearts had not been hardened against every influence, those words would have carried to their conscience such an alternative as this: “Which, think you, is in reality the better thing, — to restore life and energy to this withered limb, or to destroy Me, as I know full well you are so eager to do?” But He received no answer. The sight of the poor maimed cripple imploring mercy, and the Saviour’s question, to which there was but one reply, both alike failed to make any impression. “They held their peace.” Then He “looked round with anger and grief.” The notice of this incident is due to S. Mark alone, who is always so careful to make mention of “the passing lights and shadows which swept over the countenance of the Lord.” * In the original language it is something more than grief; it is the grief of sympathy; and it creates a difficulty at first sight — there seems something so contradictory in the combination of anger and sorrow and sympathy. But it is only in sinful fallen man that they appear incompatible. There was no malice in the anger of Christ. He was angry with the sin, but grieved for the sinner. His indignation was roused, not by any offence that had been given to Himself, or by any personal injury; and His sympathy was exhibited by an act of kindness naturally calculated to win them to repentance. With a look, then, of sorrowful, sympathetic anger, He bade the helpless cripple stretch forth his hand, and at once the heart sent its streams of blood into every vein and artery of the palsied limb. “It was restored whole as the other.”

It can hardly have been by accident that our Lord should have healed him without any actual work, any visible effort on His part. We know with what infinite variety He effected His purposes. At one time He made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind, or touched with His hands the tongue of the dumb or the ears of the deaf; at another He merely spake and it was done. It was surely of set purpose that He adopted the latter course in the case before us. It threw an additional obstacle in the way of the Pharisees. It was not words, but deeds that were forbidden in the Law on the Sabbath-day; and when He said, “Stretch forth thy hand,” the strictest Sabbatarian could lay no hold upon Him. There was no actionable breach, no violation even of the letter of the Law. What, then, were the baffled Pharisees to do? Exposure of sin is usually followed by one of two alternatives, — repentance, or more determined perseverance in the evil way. It creates no surprise to find that the Pharisees accepted the latter of the two. S. Luke expresses the bitterness of their disappointment when he says that they were filled with madness, and S. Mark leaves no doubt of the aggravation of their malicious designing in the record that “they went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.” The coalition is so remarkable that it calls for consideration. No two classes could be found more widely separated either in political or in religious views.

In politics the Pharisees resolutely denied the right of any foreign power to exercise dominion over the heritage of God. Nothing but a Theocracy could be tolerated by a Jew. Prudence restrained them from revolution, but they lost no opportunity of protesting vigorously against the payment of taxes to the Imperial Treasury.

The Plerodians were of Idumaean descent, but from long connection with Rome had become Roman in feeling and political sentiment, and exercising their authority only as vassals, they were careful to uphold the claims of the Sovereign.

In religion again there was an equally marked antagonism between the two parties.

The Separatists were the unflinching champions of the national faith, as they received it, and they upheld the Ritual and Ceremonial Law with the most rigid formalism. The Herodians, on the other hand, as far as they professed any religion at all, were Sadducees, altogether sceptical of a future life, and caring for little beyond a rationalistic morality.

The proud Jewish patriot and the half-heathen Herodian courtier — the scrupulous Religionist and the indifferent Secularist — such were the widely-conflicting spirits that were made friends together in this unrighteous cause.

It proves almost more conclusively than any other testimony the low estate into which all parties in Jewish society had sunk, that the principles which Christ preached found no response in the tenets of any of them; for sooner or later, here or elsewhere, all alike took counsel together and became confederate against Him.

Note: If here, the meeting of Pharisees and Herodians would be more easily accounted for.

Note: The Herodians are referred to only in S. Matt. xxii. 16, S. Mark iii. 6, xii. 13, and S. Luke xx. 20, and it is very difficult to describe their exact position. Dr. Westcott, in Smith’s Bibl. Diet., suggests that they were brought into union with the Pharisees as supporters of a dynasty which saved the Jews from direct heathen rule; and with the Sadducees, as holding a faith which was as it were a compromise between the belief of God’s chosen people and that of heathen civilisation. I have looked for the motives of coalition simply in the desire to obtain one’s end even through the assistance of one’s natural enemies. It is very difficult to think the Pharisees could have felt any sympathy with the Herodians, when the Herods persistently appointed non- Palestinians to the High Priesthood. Some of the Herodians, moreover, held that the Messianic predictions were fulfilled in the Herodian dynasty, which was a view wholly antagonistic to Pharisaic belief.