Mark 3:1-7 Saving on the Sabbath

First Things: Devotions in Mark’s Gospel

Mark 3:1-7 Saving on the Sabbath

Mark 3:1   He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. ² They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³ He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” ⁴ And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. ⁵ After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.

The  Pharisees have been regular attenders at Jesus’ gatherings over the past few paragraphs: at Levi’s house; the questions about fasting; about plucking grains on the Sabbath; and now, with regard to the man with the withered hand in the synagogue.

I wonder about all that Jesus has in mind. Here he is, at the front with the man, and he asks the question, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” Taking the last part of the question first, we don’t really think, do we, that Jesus was going to save this man’s life, do we? Or that anyone really was intending to kill him? So it seems Jesus must be intimating that doing good is akin to saving life, though it may not go that far; and that doing harm is akin to killing, though it may not go that far. The second part of the question places the issue in the extreme, helping us to think more clearly about less extreme issues. Should I do good? Am I doing harm by not doing good? 

Jesus, at the point of their refusal to answer his question, is angered and grieved. They are not merely disagreeing with Him. They are seeking to keep Him from doing what He came to do - to enter into the lives of people in such a way as to save them. We may not be able to save people ourselves, but we sure can stand in the way of people being saved. And that is a dangerous thing. We should not want Jesus to be angry or grieved with us.

We won’t see the Pharisees again until chapter 7. We’ve seen them quite a bit, clustered in this little section, and we get the idea that they’ve seen just about enough of Jesus. It’s time to take action, to make a plan, and so they go to the more political types, the Herodians, to hatch a strategy. They have decided, by their actions, that it is best to harm, even to kill, even on this Sabbath.

And the man with the no-longer-withered hand goes home and, for the first time in a very long time, ties his shoes. And that’s a good thing.