Mark 3:1-6
Have you ever felt like you needed help, but the system is against you? If you speak out that you need counseling, it will hurt your career. Even if that career has caused the reason you need counseling. Have you ever felt like you need spiritual help, but if you go to the church or Christians you know, they will only judge you or embarrass you? Imagine if you needed help, and the one place you would not find it would be in church on Sunday morning. Jesus could heal people. He also taught the scriptures frequently in the synagogues on the Sabbath. However, the Pharisees had designed a man-made system of laws that forbid a man from healing another on the Sabbath. In fact, they would use that system to trap Jesus and accuse Him of being a sinner.
This was a sting operation. The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus into proving His authority did not come from God. Here is what we know so far:
- Jesus healed people and forgave sins.
- The Pharisees did not believe His power and authority came from God.
- The Pharisees took the commandments of God given to them and added many man-made laws to them. This made them the authority, not the scriptures.
- Jesus challenged those man-made commandments as contrary to the original intent of the commandments from God.
- Jesus claimed to be God and to have authority over all the commandments.
Now we have a scene from the O.K. Corral. It was a showdown. Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath as was His custom. The Pharisees planted a man with a withered hand in the crowd. If Jesus healed him that would prove to them that Jesus’ authority was not from God because He would be healing on the Sabbath, which according to their man-made commandments, would be unlawful. And if Jesus were from God, He would not do what was unlawful. They could trap Him in public doing unlawful things.
How would Jesus respond to the setup?
- He would clarify the intent of the Sabbath. He has already stated that the Sabbath was made for man’s benefit. So He would ask again, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?”
- He would grieve over the Pharisees unbelief. Jesus had come to be their Messiah. They had all the promises about Him, yet they would reject Him.
- He would heal the man.
The Pharisees would then go out and conspire with the Herodians (their political enemy) as to how they would destroy Jesus.
If there is a system that keeps Jesus from doing good to you, it is wrong. The only thing we have seen in Mark that keeps Jesus from doing good is a lack of faith. There is nothing that stands between you and God’s love. It is accessible at anytime, anywhere. You can do directly to Jesus despite where you are or who or what is standing against you and ask for help. Jesus can handle the opposition, and He can handle your problems.
There are also many people who have experienced this love from Jesus who desire to help others with that same love and help. Ask God to show you where those people are. If you have experienced that restoring love of Jesus, help others experience it also. Seek them out.
Jesus, You have restored me, use me to restore others.
