Withered in Church
Mark 3:1-6 (ESV) Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
It was the Lord’s custom to go into the synagogue. There He taught and healed and set people free. Today, as then, people come to church with withered hands, withered bodies, withered hearts, withered marriages, and withered minds. But just like the Pharisees of old, we do not care for them. The Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, cared nothing for this man and his problem. I suspect that they didn’t even notice it, or if they did, they felt no compassion for him and his difficulty. He became part of the unnoticed visual landscape. Perhaps his withered hand was, to them, just another common instance of human suffering so pervasive that it seemed normal. No one was healing people until Jesus came along. Healing this man’s hand was outside of all their expectations. The reality was that people were not healed of such things – of anything really.
With this human need so conspicuous among them, they still did not see it. They did not regard it. What were they focused on? Their focus was on whether Jesus would heal on the Sabbath day. How ridiculous – that people come to church with areas of their lives withered, and the leadership watches carefully to make sure they don’t get healed!
We, too, overlook people who come into our churches with obvious needs, and concern ourselves instead with our own variety of petty political issues. We tread carefully so as not to cross our modern church traditions and are watchful not to overstep the religious protocol of our group. Or we tend to our selfish minutiae: “Will I get to sing a solo? Did the pastor greet me?” Or technical issues: “Why is there buzzing in the sound system? Why was there a lag in the presentation of song lyrics?”
But what about the withered among us? Where is our attention? Where is our compassion? Do we notice the needs of the people among us, not only those in our church meetings, but in the marketplace, in the waiting rooms, or at the house next-door?
The Lord looked on these people in the synagogue with anger because of the hardness of their hearts. This is the problem: hardness of heart. The Lord doesn’t like it. Here is the definition of the word translated as hardness in verse 5:
-hardness (Strong’sG4457 - pōrōsis)-stupidity or callousness. [Thayer]-properly, the covering with a callus; obtuseness of mental discernment, dulled perception. [from G4456 (pōroō)-to petrify, i.e. (figuratively) to indurate (render stupid or callous)].
Recently I had lunch after church with a new believer. My young friend noticed that our server had a heavy countenance. She looked so depressed. What did I do about it? Nothing. I was preoccupied with myself and my guest. I did not have enough heart for this woman to say even a word to her, even though I myself have been through depression (in all of its awfulness)! I asked the Lord to forgive me for this. It was a bad example for this new Christian.
We are the church, and there are people all around us who are withered in some way. The kingdom of God is at hand – in us. Let us not be without compassion for the withered.