Withered Hand, Hardened Heart Mark 3:1-6

Years after the death of President Calvin Coolidge, this story came to light. In the early days of his presidency, Coolidge awoke one morning in his hotel room to find a cat burglar going through his pockets. Coolidge spoke up, asking the burglar not to take his watch chain because it contained an engraved charm he wanted to keep. Coolidge then engaged the thief in quiet conversation and discovered he was a college student who had no money to pay his hotel bill or buy a ticket back to campus. Coolidge counted $32 out of his wallet -- which he had also persuaded the dazed young man to give back! -- declared it to be a loan, and advised the young man to leave the way he had come so as to avoid the Secret Service! (Yes, the loan was paid back.)

-The Lord gives grace to the humble but resists the proud

I. 2 Problems vv. 1-2

In our passage tonight, Jesus returns to the synagogue, the place of teaching, and is confronted by two problems

The first issue is a man with a withered hand, a physical malady that would have impacted every part of his life

The second issue is a group of Pharisees who are looking to accuse Jesus:

They are preparing to discredit Jesus, something that we have seen growing over time

This is reflective of a spiritual reality: They have rejected the Lord’s servant!

Why do they reject Jesus? I believe that there are a number of motivations:

They have a rebellious spirit and though they see the good work that He is doing, they refuse to acknowledge its source

They are jealous for position and power; someone has come who is greater than they are and they are losing face in the sight of the people

They are losing control and only want to have a relationship with God on their own terms; this is at the heart of legalism

The question before us tonight is simple: Which is the bigger problem, the withered hand or the hardened heart?

I believe that the answer from Scripture is clear and we see it played out here

God is ready to relieve and bless through physical suffering

However, the end of the proud and rebellious is destruction; this is especially true of the self-righteous that reject the Lord

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott Prone to Spiritual Pride without Love

“A man may be self centred in his self denial, and self righteous in his sacrifice. His generosity may feed his eye and his piety his pride. Without love, benevolence and martyrdom become spiritual pride.”

SOURCE: Martin Luther King, Strength to Love (Hodder and Stoughton, 1964), 133.

II. 2 Questions v. 4

Jesus assesses the situation and asks two questions:

Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm?

Is is it lawful to save life or to kill?

Jesus speaks in extreme ways here, but He has a reason:

He is exposing the hypocrisy of their position!

The options are between doing good or withholding a good, doing a harm

They prefer to take life away from the man rather than to give it to him

This is the heart of the Pharisee:

They do not care in the least for the man

They care supremely about their traditions and about self-preservation

So long as they can have a comfortable sort of religious life on their own terms they will be satisfied to watch the world burn

In 1982, "ABC Evening News" reported on an unusual work of modern art--a chair affixed to a shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into the gunbarrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an undetermined moment within the next hundred years. The amazing thing was that people waited in lines to sit and stare into the shell's path! They all knew the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment, but they were gambling that the fatal blast wouldn't happen during THEIR minute in the chair.

Yes, it was foolhardy, yet many people who wouldn't dream of sitting in that chair live a lifetime gambling that they can get away with sin. Foolishly they ignore the risk until the inevitable self-destruction.

III. 2 Responses vv. 3-5a

Jesus responds in two wildly different ways

The man with the withered hand is greeted with mercy:

He is invited into the presence of Jesus- there is no doubt that this is a form of affirmation: Jesus cares about the man

He is asked to expose his hand to Jesus- Jesus has no fear of his brokenness. Jesus does not ask him to show the hand to shame him, but because he intends to heal him

In contrast, the Pharisees will get a small glimpse at the anger of Jesus

They are silent in His presence and are unable to answer Him. They recognize their foolishness but refuse to repent from it

Jesus looks at them and is angry with them, grieved over their hardness of heart

What does it mean that their hearts were hardened?

They are numb to the suffering of the man

They are cold to the voice of the Lord

When arrogance and indifference meet, we are in deep trouble

We need to pay attention here: this is the worst state that a man can be in!

1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Pride

Many Christians have wrongly concluded that sexual sins are the worst kind of sin. But that is not true. Sexual sins are not the worst kind of sins. C. S. Lewis has caught this fact very accurately. In a paragraph from his book Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1986), Lewis says:

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing with the human self which I must try to become; they are the animal self, and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it’s better to be neither.1082

IV. 2 Results vv. 5b-6

We see the contrast in how the two groups leave the scene

On the one hand, the withered hand is made whole; he has been healed

On the other, the Pharisees leave in a worse position than when they started

Now, they are openly planning how to destroy Jesus

They align with their natural enemies, the Herodians, because they believe that they have a mutual enemy

Think about what’s taking place here:

A humble man receives healing as he humbly gives his brokenness to the Lord

Meanwhile, a gang of religious conservatives are at warfare with God out of a sense of self-righteousness

There is no greater danger before us than the mixture of ignorance and arrogance

Years ago, a smart aleck teenager stood on the sidewalk at his little Baptist church listening to the grown folks talk. The most pompous adult in the group misquoted the passage below. Unfortunately for him, the teenager had just read the passage earlier and knew the correct wording. The teenager had a little fun with the older man and they went back and forth for a few minutes, each certain of their understanding.

A few hours later, the phone call came from the older gentleman. Not to admit that he had been wrong, but to correct the teen for not understanding that he wasn’t quoting Scripture, just repeating a principle. Pride will make you a fool, but worse than that, pride will destroy you.

Proverbs 16:18–19

[18] Pride goes before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall.

[19] It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor

than to divide the spoil with the proud. (ESV)