Whenever you consider the meaning of a Bible text, it is always good to look at the context. As we consider the meaning of Jesus' words to the man with a shriveled hand, we need to look at what happened before he spoke these words. The context of Jesus' words to the man with the shriveled-up hand in Mark 3:5 is conflict with the Pharisees in the areas of fasting, the Sabbath, and worship. The reason for this conflict was the Pharisees' closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists.
The Context
In some respects the Pharisees have gotten a bum rap. In many sermons over the years they have appeared as the bad guys, when actually they were very good people in many ways. As a matter of fact, in at least three important ways they were very close to Jesus.
First, the Pharisees, like Jesus, were reformers. They wanted to renew the Jewish faith by instituting changes to make a lackluster religion a more vibrant religion. They believed that most of the Jews of their time had forgotten the basics of the Bible and the Law of God. Jesus believed the same thing. They believed in tithing (giving ten percent off the top, not leftovers) to God. Jesus agreed. When it came to reforming the religion of their day, Jesus and the Pharisees agreed.
The Pharisees were like Jesus in a second way. They believed that vibrant ministry must include lay ministry as well as the ministry of the priests. Jesus, like the Pharisees, taught that faith is not centered in the clergy, but in the people. The Pharisees were not anti-clergy in their teachings, but they were strongly in favor of lay ministry. They themselves were laymen, not clergy. Like them, Jesus agreed that real religious reform must happen to the lay leaders and people of the synagogues and temple, not just to the rabbis and priests.
The third major way in which the Pharisees and Jesus were alike was in the belief in life after death. Jesus and the Pharisees both taught that there is a resurrection after death. The Sadducees opposed this theological point of view. The Sadducees taught that there is no life after death. Jesus sided with the Pharisees against the Sadducees.
So the Pharisees, who are often made out to be "the bad guys," have gotten a bad rap, because in at least three areas -- religious reform, lay ministry, and the resurrection -- they were very much like Jesus. But in one very important way Jesus and the Pharisees were total opposites. The Pharisees were judgmental. Jesus was of a different spirit altogether.
Three stories in the front-side context of our text illustrate this point. First, in Mark 2:18-22, the Pharisees criticize Jesus and his disciples for not fasting. When Jesus looked at religious acts like fasting, he looked at the heart, not just at the action. When Jesus looked at people, he looked at the motivation, not just the behavior. When the Pharisees fasted and prayed, they often did so to show off their piety. Jesus knew that religious acts of piety should be a matter of the heart. Jesus was not opposed to fasting, but he had a different attitude toward fasting than the Pharisees.
Jesus said, "No one pours new wine into old wineskins" (Mark 2:22). The new wine was Jesus' teaching. The old wineskins were religious ritualistic duty, rules, and regulations. Old wineskins grow brittle and crack. They cannot hold new wine which is still fermenting with gases which expand. New wineskins are more flexible.
Jesus taught that the new wineskin of joy, not fasting as self-display, is the heart of real piety. The Pharisees called attention to themselves and tried to get other people to admire their devotion. They were caught up in fasting as a ritual display. Jesus saw beyond their deeds. He knew their hearts. He knew that they had missed the joy of self-less service to God and people, which was like new wine needing a new wineskin of openness. The Pharisees could not put this new wine in old wineskins which had become hard and unyielding. The minds and hearts of the Pharisees were hard and unyielding to the new teaching of Jesus.
The second story in Mark 2:23-29 also shows the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees. Here the issue is what to do on the Sabbath day. Jesus, like the Pharisees, taught that we must obey the third commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Like the Pharisees, Jesus taught that every seven days we need to pause and take another look at our lives by worshiping God. The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees came not on the content of the third commandment, but on the legalistic way that they applied the command regarding the Sabbath. The Pharisees criticized Jesus' disciples for picking ears of corn in the fields on the Sabbath day. Jesus responded with a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6 about great King David who had eaten consecrated bread set aside for the priests. Jesus said that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Man was not created to be the victim and slave of Sabbath day rules and regulations. From the beginning God intended for the Sabbath to enhance life through rest and worship.
Then Jesus really got under the skin of the Pharisees by saying, "So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28). Jesus saw that the Pharisees' stubborn hearts (Mark 3:5) were getting them into trouble.
The third story is about worship in Mark 3:1-6. We pick up the story with some of the Pharisees "looking for a reason to accuse Jesus" (Mark 3:2). This section ends with the Pharisees joining forces with a political religious party called the Herodians to "plot how they might kill Jesus" (Mark 3:6). This is the story of the healing of the shriveled hand of a man who met Jesus at a worship service in a synagogue. Why did the Pharisees object to healing by Jesus? Why were the Pharisees trying to accuse Jesus? Why did they begin to plot his death? The answer to these questions lies in their stubborn hearts. Jesus dealt with matters of worship and prayer with a totally different spirit than that of the Pharisees.
There are no Pharisees around today. Today, the problem with fasting, Sabbath worship, and prayer seems to be in the opposite direction of the one addressed here. The Pharisees were legalists about such matters. Today people seem to be so secular that practicing piety is largely neglected. The Pharisees were hypocrites -- pretending to be better and more religious than they were. Today most people seem to be hypocrites in reverse. Today many people hide their piety, for fear of being judged as religious fanatics. The Pharisees were concerned about following religious rules so that they would get heavenly rewards. They were closed-minded. Today many people are closed-minded, fearful of not having enough money, or enough material things, but apparently not fearful about matters of eternal life.
All of this is interesting information about the Pharisees 2,000 years ago, but what does it have to do with today? What difference does it make today? What is the human malady Jesus addresses which reaches across the ages?
Even though the story of the religious practices of the Pharisees and the man with the withered hand may differ from today's circumstances, even though the details are different, the problem is still legalistic spirits, hypocrisy, and stubborn hearts. The problem is still closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists. An open hand is an expression of a need. Today many people have their fists clenched, symbolizing minds and hearts set on their own ways of doing things instead of God's way.
This brings us directly to Jesus' command to the man with a withered hand: "Stretch out your hand" (Mark 3:5). The man had a physically paralyzed hand. The Greek word used here means that the man had not been born this way but that some illness had taken strength from his hand.1 Jesus told him to stretch out his hand. Does that have any relevance today? How many people in our congregations today have withered hands? Not many, but the symbolism of the stretched-out hand touches all of us.
Jesus was addressing the spiritual condition of closed minds and hard hearts symbolized by clenched fists. That is what Jesus addresses today.
The Text
Jesus said, "Stretch out your hand" (Mark 3:5). In order for us to make application of this text today, we must picture the Pharisees sitting in the front row of the synagogue where Jesus had just brought the man with a withered hand. We need to see them sitting there, seeing themselves as judges of the truth, not open to God and his word. We need to see their spirit of seeking errors in other people while promoting themselves as self-righteous.
There they sat upright and uptight, with stern faces, closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists. They were not there to worship. They were looking for ways to trap the Lord. Jesus was very disturbed by what he saw. One translation puts it this way: "Jesus said to them, 'Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day? Or to do evil? To save a life? Or to kill it?' But they remained silent. He looked round on them with anger, for he was grieved at the obtuseness of their hearts" (Mark 3:5).2 The opposite of an obtuse heart is an open heart. The opposite of closed minds is the mind which is caught up in self-forgetfulness which is what worship means. The opposite of a clenched fist is an open hand.
The problem of the Pharisees was closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists. Jesus told the man with a withered hand to stretch out his hand. Indirectly, Jesus was saying that the Pharisees refused to open their hands to God in the spirit of receptivity. Now we are close to the heart of the text and the application of our text to today. Isn't this the real problem with people who refuse to worship or can't pray today? Isn't this the human malady in our day as well as Jesus' day? Isn't holding something against someone a problem for many of us as well as a problem for the Pharisees? Jesus once said, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
That is the problem with closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists -- the unwillingness to let go of what others have done to us or said to us.
Henri Nouwen tells the story of an elderly woman in a psychiatric center3 who was acting wildly, swinging at everyone and everything in sight, and scaring everyone so much that the doctor had to take everything away from her, everything except a coin which she gripped tightly as if it were her last possession. She grasped the coin as if being deprived of it would mean that she would lose her very self if it was taken away. Her fear was that if she lost her last coin, she would have nothing and be nothing. Nouwen says that this is also the great inhibiting factor in our worship and prayer lives today. Nouwen puts it this way:
When you are asked to pray you are asked to open your tightly clenched fists and give up your last coin...You feel it safer to cling to a sorry past than to trust in a new future. So you fill your hands with small, clammy coins which you don't want to surrender.4
We cling to resentment or revenge so tightly that we make ourselves sick and cannot worship or pray. Stubborn resistance to the spirit of forgiveness inhibits our worship and our prayers. In clenched fists we hold tightly to wrong ideas about God, other people, and ourselves. We refuse to let go of bitter feelings. These bitter feelings give us a false sense of security. To let go of bitterness, we think, would mean that we will be unguarded. It may be self-defeating to hold onto these ideas, but if we let them go, we will be vulnerable, go out of control, and possibly get hurt. We sit there like the Pharisees in the front row of the synagogue holding onto something that can only defeat us -- resentment, revenge, bitterness, anger, hatred, jealousy, disappointment, and past memories of what parents or spouses or ex-spouses or friends or children have done to us or said to us -- unable to worship, unable to pray, unable to be who we were intended to be, children of God.
Clenched fists full of false treasures which buy us nothing but misery inhibit our corporate worship and our private prayer lives. Clenched fists keep us from the experience of God. We are afraid to let these false treasures go, for fear of what will happen if we really open up our hands to God. We hear Jesus say, "Stretch out your hand," and we panic. We will do anything but that. Stretching out a hand would mean letting go of those things around which we have built our lives. Open minds? No way! Open hearts? No way! Open hand? No way! Like the woman in the psychiatric center we cling to a cheap coin and miss the most valuable treasure of all -- God.
Another story about clinging helps illustrate how foolish this Pharisaic tendency of stubbornness about cheap things can be. This story is about a spoiled child who got his hand stuck in a very expensive vase. His parents tried and tried to help the crying child get his hand out of the vase, all to no avail. The vase was a precious antique. It was worth thousands of dollars. Finally, since there appeared to be no other solution, they broke the expensive vase, only to discover that the child was clinging with a clenched fist to a penny.
You have to open your hand and let go to get out of self-defeating attitudes. You have to be vulnerable and self-forgetful which is the heart of worship.
The man with a withered hand had a physical problem. Jesus commanded him to stretch out his hand, to take the chance by being vulnerable, but also to take the chance of being healed. The man stretched out the hand and was healed. The Pharisees were watching, with stern faces, closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists, trying to trap Jesus whom they hated, unwilling to consider the new teaching about forgiveness and openness.
The Pharisees had a spiritual problem. They were so stubborn that they refused to acknowledge their problem. They judged others, but did not acknowledge their own sin. Even though in many respects Jesus was close to them theologically, they refused to let him in. They clung to their old ways. Their fists were tightly clenched, just like the alcoholic who refuses to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or if he does go he sits there like a bump on a log, unwilling to acknowledge his faults, blaming others for his condition.
Some years ago while on vacation in North Carolina with a recovering alcoholic and his wife, I attended an open AA meeting. I remember it vividly. Person after person stood up and said, "My name is Joe (or Pete or Mary). I am an alcoholic. I cannot manage my life. I have been blaming my parents or my spouse or my friends, but I have come to realize that I am responsible for my own faults. I can't change others, only me."
That's what was missing in the Pharisees in the synagogue in our story. That's what is missing in many people today too. Many people really can't worship or pray because of their unwillingness to stop blaming and judging others, because of their stubborn resistance to accepting responsibility for their sins.
We Christians are recovering sinners. We are like recovering alcoholics in many ways.
For the alcoholic, one drink is too much and a thousand drinks are not enough, but stubborn resistance keeps the alcoholic from help. The one thing necessary and the hardest thing of all is to stand up and say, "I am an alcoholic. I am powerless over this problem. I need God to help me." Jesus said to the man with a withered hand in the synagogue, "Stand up and let God help you." It was like a first century AA meeting. It is hard to stand up and share that you have a problem which you cannot solve. It is hard to depend on God instead of self. If is hard to take the chance of making a fool of yourself. But it is worth taking the chance because it is the only way to experience new life. The clenched fist, clinging to the clammy coins of booze, bitterness, or brooding which will kill, comes from a stubborn mind and hard heart.
We may not be alcoholics, spoiled children, or people with psychiatric problems, but the stories of these people can help us to realize the malady of stubborn resistance to God and God's ways. "Let go and let God," Jesus is saying. "God is just an open fist away, but you will never know it unless and until you stretch out your hand. Open your hand to God. Let go of yesterday's clammy coins. God has real treasures to give you."
1. William Barclay, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Mark (Philadelphia: West-minster, 1956), p. 67.
2. Op. cit., p. 66.
3. Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), pp. 3-5.
4. Op. cit., p. 4.