August 10, 2022 - Mark 1-4

So many illnesses. So many problems. Among them was the man with the withered hand whom Jesus met in the synagogue on the Sabbath and healed. Of course, the Pharisees were mad because this happened on the Sabbath, and they accused Jesus of “working” on the Sabbath. Jesus, essentially, answered them and said that it is always a good time to do good. The Pharisees’ response? “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him” (3:6).

It strikes me that evil men are always ready to do harm to good men who do good things. Yet, we cannot allow that threat to keep us from doing good and telling the truth. Right will win out over wrong in the end. The crowds saw Jesus and what he was doing, and they came to him. They didn’t come to the Pharisees. They didn’t sit for the teaching of the scribes. They didn’t throng to the Sadducees. But, wow, they came in great numbers to Jesus!

Your hand, O Lord, in days of old

was strong to heal and save;

it triumphed over pain and death,

o’er darkness and the grave.

To you they came, the blind, the mute,

the paralyzed and lame,

the lepers in their misery,

the sick with fevered frame. --E. H. Plumptre (1866)