Mark 3:1-2 [Jesus] entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
How would you react if you saw something so amazing your eyes would grow large, your skin would crawl, and you’d be frozen in your tracks. That’s about what would have happened if you witnessed someone standing near you who had a withered hand all gnarled and deformed from birth, and then with no one touching it just saw it straighten out into a normal hand all by itself. You’d pinch yourself, thinking you were dreaming. But if it was the person of Jesus that was standing in front of the man, and you’d been hearing for weeks that He had been doing this kind of thing and this was your first eye witness event, you would still be amazed, right, but at least you could attribute this awesome power to the glory of God, right, since this was something good?
Imagine then your surprise when those pastors and teachers whose sermons and religious instructions you had been listening to for so many years had a completely different reaction to this event.
Mark 3:6 The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.
What shock! Did they just see the same thing you did? Why didn’t they glorify God at this amazing miracle? A man’s deformed hand had been made completely normal and what did they want to do? They wanted to destroy Jesus! This is not a normal reaction to witnessing a miracle. This is completely abnormal. The correct response is one of joy because this is a good thing, someone was, in a sense, not well, and had been made well. So this was a great event! But this reaction is one of destruction and hatred! Who do you know that would stand before a person and call his healing something negative and attack the healer? No, this is Satan’s work at full power.
It’s amazing the way so many of Jesus’ contemporaries looked at Him and His work, seeing Him yes, but looking right through Him, Viewing with their eyes the wonderful things He did and at the same time not really seeing them. Just a few paragraphs later when He comes home His family wants to take Him into custody, for they were saying, “He has lost His senses”, and others of the religious called Him possessed by Beelzebul. Such phenomenally dark hearts, not to be able see the obvious, or choosing not to. The power of hate is amazing, too bad they couldn’t see that it really had nothing on the overwhelming power of love that finally conquered it all.
[Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1995]