They set a net for my steps;
my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my way,
but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah
-Psalm 57:6

Whoever digs a pit will fall into it,
and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.
-Proverbs 26:27

Our Lord sure can weave a good story and Mark is no slouch either.  The story of the man with a withered hand at the beginning of Mark 3 is a masterful work as part of a larger masterful work that is  Mark’s Gospel.

The Man with the Withered Hand, James Jacques Joseph Tissot.

After hearing this sermon I was reminded of something Peter Leithart wrote in his commentary of I & II Samuel.  In the Synoptic Gospels the story of the disciples eating grain on the sabbath always comes right before the story of the man with the withered hand.  That story connects us back with I Samuel 21 which is talking about David being given the shewbread from the tabernacle.  Leithart makes the point that the passage is full of the term ‘hand’.  David did not have food or a weapon in his hand, he asked if the priests had any bread or weapons on hand.  The priests put both food and Goliath’s sword into his hand.  When priests were ordained the flesh of the sacrificial animal was placed into their hands, they were then qualified to go about their priestly duties. Saul received a priestly portion of the sacrifice when Samuel anointed him king.  I know this might seem strange to us today but these close associations were common in Hebrew.  Jesus is making many points with his behavior on the sabbath but one of them is clearly that something new is happening.  David was a new king taking command. Not only is Jesus taking command, as the new prophet, priest and king he shows how capable his hand is, he is the hand giver.  A hand in scripture is a symbol of human and godly ability.  People are delivered into God’s hand God delivers armies into the hands of his servants.

This story is so great.  Jesus is know for his parables, but there is a sense in which every other event of his life is a living parable.  There is debate about whether the parables actually happened, I don’t really think it matters like any good story it is still real.  And this is the nature of our placement here on this earth by our God.  We are here to learn lessons, and prove ultimately if we are good or evil.  This story is a living parable, he makes the Pharisees feel how wrong they are.  Sadly instead of repenting, they double down on their evil. Now it’s one thing to think you are a good person in theory. Most people think they are good, but it’s another thing to prove it in your life.  These Pharisees thought they were fine, Jesus showed them they were not.

The Talmud, Jewish Common Law Tradition. A modest 6,200 pages.

Now it’s easy for us to mock the case law tradition of the Pharisees, just like they mocked Jesus.  It takes some imagination to make it more real for us.  This is what Jesus does he imagines a situation to show them their foolishness.  He shows them their guilt by their own law.  For us today, we really have no room to talk.  Our case law system is just as foolish.  We have laws that say it’s alright to kill a baby while it is still in the birth canal but a few inches further down and it’s murder.  We have laws that say if you rack up a bunch of debt you can just declare bankruptcy and basically steal all that money.  We have laws against children selling cupcakes and opening lemonade stands.  We have laws that protect animals and their habitat while human homes burn or flood.  Our laws are just as corrupt as the Pharisees because we are just as evil.

Atlantic Reporter case law books for only 10 States, 999 volumes covering up to 2010.  Those Pharisees sure made up a lot of rules.

This living parable starts out as a trap set for Jesus.  This is evident from Jesus’ words, “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill.”  They were setting him up so they could kill him because they knew he would heal.  They think they are putting Jesus on trial before their law.  Instead Jesus turns it around on them, he proves by the situation that they are the sons of the Devil, he is the Son of Moses. He is putting them on trial before a Holy, Just, Perfect God, and they are damned for eternity by their actions.  God is not interested in good theology floating around in our head, he is interested in the way we act out what we believe.  Because that is the real test, good words are easy, good actions are difficult.

Federal Register of new Regulations for 2013 ONLY! 80,000 Pages. Good thing we aren’t like the Pharisees.

Keeping in mind Mark’s overall theme that Jesus is King really makes the last line of the story pop.  The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”  At this time there were basically two factions of authority in Israel;  the Jewish Pharisees and the occupying Romans.  The other sect of religious leaders the Sadducees had basically aligned with the Romans politically.  So these Pharisees are proven to be wrong in their system by Jesus and instead of repenting and submitting to the authority of King Jesus, they go conspire with the Romans whom they considered their enemies.  But any alliance against King Jesus will do.

It can be easy these days, to get caught up in notions of angels and demons battling it out in spiritual warfare.  It was a Greek philosophy and an early Church heresy, the notion that what happens here on earth does not matter.  What matters, they say, is what happens on a heavenly level.  Well as this passage shows, God puts us to the test here on this earth. There was nothing mystical or anything from a Frank Peretti book here, just real life situations put before them, by Jesus, just as God does with us.  Jesus enemies conspired and they fought and killed him, but ultimately they lost and only condemned themselves.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V. Here are another 1000 pages of B.S. for good measure.  This will get you out of all kinds of sin.

Today we have another level of evil on top of our corrupt law.  We take the results of real life situations and work them backwards.  Failure in real life situations becomes proof of some sort of disease, phobia, addiction, or other mental or genetic propensity.  It’s not our fault we acted badly, it’s  just how we are made, it’s in the cards or the stars or whatever gets us off the hook.  We think we are ok on some spiritual theoretical level in heaven, even if the events on earth prove other wise. We think holding ourselves and others to this low standard loving.  Really it just makes us worse than the Pharisees. This is us aligning with the World, with psychology or social ‘science’ against King Jesus.