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He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear baptized believers in Christ’s church, there was a religious establishment in place when our Lord Jesus came onto the scene when he was 30 years old and he began his teaching and preaching ministry. This multi-tiered structure was well grounded with a networking system that covered the entire land of Israel. The Pharisees and the Sadducees combined to make up the council called the Sanhedrin, and this group worked closely with the priesthood under the direction of the high priest. Now interlaced in this first-century system were the scribes, who were the experts in Hebrew law and the law of Moses, but it was the Pharisees. It was the Pharisees who were connected to the communities as they oversaw the numerous synagogues scattered across the land. These synagogues were the central institutions in each of the communities. In them, there was worship, the teaching of the Torah, the communication of the traditions, and the place where these communities would gather for fellowship, the teachings that were passed down from generation to generation to generation.
As Israel waited for God to fulfill his promise to send the Messiah, the one who would save his people from their enemies, Jesus grew up in one of these communities and participated in these activities, but now he was a rabbi. He was a traveling teacher, far from Jerusalem in a synagogue in his own hometown of Nazareth, reading a portion out of the book of Isaiah that described the coming Messiah. When he sat down, those who were gathered looked at him, ready for him to teach, and he proclaimed to them on that day, “Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He was telling them, “I am He. The wait is over.”
Even though the hearers in that place wanted to throw him off a nearby cliff, the religious establishment didn’t even have him on their radar. But in the beginning, as Jesus began to teach, preach, and travel, he added those around him, that small band of disciples. Like other rabbis, he was welcome to teach in the synagogues. But his teaching was spreading from village to village, to town to town, beyond himself and before him. Why? They were different from the standard proclamations heard across Israel. Instead of hearing what you have to do to be right before God, it was what God does to make you right before Himself.
Once in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 7, Matthew writes, “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowd were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one who had authority, not as their scribes.” He clearly taught that he had a personal relationship with God His Father, and he confirmed this truth by performing miracles with divine power over sickness, over nature, and even over death. The crowds they were drawing to him grew larger and they traveled from farther distances. So many were gathering that he was unable to enter the synagogues, unable to enter the towns, and he was teaching and preaching to them along the roadways and in the countrysides.
Now Jesus had the attention of the religious establishment, for his teachings were clearly contradicting their doctrines and their practices. The people were returning home to their synagogues proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah and his teachings. As they told the Pharisees, they realized they were challenging their authorities—the authority of them and the scribes—jeopardizing their places of power, prestige, and profit. The reason for the difference is because, with the passing of time, the religious leaders were moving farther and farther away from the Word of God, and they became more committed to the traditions of the fathers. Those thoughts, those opinions of men that were being passed down to them from generation to generation, were placed with greater value than on the revealed Word of God. Because of Jesus’s presence and proclamation, jealousy filled their hearts.
Now where Jesus was, they too were there. Wherever He talked, they were there. Like hawks, at one little word of heresy, they would swoop down to discredit Him with the goal of ruining His ministry and doing so disband the hundreds and even thousands who were coming to hear His words. So they began to go. When they could not find that heresy but only truth, they began to go on the offensive, trying to trap Jesus with half-truths. So on this Sabbath, as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pluck the heads of the grain to eat, I can imagine looking at the Pharisees and seeing them jumping up and down like kids with their index fingers pointing out, extending and saying, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Why are they doing it?” In their minds, these disciples were harvesting and threshing the wheat to obtain the grain.
Even though the scriptures allow this activity in Deuteronomy 23, it reads, “If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.” Even though it was scriptural, Jesus wanted to get to the root of the problem and show them their flawed understanding. And why? So that these religious leaders could see the truth and believe in Him and His love for them.
So Jesus takes them back into the Scriptures to their beloved David when he was fleeing from King Saul’s hateful behavior. “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And then Jesus continued, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Hey guys, you got it backwards. God did not create the Sabbath to burden you, but to give you rest and refreshment. This day is a gift from God to be mindful of the many temporal and spiritual blessings that He showers upon each and every one of you. Will they hear this good news? Will they put aside the hundreds of man-made rules and regulations that have been established through the traditions and cling only to the Word of God? Sola Scriptura.”
Oh, by the way, Jesus says, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” In other words, He was saying, “I am greater than King David.” In using the title “Son of Man” to identify Himself, He is saying to them, “I am even greater than the Sabbath.” Why? He established it. Jesus was telling them that He is God, but there was no response. But our text takes us directly to Jesus now entering into a synagogue. There they were. There were the Pharisees and there were the scribes ready to set a trap for Jesus. For Matthew 12 states, “And a man was there with the withered hand, and they asked Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, so they might accuse him?” According to the traditions, he could not, for healing was classified as a labor on the Sabbath, so forbidden.
But Jesus puts it back on them when he asked, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” So he was saying doing nothing is equal to killing, and healing is equal to saving. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus even gives the application in their daily lives. “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?” Remember, Jesus wants these religious leaders to see the truth and to believe in Him and His love for them.
So He waits for a response. Maybe they’ll ask a question seeking clarification of His understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Nothing. Only silence. They had hardened their hearts so that they could not admit that the rules and regulations of men which they cling are contradictive and over the word of the Lord, over the Word of God, so they could not stand against Jesus and His word. Even though they would not love God and even though they would not love their neighbor, Jesus will. Angry with their defiance, he tells the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand.” Though it was through the command and the power of Jesus this man had been crippled, an outcast hears Jesus’s words, and he lifts up his arm with a deformed appendage. Like the wings of a butterfly that come forth from the cocoon, opening up and extending its wings, so did this man’s hand. He was healed. He was healed.
Not only did the religious leaders hear Jesus’ words, but they have seen Him perform a miracle. Now will they repent and believe in Jesus? No. Instead, they left in haste and found the Herodians, who were the secular leaders, to seek counsel with them on how they might destroy Jesus. Between this point and the final trip to Jerusalem, their clash will only intensify their hatred for Jesus and his unconditional love for them.
Was this not the case for Luther in the 1500s? The Western Church had been dwelling in the medieval period for over a thousand years. The church establishment was there, but the traditions had smothered out the gospel. Luther was raised in a community believing that Jesus was angry, and the only way that he could be happy is if they would have perfect obedience. Instead of hearing what God had done to make people righteous before himself through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus, they were hearing that they had to make themselves right before God through buying of the indulgences, taking pilgrimages, viewing relics, paying the priest for favors, etc., etc.
Luther did not want to destroy the church. He did not want to start a new church. He just wanted the church to cling to the gospel. “You’re saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus alone. Pre-justification, at-justification, post-justification. It is He who has made us alive, and it is He who keeps us alive.” You and I are not immune from this temptation. The church bodies are not immune from this temptation. Our flesh, the voices of the world, the whispering of the devil want you and me to make a lot of rules and regulations as well as adopting those that will contribute to our salvation—to help us in our spiritual walk with the various aspects of our lives.
“If you do this, if you do that, it will help you to get to heaven. If you don’t do this, if you don’t do that, it will help you to get to heaven.” Without discernment, which is granted by the Holy Spirit, these man-made commands could actually lead us away from the gospel of Jesus and bring us into conflict with the Holy Scriptures. The only solution, the only solution, Jesus said, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
In the Gospels, the hands that we see stretched out are those of our Lord Jesus, God in the flesh upon the cross. And it is there the spikes had pierced those hands, but it was not they that kept Him suspended between heaven and earth. But it is the love for you, each of you. He loves you so, and displayed it there. And it is His knowing that the only way that you can spend eternity with Him in His kingdom is by Him paying the price for your sins. And the cost is His life. Through the blood of the Lamb, you have been washed. Through the blood of the Lamb, you have been restored. Through the blood of the Lamb, you have been saved. Because He rose again from the dead on the third day, being His own, you too will rise.
This is our peace, and this is our joy. The Lord grant to each of you His wisdom and His strength. Amen. The peace which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
