Sun Kwak, “Mending Hands”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHLJ9aH3NC0

TEXT: Mark 3:1-6

[1] Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. [2] And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. [3] And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” [4] And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. [5] And 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. [6] The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

SERMON: “Mending Hands”

I remember when Kalen was, I think, around seven. And she wanted to buy her little brother Rowe something for his birthday. And this was a really big deal, because it just came out of the goodness of her heart. At the time, Rowe was really into Spiderman. So, when we went to Disneyland and specifically, Avenger’s Campus, she took him to the store and had him pick out the Spiderman toy that he wanted her to buy him. And I think it was about half of what she had saved up to that point, so it wasn’t a small gift. But she gladly paid for it with what she had. Some months later, Kalenfound Rowe using that exact Spiderman toy to whack his baby brother. And with full, by that time, eight year old sternness, Kalen admonishes Rowe — Rowey, that’s not why I bought you that Spiderman. And I want us to keep that image in mind — not necessarily of Rowe hitting his little brother. But of a gift giver telling the recipient of the gift — That’s not why I bought that for you. Because comedy and light-heartedness aside, I think this is what Jesus is telling these Pharisees. That’s not why I gave you the Sabbath — so that you could just whack other people in the head with it. This is part 2 of 2 regarding Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees about the Sabbath. And in the stretch of the twelve verses from ch2v23 to ch3v6, there are seven occurrences of the word Sabbath. And while the prior occasion was the secular arena and where the Pharisees sought Jesus out where he was in the grain fields with his disciples, this time, it’s Jesus who takes the fight to them. Here, he enters the arena of the synagogue — what these Pharisees would have considered to be home court.

And the tension is really mounting with the building opposition against Jesus. In verse 2, we’re told that Jesus is accused. Here, he’s put on the stand. This is judicial and legal language. There are evidences that are building up with those who are seeking to prosecute him. And something interesting happens at the very end of our passage. And it’s that the Pharisees and Herodians are coming together to scheme and plot against Jesus. And in the very following passage, something we’ll look into more next week — we’re going to see Jesus bringing together his twelve disciples. And these twelve, as we’re going to see, have very different backgrounds and those who wouldn’t be with one another if it weren’t for the gravitational pull of Jesus. And it’s the same thing on the other side of the coin here with the Pharisees and the Herodians coming together to stop Jesus. These were the least likely of comrades to walk hand in hand for a common purpose. The Pharisees were those who vehemently opposed the hellenization of Judaism. And quite literally, this hellenization of Judaism is what the Herodians were there to accomplish. And so, Morna Hooker, in her commentary on Mark, notes that to compare the Pharisees and the Herodians to modern day Republicans and Democrats wouldn’t even be enough. They had a deep hatred for one another. And yet, they come together, because they found a deeper hatred and disdain for Jesus. We read in verse 6 that they were seeking to destroy Jesus, which seems a bit hyperbolic. But the last time this word was used was with the demon-possessed man back in chapter 1, also while in the synagogue, who asked Jesus — Have you come to destroy us? Here are the enemies of God marked in plain colors.

In his book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt makes note of how we are all what he refers to as righteousness connoisseurs, regardless of whether or not we consider ourselves to be religious or not. It’s a natural human inclination. Because at the heart of it, righteousness is what we use to make ourselves us feel whole and valued and worthy. And we all have our own methods for this. And so, when he notes that we are all righteousness connoisseurs, it’s just a matter of our taste buds — whether it’s morality and ethics, political views, social rank, ethnic backgrounds, education level. We are all in the pursuit of setting ourselves apart by some method we deem most appropriate. It’s what we are naturally inclined to do as those who live in the tension of our brokenness and our longing for wholeness. And as we noted from the start, the method for this pursuit that Jesus hates the most is legalism. And it’s not that other forms of self-righteousness than the specific self-righteousness through legalism and religiosity provide any more hope. All of these outside of Christ provide us none. But what bothers Jesus is when religious leaders take legalistic demands and expectations and put them in places where God’s presence was to be expected.

In one of Flannery O’Connor’s later works, she writes a short story titled Revelation. And it’s about the radical transformation of this religious, moral middle-aged white southern church lady named Ruby Turpin. And in the story, she’s sitting in the waiting room, and she’s evaluating people. And she makes conversation with the only other person in the room she deems worthy of dialogue. But the people around sense her snobbery. And she feels this scornful glare from this other patient in the room named Mary Grace. And here’s Ruby Turpin in the waiting room just using these empty religious platitudes — talking about how grateful she is, saying Thank you Jesus for everything, talking about how she trusts him in his plans for her. But what interrupts her is this book that Mary Grace was holding that strikes her right in between the eyes. And it hits her so hard that it knocks her over. And after throwing this book, Mary Grace just jumps on top of Mrs. Turpin and starts choking her. A doctor comes in and injects this sedative into Mary Grace. And so, she’s calming down. But as the two of them look at each other on the floor of this waiting room right before Mary Grace passes out, Mrs. Turpin looks over at her and asks — What have you got to say to me? And the last words from Mary Grace — Go back to hell, where you came from, you dirty warthog. And so, the day goes on, and Mrs. Turpin is back at home doing her chores. And she’s just talking and mumbling, asking — What did you send me a message like that for? And she starts narrating in her mind all the things she does for others, the ways she’s kind and upright, and how she serves the church. And she starts getting so upset that she would be treated the way she was in that waiting room. And in this pent up rage, she screams out — Who do you think you are? And as Flannery O’Connor narrates, she screamed so loud that it echoed back at her, as if to ask her — Who do you think YOU are? And in that, she looks out from her farm at the sky. And she sees this bridge that’s connected to heaven. And there are people on this bridge with white robes, and they’re walking to heaven. And she looks at them and sees all these people she looks down on — the black people, the poor people, the uneducated people, the uncivilized people. But then, trailing them and all the way in the back, there are the people she expected to be in the front. But no, in this upside down way, they’re all the way in the back. They’re the people she deems good people, like her and her husband and some of her church folks. And they’re the only ones singing in tune, walking in line, keeping order, being proper. But then, Flannery O’Connor writes these words — Yet, they could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. What do they need cleansing for? Their absolute insistence on their goodness. That would have to be washed before they could cross that bridge.

There’s an interesting word used in our passage today in the Greek when we read that Jesus looked around angrily in verse 5. And it’s the word όργη. And it’s a hard word to translate into the English, because it’s not just anger. Some Greek lexicons have it as an over anger. The same word is also translated as wrath in other parts of the New Testament. And you know how there are levels to our anger? You might be frustrated, then you might get upset, then you might get ticked off, then you might be in rage. And about five and then’s after is when you get to όργη. And I don’t know how many of you come from legalistic backgrounds or upbringings. But I’ve heard the phrase heavy-handed used with those who have trauma from legalistic church settings. I’ve also heard the word shame used with those who have untended to wounds from growing up in legalistic and judgmental places. And I’ve also heard the word fear and traumaused in the context of this spiritual abuse. Because sometimes religious bullies can stand over you with the Bible as their whacking toy. And we might be asking — If they’re using the Bible to shame me, to make me feel lesser, to intimidate me, to coerce me. If that’s what they’re doing, where in God’s Word and God’s church can I find protection? And this is such a legitimate question and a real lived out pondering from real lived out experiences. And just to scratch the surface, if that’s you, I want you to look here in verse 5. And take a look at Jesus’ face, his anger, his wrath. It’s not upon you, it’s upon these legalistic, heavy-handed, bullying religious leaders. He is furious with these legalistic leaders in the synagogue. He’s not angry with you, he’s angry with them. And we need to see that. Because we don’t excuse sin here in our church. We call a spade a spade, and we admit to when we’re wrong in our confession. But Jesus hates legalism and guilt trips and shame and moral binds and unfair expectations. Because if you’re reading the same Bible I’m reading, fear and shame are not what you should feel when you approach the throne of grace. There’s rest and relief with God’s grace and the promises found in his Word.

And that’s the whole purpose of the Sabbath. It wasn’t primarily for moral observance, but it was a call to remember. This was first pronounced as the fourth commandment to a people who had been dehumanized as those worked as slaves for 430 years without cease or mercy. And I want us to see here what Jesus is described to be so angered with. We read here in verse 5 — And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. And who was it that was said to have this hardness of heart back in the story of the Exodus, prior to the pronouncement of this fourth commandment? It was Pharaoh — the very man who was taking the people of God and making them less than human. And here’s Jesus in full Enneagram 8 mode, and he’s just blasting anger rays of wrath at these religious leaders. Because by their legalism, by their shaming, by their heavy-handedness, what they were doing was putting others down. And by their religiosity, they were dehumanizing and burdening a people to be suppressed by the yoke of the law.

Because he’s showing here that the purpose of the Sabbath was not to put a moral bind on the hearts of people. You look at Isaiah 56, and we find three uses of the Sabbath in that chapter — and none of them have to do with strict observance. But rather, it’s about creating a new community, it’s about restoration, and it’s about justice, the way things were supposed to be. And so, Jesus asks a question here in verse 4 — Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? And Jesus hits them with a play on words here, asking if it’s right to do good on the Sabbath. Here, as the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus brings us back to the story of creation, where God rested after he pronounced at the end of each of the six prior days — It was good. And you have to note here. Because God didn’t need rest. But it was a pattern established. That rest came in conclusion of work that was done that was good, that was very good. And so, we ask — Why then was Jesus healing on the Sabbath? Because if everything was good, then rest would have been what was appropriate. But if he’s healing, if he’s working, then might it be that this was his way of expressing that all was not good, that there was work to do for the Creator? That while the first Sabbath was the exclamation of benediction, the goodness of God’s creation, here was Jesus showing that his creation needed mending.

And so, we have this man with a withered hand. In the Greek, this word notes atrophy. This was the picture of a dead plant. And with it being his right hand and the majority of the people assumed to be right-handed, here is a man who had become functionally useless and diminished in worth. And in this synagogue, there were likely concentric circles, with the people of greatest importance in the center and those who were deemed least amongst these cast out to the margins. But here, in verse 3, Jesus calls upon this man and tells him to Come here. And that command is to get up and to come to the midst or specifically in the Greek, to the middle, to the center. And it’s here that Jesus shows to these Pharisees and his disciples his upside down kingdom, as he brings the most vulnerable and weak and socially irrelevant to the very center and dignifies him. And what is that Jesus says to this man in verse 5? Stretch out your hand. I had a friend in high school, who had this condition known as claw hand, where he couldn’t unbend some of his fingers and his wrist. He was a confident guy — super witty, intelligent. But when attention was brought to his hands, he visibly shrunk. And it’s not that he knew his hands could be kept hidden. But he was uncomfortable putting spotlight on his hands.

Here, Jesus is calling upon one who had this useless and lifeless hand that’s likened to a dry plant. This was the hand that caused him years of shame and dishonor, the hand that he may have just wanted to get rid of. And in public, this was the hand he wanted to hide. And here, he calls upon this man to stretch out his greatest weakness and source of shame. And it’s here that this man’s hand is restored.  When it’s put out into the light and given exposure and put into the mending hands of Jesus. Here, healing happens as spotlight is put upon what Jesus does for his broken people in his broken world. Not through religious upkeep or self-righteous tactics or strict observance. But in placing the spotlight and focus upon him. Because there would come a day when Jesus would trade places with this man, where it would be Jesus’ mending hands that would be rendered useless and immobilized when nailed upon the cross. And as a public spectacle, for everyone to see, here is the center of our theology, of the Story of God and the upside down kingdom of God’s grace.

And it’s these hands week after week that we center in our worship service, for us to see and to behold. For while we may not have claw hand, all of us know what it’s like to have something we want to hide, be it some form of brokenness, wounds, or insecurities from the past. Maybe even a hidden addiction or a secret pattern of sin or a secret place of shame that we’re afraid to expose. Something that makes us feel ugly, feel judged. Something we’re afraid to give light, because we anticipate shame directed when put out in the open. But in the gospel community, where Jesus is at the center, he calls upon us to stretch out our hands. Not to bring us to shame but to take us to his restoration. Because he shows us his hands — hands that were pierced and atrophied because our sins were nailed there. And when knowing that our sins and our shame were placed upon him, we can know that there is beauty in our brokenness when met by the mending hands of our loving Savior. And it’s at the right hand of our Father that Jesus, at this very moment, is stretching out those hands for us to see. They still have holes in them, because those nail-pierced hands relinquished to the Father’s will so that he might trade places with us with withered hearts. Stretch out your hands today and place your trust in Jesus. For with him, there is not secret shame but public restoration. That when we give light and exposure in confessing our sin, we are met by forgiveness. Because it’s not our sins that take center stage, it’s Jesus’ grace and forgiveness for his sorry and withered people. Come to God’s grace in Christ, friends. It’s safe there, it’s safe here, in the mending hands of Jesus.