Mark 3:1 — Community Reflections

MARK 3:1 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.”

Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there — the withered-hand healing is the fifth consecutive controversy in Mark's Gospel, following the paralytic's forgiveness, eating with sinners, fasting, and the Sabbath grainfield. The setting is again a Sabbath synagogue — the same arena as the first exorcism in chapter 1. The man with the shriveled hand is present but passive: he does not ask for healing. The Pharisees are watching, and the watching is hostile. The scene is a theological trap, and Jesus walks into it deliberately — not because he cannot avoid it but because the kingdom's work cannot wait for political convenience.

Church Fathers on Mark 3:1

After confounding the Jews, who had blamed His disciples, for pulling the ears of corn on the sabbath day, by the example of David, the Lord now further bringing them to the truth, works a miracle on the sabbath; shewing that, if it is a pious deed to work miracles on the sabbath for the health of men, it is not wrong to do on the sabbath thing necessary for the body.
Theophylact · 11th century

For, since He had defended the breaking of the sabbath, which they objected to His disciples, by an approved example, now they wish, by watching Him, to calumniate Himself, that they might accuse Him of a transgression, if He cured on the sabbath, of cruelty or of folly, if He refused.
Bede · 8th century · in Marc., 1, 14

But some one may wonder how Matthew could have said, that they themselves asked the Lord, if it was lawful to heal on the sabbath-day; when Mark rather relates that they were asked by our Lord, 'Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath-day, or to do evil?'
Augustine · 4th century · de Con. Evan., ii, 35

Read all 7 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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