Wednesday 18 January 2023

Today is Wednesday the 18th of January, in the second week of Ordinary time.

The Choir of Royal Holloway sings, ‘One in Christ’:

‘When we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home.
Dying and living you declared your love and opened the gate of glory.’

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark.


Mark 3:1-6

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Although this is a short scene from Mark’s gospel, it speaks volumes. A way of reflecting on a passage can be through the imagination, taking time to experience the events using all the senses.

The Sabbath is a holy day, a day set aside. Jesus, after a week of ministry seeking the rest that the Sabbath offers. When Jesus enters the synagogue, it should have been, not only a place of worship, but a place of welcome, a place of community. Do you have a sense of this? Perhaps this is your experience of the Sabbath?

As soon as the threshold is crossed – confrontation. More than likely, the religious leaders – notice that they are addressed as ‘they’, have set the scene. Instead of welcome – the exploitation of a person with a disability to entrap Jesus. Imagine the man, fully aware of his disability and his place in society. Just someone to be used. Fully aware that there was nothing Jesus could do on the Sabbath. Notice how your emotions are stirred by this scene.

But Jesus raises the man up, places him centre stage, asks the question that cuts through the tradition to the heart of the Law. The man would live another day, could survive to be healed on another day, but why should he? What is your response to Jesus’ actions as you hear the Gospel scene read again?

After the healing, the reaction of the ‘they’. How does their reaction reflect on your experience of what is ‘right’? What does this experience say to you?

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.