The Cure for the Hardness of Hearts - Mark 3:1-6

Reflection on Mark 3:1-6 – The Cure for the Hardness of Hearts

This week in the Roman Lectionary we read the passage from Mark’s Gospel where Jesus cures the man with a withered hand (Mark 3:1-6). This six verses are packed with details and knowledge that gives us much to think about and reflect upon. Jesus has already created controversy and conflict with the Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath, and yet he does it again here. Let’s take a broad look at the scene and see what we can find that may help us in our desire to become better disciples of Jesus Christ.

We begin with Jesus entering a synagogue on the Sabbath, the great day of Jewish rest. The special day that set the Jews apart from the rest of the pagan nations. The Pharisees are present and are watching Jesus closely to see what he will do. They want to know if he would break the Law, as they said he had done in the past. Would he will maintain their reading and application of Deuteronomy 5:12-14 “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.”? According to the Pharisees, this meant that no kind of “work” could be done, either for good or evil, it did not matter to them at all.

Jesus realizes full well what they are looking for. Does he change his plan because of this? No, he calls the man with the withered hand to him. Notice that the man says nothing to our Lord. Jesus simply sees this man who is in need of healing and does it. Jesus recognizes what is lacking in this man, what is stopping him from being able to be God’s faithful disciple. One who is ready to serve both God and man, because of this man’s hand, he could not do this. Therefore, Jesus is ready and determined to heal the man. When he asks the Pharisees, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4) do they give a reply to our Lord’s question? No, they remain silent, and look to see what Jesus will do next. They fail to see to true purpose of the Sabbath, a time for rest and restoration between God and man. They have turned the keeping of the day into one of many rules and obligations. As a result, it has completely lost its true God given purpose, that made the day holy from creation on. As we are told in Genesis “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (2:3)

Because of their lack of response, our Lord knows what they are thinking about, what plans they are making to take care of him, and he is angry because of this (3:5). Why might he be angry? Does that seem like an emotion that Jesus would normally show? It is only here in Mark’s account of this story are we told about this, not in Matthew and Luke. This does not look very much like the pictures of a laughing Jesus that I have seen before. Who then is this Jesus that Mark is telling us about? The Jesus we find here is looking at the very people that he has come for, to save and redeem, but they cannot see it. The have become the blind leading the blind. Furthermore, they will not believe that this man Jesus is the Messiah sent to them by God. Who they have been longing for has come and they are missing out. Here we find God the Lord, acting though Jesus, doing what he has always said he would do and they will not accept it. In turn, this lack of faith in the Living God angers Jesus, because the Father is about to give all and they will give nothing in return. This is the same point that St. John makes in his Gospel, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (John 1:11)

Then we are told what I think is the most important detail in this passage, that Jesus was, “grieved at their hardness of heart.” (Mark 3:5) Here we encounter the chief problem with humanity, the “hardness of heart.” This has been the key issue with man since the Fall of Adam, as we are told in Genesis, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5) We are a people that need to be restored from the inside out. A people who must be recreated and transformed by the Holy Spirit to serve both God and our fellow man. Jesus is “grieved” because of the situation that men find themselves in. But he is even more grieved because has brought the cure for the “hardness of heart”, and the Pharisees as many people today, will not partake in it. Yes, we must realize, Jesus himself is the divine Physician that has come to fix this problem that plagues and entraps man daily. We are reminded of this in one of the prayers of Eastern Liturgy, where we find Jesus referred to as the, “Physician of our souls and bodies”.  King David identified the need for this cure when we wrote Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” (51:10) Jesus is the one who was promised by the Prophet Ezekiel when we read, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (36:25-26) Sounds very much like baptism, yes? You bet it does. There God turns hearts of stone, into hearts of flesh. In the font, God transforms death into life and darkness into light. St. Paul sees plainly this truth about Jesus, when he tells us in Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (6:4)

Jesus then does heal the man and the Pharisees want to destroy Jesus because of this. They see him as someone who is leading the people of Israel in the wrong direction and he has to be dealt with. They completely miss the coming of the Lord and the restoration of mankind that has broken into the world with Jesus. We know the full result of this on Good Friday. What about us? Do we recognize Jesus as the cure for the “hardness of heart” or do we look elsewhere, trying to find some other medicine that might make us happy or complete? This Gospel reminds us that it is only when we follow Jesus, when we have his powerful Spirit dwelling in us from our baptism on, will we become the people who God created us to be. Broken and hard hearts are only refashioned around the altar of the Lord. Our relationship with Jesus through his Church and the Sacraments becomes the hospital where the cure happens. The cure does not come from pressuring a life full of money, sex, or power, but a life full of the Holy Spirit. It’s worth asking, when our Lord looks at each of us, is he saddened or angry? Hopefully instead, he is joyful, knowing that through us he is at work in the world.