IT was the Sabbath day; and, as His custom was, our Lord repaired to the synagogue. Synagogues were not places of worship (there was but one such place in Israel—God’s temple in Jerusalem): they were merely buildings in which copies of the Scriptures were kept under the charge of an official; whose duty it was to allow the people to read them and to expound them to one another. The Saviour descried a man in the synagogue with a withered hand. His whole heart of compassion went forth at once toward him. He had but recently been criticized by the Pharisees for permitting His disciples to relieve their hunger in the cornfield on the Sabbath day; this afflicted man became a fresh ground of objection with them. According to Mark and Luke He put this question to them: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do evil?” Matthew adds the query, “What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep?” (Matt. 12:9-149And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue: 10And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. 11And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? 12How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. 13Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. 14Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. (Matthew 12:9‑14)).
The natural heart loves forms. Religious ordinances appeal powerfully to it. For the due observance of them according to their own thoughts, religionists have ever been ready to contend fiercely, even at the risk of hindering God’s work of grace. What cared the Pharisees of our Lord’s day that the land was full of misery if only Sabbath forms were carried out punctiliously? Many in this day, inheriting their spirit, would rather souls go unshepherded and perish than that established customs should be touched. Nothing so deceives the heart as religion without heart-conversion to God; nothing so betrays men into the most egregious inconsistency. The men who quibbled about our Lord healing on the Sabbath day saw no wrong in plotting on that day to murder Him. At a later date the priests abstained from crossing Pilate’s threshold lest such close contact with a Gentile should defile them and unfit them to eat the Passover; yet it never occurred to their seared consciences that it was infinitely more defiling to shed an innocent man’s blood! Oh, religion without God, how dark has been thy record of inconsistency and sin!
The Saviour suffered nothing to hinder the outflow of His goodness. Forms could not bind Him. Accordingly, the afflicted one was bidden to stretch forth his hand, and it was made whole as the other. Many of us suffer from withered hands at this hour. Sin has so paralyzed us that we can do nothing for God. No good works can we accomplish, however deeply we may feel the necessity of them. But there is salvation in what Christ has done. His precious atoning sacrifice suffices for all our need. The man who confides in Him is blessed apart altogether from meritorious works of every kind. One result of His blessing is that the hand, once withered, becomes empowered to do somewhat for Him in the midst of a burdened and suffering creation.