Politics as usual

Mark 3:1-6

            Sometimes I get so angry over the politics of our time. Back door deals and stubborn attachments to a political agenda or ideology makes it so that nothing really gets accomplished. It is frustrating for the average Joe's like us working hard and living our daily lives.  One of the surprises of seeing that great movie Lincoln, was the extent of the politics back in that time. Part of Lincoln that was so good was that you got so caught up in the movie that you wondered how it was all going to turn out!

            If it was frustrating to realize just how politics were alive in the 1860's, it must be astonishing to read this passage and see that it was equally alive in the time of Christ. The Pharisees conspiring with the Herodians. The Herodians. There's a word you don't hear every day but some Googling and some reading on Wiki and you get a sense of it all.

          It seems things never go quite as well as you' like even when you know you are righteous or have God on your side. It certainly didn't go well for our Lord did it?

          So what lesson is to be learned here then? Should we roll over and give up? Absolutely not. Jesus knew he was being watched in the synagogue. It didn't stop him from doing what was right, being true to his nature. It did not stop him from living out the love of the Father. It should not stop us either.  If you let yourself get lost in the fact that there is conspiring and politics going on, you might fail to see that Jesus cured a man of his withered hand. A miracle. A gesture of love, forgiveness. Jesus gives the man a new beginning in spite of the politics. 

           As it is with Jesus always, He promises and delivers new beginnings every day in spite of what may be going on in the world.

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.