Jesus and a Man With a Deformed Hand

Riley explaining the game for this morning.

It was great to be back at Founders this morning! Because there was no school last week we did several different hangouts at different locations. Some kids played ultimate frisbee while others had breakfast at Cinnamon Productions, and then couple others whent surfing and mountain biking. It was an action packed morning last week!

One of our leaders, Riley, has been leading at a local church called Mission Hills in their high school group and shared a game they had played over there with us today. It was kind of a play on "twister." There were different body parts written on pieces of paper and kids had to hold these pieces of paper up by pressing the specific body parts together. The winning team was able to hold 10 at the same time!

After the game I got the opportunity to share about Jesus healing a man with a deformed hand. This is one of my favorite stories because it shows a few different things about Jesus, and shows us what is really important when it comes to knowing and following God.

The story is found in the second book of the New Testament, Mark 3:1-6.

The setting of the story is a synagogue. Synagogues functioned much like our modern day churches. They were places where people would come to learn about God and worship. The day was a Sabbath Day. The Sabbath was a day in the week that Jew's set aside to refrain from work. God had told them to do this after he set them free from Egypt. While the command was to do no work, a certain group of religious people had made a huge list of rules to determine what constituted work to make sure they knew they were obeying the letter of the law. These people were called Pharisees and they tried their best to follow every rule and regulation, even making additional rules that would help them keep the original rules. For them, religion was all about rules and regulations.

In the synagogue that day there was a man with a deformed, or shriveled hand. Jesus was there and the Bible says that he noticed this man. Men from the Pharisee group were also there and noticed that Jesus noticed the man. According to their rules, healing was work, so it was not allowed on the Sabbath day (a person couldn't even wash themselves on the Sabbath day). They watched Jesus closely, waiting for him to heal the man so they could accuse him of breaking the law. At this point they were waiting to find a way to discredit what Jesus was doing because it stood in contrast to their way. They were about rules and regulations… Jesus was about loving God and compassionately loving others.

Jesus, seeing that they were watching him, asked the man to come front and center so that everyone could see him. Then he asked the Pharisees, "Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is it a day to save life or destroy it?" The Pharisees had no answer. What could they say? Mark says that Jesus, "looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts."

When religion becomes about rules and regulations, hearts get hard. That kind of religion breeds judgement, and rigidity. When rules become the focus, its easy to begin to judge others based off of the rules you think they should be obeying. Also, when our focus is on the rules, the things we should or shouldn't do, we loose sight of the one we are trying to obey, and the people around us that we are called to love and care for. It would be like playing a game, and only trying to obey the rules instead of actually playing the game. Imagine a basketball team that decided they would make it their number one goal to keep from breaking a rule or fouling anyone. They would never win a game, and they would be incredibly boring to watch. While obedience is important to God, and some rules help us be obedient, they are not the main point.

With this man front and center, Jesus asked him to stretch out his hand, and it was totally healed. As soon as the Pharisees saw this, they rushed off to start making plans to kill Jesus. Remember what Jesus had asked, "Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is it a day to save life or destroy it?" These rule following men were now breaking their own rules in order to destroy a life. The irony!

Mark says that Jesus looked at them with both anger and sadness. Jesus was about restoring life, and then inviting people into a full, real, good life. The religious leaders of the time didn't understand. To them there was nothing more important than the rules, and they often ended up systematically hurting people. They were cold and judgmental. Jesus was loving and forgiving.

The invitation of Jesus is not an invitation to a life of constantly checking to make sure you are doing all the right things and not doing the bad ones. Jesus is not asking you to be a cold robot, focusing only on what you are doing wrong or right. He is inviting you into a life of loving him, trusting him, and loving and caring for others. There are things we can do to experience life more fully, and sometimes these things can feel like rules, but the point is developing trust in God, and a growing relationship with him.

Jesus is the only one that can give real, true, and good life. Rules can't provide that. Jesus is the one that can change a life, and restore a person to the person he created them to be. Rules can't do that. Some rules are very important, and obedience to God is very important… but joyless obedience is not what God desires, and it normally ends up missing the mark completely. Loving God and loving others like we love ourselves is the point, the point of life, and when they stay in the center, true life begins to flourish.

So, if you want to talk to your kid about WyldLife this week, ask them about the game, and how it was played. Ask them about what Jesus did to the man with the deformed hand, and why people wanted to kill him for it. Then ask them what following Jesus is all about.