Reflection for January 20, Wednesday of the Second Week: Mark 3:1-6

Gospel Mark 3:1-6

Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  

But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.

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Reflection:

Do you always help? 

To help those who are in need is for all season; it is not strictly confined nor enclosed to certain days or hours. As long as there are those who are in need of our help, then we must help by all means for this is what God wants us to do.  

We see it in the gospel today; there is this man with a withered hand but it so happen that it was a Sabbath day. Did Jesus thought of not healing this man because it was Sabbath day and His usual critics were closely monitoring Him? 

No He did not! He instead called the man and said: Come up here before us and He said again: Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored. 

We must not be afraid to help regardless of who the person is and no matter the circumstances that we are in. If we have the capacity to help by all means we must help. But the reality of it all is this: Some of us help selectively, we choose the person that we would help. Many of us specially help those who can reciprocate the help that we’ve done; perhaps this is human nature.  

But Jesus is challenging us through our gospel that we must transcend it and not be selective on extending help. – Marino J. Dasmarinas