Mark 3:5

‘And when he had looked round on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he says to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out and his hand was restored.'

‘He -- looked round on them with anger.' Jesus was angry because these men, who considered themselves to be especially devout, were deliberately and arrogantly closing their minds to what, within themselves, they knew to be true. It is one of the specific marks of the depths of man's sinfulness that he can consider himself devout and yet act wrongly for his own ends, while at the same time convincing himself that what he is doing is justified. For the truth is that man learns to control and quench the niggling of the conscience. We are all good at doing it. And that was what these men were doing. We must beware lest we become like these Pharisees.

But He was also grieved. The word means ‘to mourn with'. There was an element in it of both compassion and grief, and of an awareness of their dreadful condition. He knew that their hearts ‘were hardened', (or many consider it means ‘were blinded'). And He must have thought, ‘if only these men could allow the barriers they had built around themselves to break down'. But He was beginning to recognise that they were basically unteachable, because the wall that they had built around the Law had been built around their hearts too. And they could no longer be moved. So Jesus was both angry and grieved. Indeed He had a whole mixture of emotions at the situation. He grieved at them and He grieved for them.

‘He says to the man, “Stretch out your hand”.' Jesus knew exactly what He was doing. He knew what the reaction would be. But He knew that He had to do it, for they were specifically challenging His authority to act as He was doing. They were seeking to make Him bend to the will of the Rabbis and admit that His claims at the previous incident had been excessive. But this He could not do, for He did have God's authority to question the interpretations of the Rabbis, and He wanted all to know it. (Had He been a fellow Rabbi they might have accepted this argument once he had established a great reputation. But to them He was just an outsider making great and dangerous claims so that His argument was considered not to be worth examining. So He was challenging their authority just as they were challenging His).

‘And his hand was restored.' Before their very eyes they saw that weakened, withered, pitiful arm become whole. This was a picture of what Jesus could also do for men's whole being (compare Mark 2:17) and of what He could do for Israel (John 15:1). Here was the One who had come to restore withered Israel. How then could they still maintain their stubbornness? But they had come knowing that Jesus could heal, and so its message did not get home. In a sense they did not see it. They were concentrating too much on what they were defending to consider the implications of what He had done. They were fighting for their very existence. And so unbelievably they dismissed the clinching argument, and did not even realise it.