Stretch out your faith

Mark 3: 1 - 6

Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” 4 Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. ​5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

When we consider different aspects of faith, we can recognize that there are two deep dimensions of it. First one, faith is a simple expression of human transcendence through which it is possible experience God's presence, especially when we face different issues. Secondly, once faith is organized, it operates in a framework that is related to other aspects, such as the culture, the traditions, and even ideologies. Sometimes it's hard to establish the frontiers between these different aspects, and we can confuse our spirituality with religion, our beliefs with ideologies, and our devotion with culture and traditions. That was the situation for Jews people even nowadays, but above all, during the Old Testament, nevertheless God presented Himself to them with different expressions of love and care and they were witness of His mercy and protection, the result was that generations of Jews developed the awareness about they are God's people, and they were totally right, but they forgot the main sense of this nature based in the God's plan more than their particular interests.

We can reflect on the previous paragraph's consideration through the passage of Mark 3: 1-6 where we found a concrete situation in which all these aspects of faith are involved. We can start analyzing the three persons involved in the passage. The first character is a person, without a name but with a condition; this man had a health issue in his hand, this person represents the whole of humanity affected throughout history by different diseases and illnesses. In this passage,e there is no reference to the cause of the problem but the personal reality as a person in need. The second character is Jesus, who is sensitized to the condition of this man and decides to act with mercy and love in favor of this person. Jesus also represents the part of humanity that assumes the pain of others with empathy, solidarity, and stewardship. The third character is the Pharisees group, which is a religious group with a lot of power derivative of their function based on traditions and culture. The Pharisees represent people affected by ideologies, religious or not, but this part of humanity that lives in a continuous cycle of scepticism and is trapped by ideologies and traditions. 

We can reflect on the different conflicts contained in the passage. The first conflict is the one that the man has with his own situation. He is suffering from the pain and the inflammation in his hand, which reduces his ability to work and live normally. This condition diminishes his dignity and his self-esteem, and this person depended on the charity coming from others to survive. The second conflict is the one the Pharisees showed against Jesus, whom they perceived as a threat to their interests due to the impact that Jesus had on the people around. Jesus represents a change for them, and they are not comfortable with that, so the conflict appears since they don't want to accept any kind of change in their status quo. The third conflict is reflected by Jesus, who expressed his discomfort with the attitude of the religious leaders due to a disconnection with God's plan to spread His love for humanity. As the conflict theory teach sometime the conflict is a set of various conflicts, because when we found usually, we must explore all the rest of the conflicts derived or involved before considering any kind of solution.

The passage also shows us different results from the same interaction. For example, for the person in need, the result of the interaction with Jesus was his healing, his health issue in his hand was healed, and he obtained a more empowered new life. For the pharisees the result was their decision to plot with Herodians against Jesus, and even they started to consider killing Him. For Jesus, the result was the way that His authority was showed for the humanity and how God's love was spread to people in need. The same situation had different dimensions for people involved in the same passage, as usually happens in life in general, not just for religious purposes, but in our daily life, we can face different situations with the same people and have different positions about them.

One thing that we can learn from this biblical passage is about how faith acts in ways that impact our simple reality, our personal reality, with little gestures coming from nature, from the simplicity of the days for good and for bed, our daily fights against our illness or our troubles. Usually, people react against the kindness even if they are not clear why, sometimes they have faced situation in their personal journey which has affected their perception of the reality, traumas and stress derivate from critical incidents can create a sense of cynicism or pessimism about life and sometimes we combine it with traditions or religions ideas and the result is a ideological interpretation of the spirituality. Jesus always acts in favor of people in need, in spite of the opposition; God shows His love and mercy even above human prejudice and judgments.

​We are people in need, all of us; we need God's mercy and God's love in our lives to alleviate our illness, loneliness, troubles, which are part of our personal reality, and God wants to be there with us to give the relief and the comfort through His Holy Spirit. Even so, we face the attitude of people around us who create tensions, doubts, and with their attitudes affect our faith and our spirituality. We must remember that Jesus always strengthens our faith through His signs, faithfulness, and mercy, and we can rest in His goodwill for our lives amid the tensions of our hard days, but also celebrate His presence in our lives in the little gestures and tenderness through a lot of simple details. We need to increase our spiritual sensibility to perceive God's presence in everything through our worship and prayer journey. We need to stretch out our faith to touch God's will, which is in our favor, and to receive the blessing coming from the highest.