On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Luke 6:6-11)
I’m writing this part after I had my time with God in his word, after I shared my box of sharing (to the left) online, and after having a time of prayer that followed the example of Jesus who “would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16). God wove these three stands together to minister to me in so many ways that left me knowing what he was saying, seeing what he was doing, and joining him in his work.
Have you ever read something about Jesus in the Bible and thought, “You mean that Jesus experienced the same things as me?”
The way this hit me today was in the definition of “watched”, as in, “And the scribes and Pharisees watched him…” The word carries nuances of meaning that are very telling of their soul-condition, but also very comforting to know that our Savior faced such things!
“Watched” means “to observe (keep watch over) v. — to watch attentively, as keeping a record of activities in the mind (for later use)” (Bible Sense Lexicon). When we picture the religious elites watching Jesus, we must include these factors. They were watching attentively, but not with curiosity about what they could learn about him. It wasn’t to see if his actions would answer questions about whether he truly was the Messiah.
Rather, it was the attentive eyes of narcissistic hearts building a record of Jesus’ activities that they could save as weapons for later use. And the extent of this narcissism is clarified in what they did when Jesus healed the man, “But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus” (vs 11), meaning, “how to destroy him” (Mark 3:6).
It helped me to look up Mark’s description of how Jesus felt about these religious narcissists: “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored” (Mark 3:5). The kind of anger Jesus felt in response to the hardness of heart in the scribes and Pharisees was “Anger: wrath n. — a feeling of intense anger that does not subside; often on an epic scale” (Bible Sense Lexicon). Yes, Jesus was THAT angry!
I learned a long time ago that anger is a secondary emotion. It is triggered by a primary emotion. In this case, Jesus’ primary emotion was “grieved at their hardness of heart” and his secondary emotion was intense anger that they were willing to destroy the work of God while claiming to be the teachers of the people of God.
The short story on how God ministered to me while I was praying was to turn my attention from what I have experienced to how it has affected me. He affirmed the narcissism I grew up with in my home. He agreed with my memory in all the narcissists I have seen destroying families and churches. And then he showed me that he saw the pain it had caused in me and how I learned from an early age to try to protect and defend myself.
The conclusion was that I attached to God in repentance and faith, repenting of every way I have succumbed to defending myself from the narcissists’ fault-finding instead of relying on him, renouncing any and all ground I may have surrendered to the enemy by relying on myself in this area, and declaring my faith that I would learn to trust him when in the narcissists’ line of fire the way Jesus did.
Now I am watching for who needs ministry along with me today and I intend to join God’s work in them with faith that Jesus is still at work to set the captives free. I also will watch carefully my feeling of anger at the narcissists who keep trying to destroy God’s work in others. I am eager to see what God does in me and around me as I walk with him today.
© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
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