Then Jesus looked at them with anger, grieved at the blindness of their heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
This verse reveals two sides of Christ’s heart at the same time: holy anger and deep sorrow. He is angry not at the persons themselves, but because of the hardness of their heart, which opposed God’s mercy; and at the same time He grieves, because they were darkened and insensitive toward the truth. Christ’s anger is never a sinful human outburst. It is a holy resistance to evil. His sorrow is not a mere emotion either, but the pain of a merciful heart that a person resists the source of life. Then the Lord says, “Stretch out your hand.” This was a command that, outwardly, seemed impossible to do. But in Christ’s word there is the power that both demands and at the same time gives the ability to carry it out. The man obeys, stretches out his withered hand, and in that very obedience he is healed. This is an important spiritual picture. Many times a person waits to first receive full strength, and then obey God. But the Gospel shows that divine power is revealed within the obedient step. So also the man with the withered hand was healed not by his own strength, but by the Lord’s word, to which he responded in faith.