Who healed on the Sabbath?

καὶ περιβλεψάμενος πάντας αὐτοὺς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρά σου· ὁ δὲ ἐποίησεν, καὶ ἀπεκατεστάθη ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ. αὐτοὶ δὲ ἐπλήσθησαν ἀνοίας, καὶ διελάλουν πρὸς ἀλλήλους τί ἂν ποιήσαιεν τῷ Ἰησοῦ.

Luke 6:10-11, SBL Greek NT

And looking around at them all, He said to him [the man with the withered right hand], “stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. But they [the Pharisees and scribes] were filled with folly, and discussed with one another what they should do to Jesus.

ἄνοια is folly, literally the characteristics of a fool, and not fury. It behoves us to not follow the example of the Pharisees and, instead, actually see what is on the page here. They saw something astonishing and wanted to know how to stop it. We see something very specific and say, “ah, Jesus” – and miss the whole point.

And what happens here is important because God deals with us exactly as Jesus dealt with this man. We hear God tell us to do something, and say, “yes Lord, absolutely, as soon as you give me money / heal my illness / solve my problem.” And so we miss the boat – and the blessing.

Jesus said to a man who couldn’t stretch out his hand, “stretch out your hand”. Listen to what happened: in this order

• He stretched out his hand
• His hand was restored

Who healed on the Sabbath? Jesus happily took the blame Himself (His mastery of misdirection for effect always amazes me) but “who healed” is almost the wrong question, and goes with our over-indexing on the notion of “the healer”. Believers with a gift of healing are very necessary, but the norm in the Kingdom is simple: God gets a word to us; if we trust Him and His word and act upon it, then we get His assignment done and receive the healing we need. Remember what Jesus said to the woman with the issue of blood: “your faith has saved you.”

But if anyone is to “blame” here, it is the man with the shrivelled hand, who acted on a Word from God and had his hand restored as a result. Jesus didn’t touch him, He didn’t speak healing over him, He just told him what to do. And the man wasn’t silly enough to demand healing before obeying. His obedience effected the healing.