Stretch Out What Has Become Withered

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In today’s Gospel, a man walks into the synagogue with a withered hand. Everyone can see that something in his life is broken. But instead of simply seeing a person who needs healing, the scribes and Pharisees are watching Jesus, waiting to see if He will do something “wrong”. That is the strange part. A miracle is about to happen, and they are more interested in catching Jesus than in seeing a man restored. And maybe that is the first question for us: When God is doing something good, are we able to recognise it, or are we too busy judging how it should happen?

Jesus calls the man forward and tells him, “Stretch out your hand.” Think about that for a moment. Jesus asks him to stretch out the very thing that is weak, damaged, and probably embarrassing. He does not tell him to hide it. He tells him to bring it forward. And that may be the heart of this Gospel. God often heals what we are willing to bring into the light. We spend so much energy hiding the parts of our lives that feel withered: the relationship that has gone cold, the prayer life that feels empty, the resentment we have carried for years, the sin we keep returning to, the wound we pretend no longer hurts.

But Jesus says, “Stretch it out.” In other words: bring Me the part of your life that you think cannot change. Sometimes we want God to heal us without exposing the wound. We want freedom without honesty, forgiveness without confession, healing without vulnerability. But grace usually begins when we stop pretending. That is why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is so powerful. We bring before Christ precisely what is weak and wounded, and we discover that the place we are most ashamed of can become the place where His mercy is most clearly revealed.

There is another kind of withering in this Gospel too. The man’s hand is withered, but the hearts of the Pharisees have also become rigid. And Jesus seems more disturbed by that. A withered hand can be healed in a moment; a hardened heart is much harder to heal because it does not think it needs healing. That is worth thinking about. Maybe the greatest danger in the spiritual life is not weakness. Maybe it is becoming so certain, so defensive, so fixed in our own way of seeing things that we no longer allow God to surprise us.

So perhaps today Jesus is asking each of us one simple question: What has become withered in you? What have you stopped hoping could change? Bring it to Him. Stretch it out. It may feel weak. It may feel awkward. It may even hurt. But the man in the Gospel stretched out his hand, and it was restored. The invitation is the same for us: do not hide what needs healing. Place it before Christ and let Him do what only He can do.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, Give me the courage to bring them before You without pretending. Soften what has become rigid in my heart, restore what has become withered, and teach me to trust that no part of my life is beyond Your healing. Amen.

– Homily by Rev Fr Patrick Agbeko