The scribes and pharisees "were furious, and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus". Evidently, they weren't interested in the man who was healed, and their strong reaction to the miracle was not because of the miracle itself but because Jesus had done it on a Sabbath day. He'd already claimed that He was master of the Sabbath. But what did the rest of the congregation in the synagogue that day think? Jesus had publicly and deliberately called the man to stand out in the middle: were people not amazed at the healing that took place right before their eyes? did they have a problem that it was the Sabbath day? People today don't pay much attention at all to the Sabbath or 'the Lord's Day', so perhaps we might find the whole incident uninteresting and irrelevant. Or maybe it's time to ask ourselves about how we actually do keep the Lord's Day, apart from its duty" hour of going to church. We are of course no longer 'slaves' to the sabbath, but have we perhaps forgotten that the Sabbath is a gift for us, a healing day, and instead make ourselves slaves to something else? What am I busy about on Sundays?

It was not long after this event that Jesus spent a whole night in prayer before choosing His 'special' twelve. Had some of them been there that day? Later, it was they who spoke up and gave witness to a far greater healing miracle, the saving of the world through Jesus' passion and resurrection.