Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
In Mark’s gospel today, he lets us know that Jesus’ following is growing by a lot. And fast. He is attracting crowds not just from cities and towns in Galilee, but also from Judea and Idumea, some 130 plus miles south of Nazareth. They are also coming from coastal towns like Sidon, which is about 130 miles north of Jerusalem. And the crowds are big! They are so big, in fact, that Jesus has to get on a boat off shore to avoid being crushed.
Why are so many coming from far and wide? Because they have heard what he has been doing—especially, healing the sick and casting out demons.
Of course, in Jesus’ day, there were no emergency rooms or health care plans. No vaccines. No antibiotics. If you got sick, you didn’t have a lot of options. Contract leprosy or a mental illness and, bingo, you don’t just have an affliction to deal with. You are also suddenly a social pariah. Nobody will get near you.
And then Jesus steps onto the scene and changes everything. Suddenly, your affliction (whether a physical or mental illness or something else) is not necessarily the end of your story.
Jesus might intervene on your behalf. And if he does, one minute you are a paralytic lying on a mat and being lowered through, of all things, a hole in a roof. And next thing you know, Jesus says the word, you pick up your mat, and head home. Can you imagine how thrilled you would be? Think what it would mean for your family when you return? Your life would be transformed.
People, lots of people, who had seen what Jesus was doing, knew that, with him, what might look like your fate may not be. Of course, people suffered and died in Jesus’ time. He wasn’t trying to heal every sick person on the planet. But he did heal some. And many he did heal and others witnessed that.
To be sure, not all of the people who came to see Jesus suffered some affliction. Indeed, many (according to biblical commentators) were not even his followers or believers. But all of them—the sick, the well, the curious—were apparently willing to travel, perhaps for days on foot, to witness what Jesus was doing. It makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to catch a glimpse of this man who, with a word or a gesture, could make all things new for so many? Who was this man from Galilee who had the power to radically alter the trajectories of people’s lives?
Here was a man who turned fate into possibility. Or, better put, here was a man who made even the impossible possible. And as if to underscore how incredible the Good News of these healings and exorcisms was, Jesus “warns” the demons “sternly” that they should stop calling him the Son of God. They are not to talk about why it is that Jesus can liberate the sick, the demon-possessed, the paralytic.
Yep. That should work, Jesus. Mum’s the word!
Or not. Praise be to God!
-Sue Trollinger