January 11, 2023 – Mark 1:29-39
The Gospel passage is a continuation of yesterday’s. We are in Capernaum and it is still the Sabbath. Jesus, after being at the
synagogue, goes to the home of his two disciples, Simon and Andrew. Being the Sabbath, one could not go very far or
do anything that could be labeled “work.”
Arriving at the house and learning that Peter’s mother-in-law is confined to her
bedridden because of a fever, he went to see her, took her by the hand, lifted her
lifts her up and heals her. The woman immediately gets up and begins to serve them not simply because this is the role of a woman in the home, but because it is the duty of every Christian – man or woman – to serve. Healing does not only mean regaining the health of the body, but enabling a person to become an active and serving member of the community.
Jesus never tires of healing the sick, thus demonstrating the mercy and compassion
of the Heavenly Father to every sick person who approaches Him in faith. In the evening, after the sabbatical sabbatical, people bring all their sick loved ones to Jesus for healings and exorcisms and He heals them all.
“Evening came,” for the first time we find these words that we will find again five
times. Why after the setting of the sun? Precisely because it is the Sabbath and on the Sabbath you cannot perform any action, much less heal the sick. While at home the need for a person, even if it is a woman, is considered more important than the observance of the Sabbath commandment, in the city the observance of the law is more important than the good of the people, therefore, one waits for the Sabbath to end. The observance of the law delays not only the healing, but more importantly the experience of the Lord’s love. Jesus starts the next day very early, spending time in prayer in a solitary place.
This is the first of three times in this gospel when Jesus prays, and he will always do so at critical moments. He will pray in chapter 6 at the time of the sharing of the loaves, a time of exaltation for the disciples, and he will pray, then, in chapter 14 at Gethsemane, a moment of crisis for
the disciples.
“He said to them, Let us go elsewhere to the neighboring villages, that I may preach there also.” These words show a change in Jesus’ strategy. In the synagogue he had been teaching, teaching means expounding the newness from the texts of the Old Testament. Now Jesus, after the confrontation in the synagogue, changes strategy, he does not teach but preaches, preaching means proclaiming the newness of the kingdom without referring to Scripture.
For good workers…
We are called to continue Jesus’ mission primarily by witnessing to Christ by our
our daily life and with his spirit of humble service to our brothers and sisters.
P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ