Our Lord Jesus Christ: Healing and preaching
It’s the 5th Sunday in ordinary time and today’s gospel reading gives us an idea of the mission that God the Father gave his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ… to preach the good news of God’s salvation and heal the sick where they can be found. Our Lord Jesus Christ did even more than just healed the sick, he also cast out evil spirits. Please read today’s gospel reading in Mark 1:29-39.
“On leaving the synagogue, Jesus went to the home of Simon and Andrew with James and John. As Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with fever, they immediately told him about her. Jesus went to her and, taking her by the hand, raised her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
That evening at sundown, people brought to Jesus all the sick and those who had evil spirits; the whole town was pressing around the door. Jesus healed many who had various diseases, and drove out many demons, but he did not let them speak, for they knew who he was.
Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where he prayed. Simon and the others went out also, searching for him; and when they found him, they said, “everyone is looking for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Let us go to the nearby villages so that I may preach there too; for that is why I came.” So Jesus set out to preach in all the synagogues throughout Galilee, he also cast out demons.”
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I have been to the synagogue that’s featured in this gospel story and it’s literally a stone’s throw away from the house of Simon Peter in Capernaum. Even today, Capernaum is a very small place… not much different from the Capernaum in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ. This scene happens at the beginning of the Galilean ministry of our Lord. So the newly chosen Apostles, Simon, Andrew, James and John were able to witness a minor miracle that our Lord Jesus Christ gave to the mother-in-law of Simon.
Just imagine Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in her bed sick with a fever, while our Lord Jesus Christ was preaching in the synagogue next door. So when our Lord Jesus Christ was told by Simon about his sick mother-in-law, he went to her room and healed her and she immediately stood up and waited on them. When the people in Capernaum heard that this man Jesus Christ from Nazareth had healed Simon’s sick mother-in-law, many sick people in Capernaum went to Simon’s house, crowding the main door and they were all healed of their various diseases and the evil demons exorcised.
The healings no doubt lasted from early evening and into early dawn. Without resting, our Lord Jesus Christ left the house and went to a lonely place to pray. If you visit Capernaum today, which is by the shore of Lake Galilee, just across the main road there… is nothing but a deserted area; it must have been that place where our Lord went to pray alone.
This gospel reading gives us an idea of what was a day in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, early in his Galilean ministry. He first went to their synagogue to preach the Good News of God’s salvation. Then he healed the sick and cast out demons… into the night and early morning. After this, he went to pray alone in a deserted place.
Perhaps you may be wondering how do we pray to get healed? If indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ is a healer, more often than not, when we pray for our sick relatives and friends, especially those who have cancer… sometimes it seems that God doesn’t listen to our prayers? First of all, allow me to remind our readers that we should pray without ceasing. More often than not, many of us pray to God when we are in dire need of his healing. But when things are going good… many of us never have time to pray.
There is no question that if you don’t have faith in God, there’s a good chance that your prayers won’t be answered. So you may ask… how do we get our faith? First of all, faith is a gift that God himself bestows upon each and every one of us. Remember what the Evangelist Matthew wrote in Matt. 16:13-19 during Simon Peter’s confession? When Simon Peter said to our lord Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus then said to him, “Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”
What our Lord Jesus told Simon Peter when he told him that he was the Messiah… he didn’t hear from a human being nor was it whispered to him by someone he met in the marketplace. It was the Holy Spirit who lives within us that revealed that truth to Simon Peter. Thus faith is a gift that God gives to his children. In Mark 5:25-34, a woman who had a hemorrhage for 12-years touched the tassel of our Lord Jesus and she was healed. Jesus realized that someone had touched him and she turned to the woman and said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”
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