In just a few words here, Mark described several of the patterns of Jesus’ ministry: taking time for prayer, healing, and bringing good news to different places.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-39). Last week we heard about Jesus preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum — although we heard less about what he taught than about his healing of a man possessed by a demon and how much that impressed the others who were there.
When Jesus left the synagogue with his disciples, they went to Simon Peter’s house, and Jesus continued his healing activity: first healing Simon Peter’s mother (correction: mother-in-law) from a fever, and then others who were brought to the house over the course of the evening and into the night. In the morning, Jesus went off by himself to pray. Simon Peter and the disciples found him and they said, “Everybody is looking for you.” Jesus said, “Let us go on to the other villages in Galilee and bring the good news to them.”
Mark here describes some of the characteristics of Jesus’ ministry that would be repeated over and over again in the course of the gospel, in the course of Jesus’ activity. One is this focus upon the healing ministry. It demonstrated not only Jesus’ power but his compassion, his ability to reach out to those who were suffering and who needed to be freed from their afflictions.
We also see Jesus’ need for his own time to pray, to be renewed, to be refreshed, before he went off into ministry again. This, in fact, even though it’s only the first chapter in Mark, is the second time that Jesus had done this. Jesus went off by himself immediately after his baptism.
And we find that, unlike John the Baptist, Jesus’ ministry would be one that was mobile. He would not stay in one place that people would come to him. Jesus went to where the people were who had not yet heard his message, who had not yet had access to his compassion and his power.
What that argues for us, I suspect, will differ, because each of us has a different call. Some of us are called to be the John the Baptist who is in one place and can be found. Others of us are called to go from one place to another in order that we might bring the blessings that God has given us to share with different people in different places.
But for certain we, like Jesus, need that special time for us and for God, that recovery time and renewal time, and like Jesus when that time has taken place, it is time to go forth once more, whether that is in the place that we’ve always been or on to a new place. to share God’s blessings with those who are so deeply in need.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. lLeave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
