REFLECTION
JOB 7:1-4, 6-7 1 CORINTHIANS 9:16-19 MARK 1:29-39
Today’s Gospel continues to report the events of Jesus’ first day of ministry. We read last week that he went to the synagogue in Capernaum for the Morning Prayer and then addressed the congregants. They were quite struck by the simplicity and authority with which he spoke. He wasn’t at all like the religious leaders. He also liberated a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit. Leaving the man’s body, the spirit cried out that Jesus was “the Holy One of God.” We’re told that, because of these events, “his fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.”
The dramatic events of the day continued after the Morning Service as Jesus, Simon, Andrew, James and John left the synagogue. They went to Simon’s home for the Sabbath meal. What took place in the synagogue was a public presentation of Jesus’ ministry. What took place at Simon’s home was just the opposite – it was an intimate teaching for this new family of disciples. As soon as Jesus arrived the people in the house told him that Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever.
In Jesus’ day medicine was mixed with magic and incantations. A fever was cured by using a lock of hair from the sick person to tie an iron knife onto a thorn bush. The person returned to the bush for three consecutive days, each day quoting a portion of the account of God speaking to Moses from the burning bush. There were times Jesus used common techniques to cure. There is an instance when he made mud with his saliva and smeared it on the eye lids of a man born blind. He then told the man to wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. Another time he put his fingers into the ears of a man who was deaf and mute and then put his saliva on the man’s tongue. Most of the time, however, Jesus cured with a mere command or a touch.
As soon as he heard of the fever Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering, he went to her, “grasped her hand and helped her up.” The cure was as simple as that. Jesus spoke no words or incantations. He said no prayers. It all seemed so natural. It was the Sabbath. Jesus and his four new disciples came to the house to partake in the
Sabbath meal. It was a special meal, a sacred meal, an essential element of the Shabbat Shalom, the sharing in the peaceful rest God took on the day after the creation of the world. Jesus restored her to her ministry of preparing the sacred meal. “The fever left her and she waited on them.”
There’s a lesson behind this healing. His first disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John would, one day, discover that they couldn’t continue their ministry relying solely on their own strength. They would personally need the powerful, healing touch of Jesus. Only then would they be strong. Only then could the power of Jesus work through them.
At sundown of that same day, when the Sabbath rest was over, the people from the surrounding area came to the house bringing with them, the sick and possessed. He cured them all. We have to note the difference between the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law and the healing of the people. The people came to Jesus to get something from him. He cured their sick; they were happy and returned to their ordinary lives. Simon’s mother-in-law was cured and immediately began to minister to Jesus and his disciples. This is the second lesson we can draw from this remarkable day. If we’ve been touched by the healing hand of Jesus we’ve also been called to minister to others. Maybe we could say that our healing is the invitation to to follow him – to take up his ministry.
