Following Jesus through Mark
Reflection for Wednesday, First Week in OT – January 11, 2023
The Gospel passage we have heard today presents to us the continuation of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee. If you would recall, Jesus began his mission of preaching the Good News of Salvation that God’s reign is at hand (Mk 1:15). And he proved the veracity of the Good News by miraculously expelling the demon from a possessed man to the great amazement of everyone (Mk 1:23-28).
Today we see Jesus working out another surprising miracle, the cure of Simon’s mother-in-law who had been sick with fever (Mk 1:29-31). It seems that when Jesus called his first few disciples (see Mk 1:16-20) he did not really mean to cut off all their connections with their families. In fact in this story we find Jesus coming to visit Simon’s house by the lake. I believe this beautiful gesture happened not by chance. He probably knew all the while that Simon’s mother-in-law was seriously sick. And so upon entering the house, he approached her, grasped her by the hand, and helped her to get up. Amazingly she immediately got cured, walked straight to the kitchen and started preparing some food for her honored guests like as if she had never been sick at all.
Today Jesus is being revealed to us as someone who knows us well and cares for what concerns us most. If we give our prompt YES to his call to the extent of dropping everything and leaving behind our beloved, he will certainly take our place in the family. He would take over our worries, problems and concerns, and he will take care of the family and friends we care for. His urgent call is therefore also a challenge to trust fully in the power of his love and mercy.
In fact the most amazing part of the gospel story we just heard is this. When people started bringing to Jesus all the sick and those possessed by demons, Jesus did not hesitate to cure them all (Mk 1:32-34). Even if they might not have been related at all to Simon and Andrew or the two other disciples with them, all the same Jesus blessed them with his healing hand and saved them from all that afflicted them.
Those miracles that Jesus performed truly proved the veracity of the Good News which he had begun to proclaim. It can indeed be said that God was with his people and He was so much at work in this man from Nazareth, the newly anointed Messiah.
Let us pray for each other that we may continue to follow Jesus this 2023 hoping to get to know him more deeply through our reflective reading of Mark’s Gospel. May this Eucharist empower us to persevere in walking along with Jesus following the footsteps of St. Mark, the first Evangelist to have written the Gospel. GiGsss!
P.S.
In the succeeding days and weeks we shall be reading everyday from the gospel written by St Mark. And our daily reflective reading of this Gospel will enable us to get to know Jesus more deeply from the perspective of a Jew who might not have been among the twelve apostles but was in fact a true disciple, perhaps among the seventy disciples sent by Jesus in Luke 10. Our journey from here onwards will be as if we were following Jesus along the footsteps of St Mark.
Mark’s Gospel is actually the earliest gospel to be written down and the shortest of the four as it consists of sixteen chapters only. It is the gospel usually recommended to beginners whether Christians or non-Christians who want to start reading the Bible, and are interested to getting to know Jesus more deeply. I also recommend it to those of you who have never really succeeded to open the Bible and read one book at a time. If you have not yet read any of the books of the Bible, I strongly recommend that you start reading not from the Book of Genesis which is the first book of the Old Testament, but rather from the Gospels found in the New Testament, particularly the gospel according to Mark. It is very important that we, who want to take our faith seriously especially after celebrating the fifth centenary of our Catholic faith, get to have a good overview of the life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; for he is the focal point of the entire Scriptures. In that way our Bible reading will be better contextualized. Once you start your personal reading of Mark’s gospel, you should keep in mind that the author did not begin with the birth of Jesus. This evangelist’s aim was simply to present Jesus as the promised Messiah and Son of God from the time that he was baptized in the Jordan until the time that he rose from the dead and commissioned his apostles to spread the good news. Later on other evangelists like Matthew and Luke would add in their respective accounts what Mark had missed or omitted in his gospel. These are the ones who would write about the annunciation to Mary, the birth and the infancy of Jesus.
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