Wednesday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 1:29-39

We continue following a day in the public life of Jesus. It was still the Sabbath and, after the synagogue service, Jesus now goes to the house of his two disciples, Simon and Andrew, in Capernaum. Remember that, as it was the Sabbath, people could not go very far or do anything which could be labelled ‘work’.

In the house, Jesus finds Peter’s mother-in-law confined to bed because of a fever. When he is told about it, he immediately goes to see her, takes her by the hand, lifts her up and heals her. Immediately, she gets up and begins to serve them. This is not simply because that is the role of a woman in the home. Rather, it is a way of saying that it is the role of any Christian—man or woman—to serve. Healing is not just to make one well, but to enable one to become again an active, serving member of the community.

In the evening, once the Sabbath was over, people were free to move around. So large numbers come seeking out Jesus to be healed of their sicknesses and to be freed from the power of evil spirits:

That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed by demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door.

That is, they were at the door of the house where Jesus was. Many times we will see a reference to the ‘house’ where Jesus is. It seems to be a symbol of the place where Jesus is gathered with those who are close to him, a symbol of a Christian community or of the Church. When the poor and the sick and ‘un-free’ no longer come to the doors of our community seeking healing and wholeness, we need to reflect on the quality of our Christian witness.

The following morning, Jesus leaves and goes to the hills to be alone and to pray. His disciples find him and say:

Everyone is searching for you.

Although there are many demands being made on him by the people of Capernaum, Jesus:

• needs time for himself to renew his spiritual energy and be in contact with his Father, and
• has to think of the needs of other people as well.

Jesus may have been the Son of God, but in his humanity could only be in one place at a time. And during those three years of public life, he really only reached a small number of people. To reach the rest, he needed, and still needs our help.

When Jesus returns from his prayer, he does not go back to Capernaum, although there were certainly more people to be healed and helped there. Instead he went on to synagogues all over Galilee, proclaiming his message of the Kingdom, and making it a reality by healing the sick and liberating those controlled by evil forces.

This scene brings up the importance for us of availability. We do need to be available to all those who are in genuine need. At the same time, there is what we might call the ‘poverty of availability’. No matter how generous and self-giving we are, we can only give so much. We need to find a balance between people’s needs and our limited resources. We do not help people by working ourselves to the point of ‘burnout’. We also need ‘quality time’ to be with God, to pray, and to reflect on our priorities. Jesus gives us an excellent example here.

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Wednesday of Week 1 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Hebrews 2:14-18

The readings from Hebrews continue to emphasise the reality of the Incarnation and Christ’s total solidarity with peoples everywhere. Jesus shares with us the same “blood and flesh”. In this way, as one of us, he could offer his life and death to set us free from the power of death, namely the Devil. It is the power of evil which brings real death to people, a death that separates us forever from the love of God. By his own physical death and resurrection, Jesus liberated us from the fear of that death from which there is no escape. That death comes when, through our self-distancing from God, we are caught in a world without life or love.

The Son, in his humanity, did not identify with the angels:

For it is clear that he did not come to help angels but the descendants of Abraham.

Rather, he took his descent from Abraham as did all his fellow-Jews (and remember that this letter was being written for Christians who were Jews):

Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest…to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.

There is one area, of course, in which he is unlike us—Jesus was totally free of doing evil or wrong in any form. It was precisely because of this that, while in every other respect one of us, he could be our intercessory priest and effectively plead with the Father on our behalf. It was only as one of us, though without sin, that he could offer a priestly sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation for all our sin.

And are we surprised at the next sentence?

Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

When did Jesus become subject to temptation? We know that, after his baptism, he was tempted by the Evil One in the desert, although these temptations seem to be rather symbols of real testings later on. For instance, after the feeding of the 5,000, the people wanted to make Jesus king, when the whole world would have been at this feet. He fled to the hills to pray to his Father.

At other times, he was challenged to perform signs and miracles so that people would believe in him (corresponding to jumping down from the top of the Temple and not being hurt). And, most of all, during his Passion, Jesus was sorely tempted when he was overcome with such fear that he sweated blood and begged his Father that he not have to endure this Passion. There is even the hint of threatening despair as he hangs on the Cross and cries out:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
(Mark 15:33; Matt 27:46)

But this is immediately followed by words of total acceptance of the Father’s will:

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. (Luke 23:46)

Because of these experiences, which Jesus could only have had because he totally shared our human condition, he could empathise with the pain and sufferings which we also have to undergo. He continues to empathise with us and, even in our greatest pain, he is not far away, and his love is not far away.

Again, the author of the letter is writing this to show his readers that a suffering and dying Messiah, far from being a contradiction, is the stunning manifestation of the extent of God’s love for us, and that Jesus was indeed the Son of the Father. Finally, it is precisely because of his humanity that he both suffered as we do, but also could be the effective intercessor on our behalf.

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