Let's Go

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, February 4th, 2024:
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

---

Mark
1.29-39

As soon as Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sunset, they brought to Jesus all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”

He answered, “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

I don’t think anyone in history has ever exemplified the advice “begin with the end in mind” more than Jesus. What’s more impressive is, of course, He knew exactly what that end was, and it wasn’t fun. 

But neither was it a source of misery, like Job in the first reading, who bemoaned his fate as God’s slave. Because Jesus knows that He is Hope itself. He is the Gospel. Like Saint Paul says, He willingly made himself “a slave to all, so as to win over as many as possible.” So even when the Cross is a comfy three years away here in this first chapter of Mark, Jesus operates deliberately to keep His Passion, um, passionate.

He silences the demons because they’re proclaiming His divinity in front of as many people as possible. They did this to undermine Jesus’ mission and derail His Passion. The demons reckoned that if the Hebrews accepted Jesus as their Messiah right away, they’d place him on a throne and protect Him. They’d ruin everything. 

Jesus has to keep His true identity hidden from anyone with influence. In other words, He has to get out to the peripheries — sinners, lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, Gentiles, and Samaritans, stat! In the passage right after this one, Jesus heals the leper. By touching them, He makes himself unclean. It’s like He went “Oh, silly me, now I have to stay out here in the periphery with the misfits and outcasts,” (comically face-palming).

Not only do I think being in the peripheries was a practical means of shoring up His eventual Passion, I think it helped Jesus to keep desiring it. Out in the margins, He could hear the sound of real worship, and that was essential to keep Him going.

In the quiet, He could hear the roar of heaven. For heaven, I suspect, is a pretty noisy place. What with all the choirs and Hosannas and the adoration. It must be a riot of joyous cacophony, of capital-T capital-W True Worship. Likewise, when He heals the poor and “sustains the lowly,” their cries of praise are no doubt the closest thing to the heavenly praise you can get on earth. In heaven, I’m pretty sure we’ll just be praising God for His graciousness and mercy to us lowly ’uns.

The crowds of gratefully healed Galileans were no doubt also making jubilant noises. But Jesus couldn’t let Himself conflate this fleeting adulation with perpetual adoration. Because that human praise would eventually turn into cries of anguish and disappointment. Like any parent, His children’s cries are heartbreaking, and can only add to His agony. Better to stay attuned to “the unending chorus raising.”

So, through our prayers, let us make Jesus’ pump-up playlist. Be the lowly voices proclaiming His mercy, thanking Him for his graciousness, adoring Him. Somewhere in the middle of the desert, He will hear us. Yes, today. And, together, we join in His triumph.




​Kate Mosher

---