Four Brief Insights

Mark 1:21-45

So, four different paragraphs, four passages to comment on so I can finish chapter 1.

Jesus drives out a demon
It's interesting that there was a man with a demon in the synagogue. What was he doing there? We might think that he was there to be healed, but the position as the first miracle in Mark makes me question that a little. The man had to have control at least some of the time. I wonder if the man hadn't hidden the demon from the view of most, but presence of Christ brought the demon to the front, despite the man's intentions. Do our churches honestly represent Christ? If we are truly the body of Christ, it will be difficult for sin to be concealed among us, but it will be brought into the open, confessed and dealt with.

Jesus Heals Peter's mom (and others)
It's funny, so often when we think of Jesus Healing, we think of the spectacularly big miracles, the resurrections, the healing of paralysis, the lepers. Here, Jesus justs drives out a fever. It's a "small" miracle, but what a relief to the woman. This small miracle provides the impetus for the rest of the town to come to be healed, and Christ was able to further demonstrate God's glory.

Jesus' Quite Time
This is a convicting passage. If Christ can heal a town, cast out demons and still get up early to pray, I ought to be able to work some more prayer into my schedule. It's such a simple thing, and so amazing but we don't make nearly enough time for it. We'll I'm speaking for myself, but I'm going to guess I'm not along. We have the opportunity to approach the God of the universe on a personal basis. We need to take advantage of that.

Jesus heals a leper
I recently posted on this passage, but I've got some different thoughts now, so I'll post those. To see the Dr. Who version, wander this way. Jesus tells the leper to present himself to the priest, according to the law. Interesting, there's a pretty significant passage on skin diseases in Leviticus. There are pretty specific rules about what healing from leprosy looks like, and I'd be surprised, based on available treatments, if the priests ever saw anyone for this particular inspection & sacrifice. I do not doubt that a least a part of the motivation in Christs order to go and be inspected according to the law was to bear witness to the priests that God was working in Israel.