First Week in Ordinary Time: Mark 1:21-39
If you begin to read Mark’s Gospel, you will notice that Mark packs a great deal into the first twenty verses of the first chapter. We are introduced to John the Baptist and his ministry. Jesus appears, is baptized by John, and then goes off into the wilderness to be tested. He returns to Galilee, begins to preach about the Kingdom of God, and calls his first four disciples to follow him. That’s a lot in a few lines.
It’s therefore significant to notice that, when we get to verse 21, Mark slows down somewhat and spends some time describing a sabbath day in Capernaum and its aftermath. The fact that there is this change of pace alerts us that Mark wants us also to slow down and pay attention. Something important is happening here. It’s also very significant to note that it happens during and just after a sabbath day.
Why the sabbath? Whether we are talking about Saturday or Sunday, our experience of sabbath has usually been as “the Lord’s Day” and as a “day of rest”. The questions that generally clustered around observance of the sabbath have been whether we should – or should not – go to church, work, buy something, play cards, or things of this nature. We have tended to lose sight of why these things were issues for the sabbath day in the first place.
What is the sabbath? It is very significant to remember that observance of the sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. It’s also fascinating to note the scope of the sabbath. No one is to work that day – not the heads of the families, nor their wives or children, nor their slaves, nor even their animals. Everyone and every living thing is to be given the sabbath rest. This universal scope of the sabbath may well have been the root of the many teachings on social justice that we see in the Law of Moses and the Prophets.
See how the trajectory of the sabbath plays out in the Law of Moses. There is to be a sabbath year, when some of the land is to be at rest and not farmed. Then there is to be a Jubilee year, the sabbath year of sabbath years, when all debts are to be forgiven and all slaves freed. The sabbath becomes a hint, a preview, of what the Lord intends to give all those who are faithful. They are all to be invited to God’s “rest”. What is this “rest”? It’s the place. so to speak, where all burdens are removed, all wounds are healed, and where God alone rules. It is ultimately what we call “heaven” – which is precisely how the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reads it.
Now we turn to Mark. Jesus has been announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God. God is to rule over his people. This rule will bring about, among other things, the sabbath rest. God will free his people of all their burdens, all that enslaves them, and empower them to be what they were made to be – images of God in the world.
Jesus’ first action on this sabbath is to preach at the local synagogue. People are immediately drawn by the authority and power of Jesus’ words. Something new, yet very old, is happening before them. The Scriptures are coming alive. Then, a man with an “unclean spirit” confronts Jesus. Notice that this man, though only one, speaks to Jesus in the plural: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” The man is internally divided against himself and against others. Remember that one of the names for the devil in New Testament Greek, “diabolos”, means “one who scatters”. The Evil One scatters, divides, creates conflict, suspicion, and paranoia. Jesus, bringing the Kingdom of God and the true sabbath rest, casts out the demons and frees the man from this division.
Then, Jesus goes into the home of Simon Peter, which some scholars believe was literally next to the synagogue. There, Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever. Jesus heals her, and she “waited on them”. Not a bad translation, but it misses an important message. The original Greek verb that is translated “wait on” is “diakonein”. This is the word that Jesus uses to describe his own vocation as “one who serves” and how he defines the life of anyone who is to follow him. It is also a word used for service in the early Church. In other words, Peter’s mother-in-law is not only healed in body. She is also healed spiritually. She understands what has been given to her, and she begins to live a life of service as Jesus also does. She gets it. This, in Mark’s Gospel, is in contrast to Jesus’ own disciples, the Twelve. Though they follow Jesus all the way to Gethsemane, they often do not get what Jesus’ life is all about. Jesus is often correcting them. Yet, along the way, many people who are healed by Jesus, from Peter’s mother-in-law to the blind Bartimaeus, do get it.
At sunset, right after the end of the sabbath, a crowd appears at Peter’s door, seeking to hear Jesus and be healed by him. Jesus teaches and heals many. Then, Jesus goes off before sunrise into the wilderness to pray. Here we see, on one level, the fulfillment of the sabbath rest: Jesus in communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. But the wilderness is also a place of temptation. It was for the Israelites on the way to the Promised Land. It was for Jesus a few verses ago. It is again now. Jesus has been a “hit” in Capernaum. No doubt, he felt tempted to stay there and be the local star. He has to confront this temptation, and humanly speaking, be one with the will of the Father.
Then, Peter and the other disciples appear. They “pursued” him, we are told, and on finding him, say “Everyone is looking for you.” They may mean well, or they think they do. But here, they are actually voicing the temptation that Jesus is experiencing. It will not be the only time that Peter becomes an obstacle or stumbling stone for Jesus. Peter and the others interrupt Jesus’ prayer. “Why are you here?”, they ask. There is work to be done! Besides, all these people you are drawing into Capernaum will be good for the family fishing business!
Think of how you may feel tempted to cut short your prayer time by “busy stuff” that needs to be done. Think of how people who are called to devote their lives to prayer and solitude are often accused of “not doing enough”. Yet Jesus is unmoved by Peter’s intervention. He knows what he is about. He moves on to other towns and villages, and they go with him.
What of our own sabbath? How, then, do we live it? What can we learn from Mark’s Gospel? First of all, the goal of the sabbath is communion with God – Father, Son, and Spirit. We are to “rest” in the very life of the Trinity. This is why coming to Mass is so important. Mass is where we celebrate this oneness with God and taste the sabbath rest. Secondly, it is a time of healing. What in us is still not in harmony with God? What in us is literally “restless”? The Lord wishes to heal these things. Thirdly, it is a time of self-giving service. It is a time to ask ourselves how well we have “gotten” the life and message of Jesus, and to ask for a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we might better embody the meaning of all Jesus did and taught. Finally, the sabbath is about social justice and compassion. It is about freeing all humanity – indeed, all creation – from any slavery to sin and witnessing to the unity of all people and all creation in God.
A tall order, to be sure. As people made in the image and likeness of God, we can settle for nothing less. As temples of the Holy Spirit, we have the grace to do and live all this. Then, others will perceive in us hints of what God’s “rest” is all about, and may find themselves invited, too, to come into that rest.