Wednesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, August 31, 2022

Luke 4, 38-44

After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her. He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up immediately and waited on them.  At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them. And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.” But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ.  At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place. The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

“After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon.”  According to the Evangelists, the Lord’s exorcism of the possessed man’s demon in the synagogue, recounted in yesterday’s Gospel Reading, is to be counted as his first public miracle (the miracle at the wedding at Cana was performed in a back room).  In the aftermath, the Lord and his first disciples walked through the town to Peter’s house.  The crowd in the synagogue, asking each other in open astonishment, “What word is this, for with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they go out?” (Luke 4, 36).  Some of those who had witnesses the exorcism would have remained in the synagogue after the Lord left, tending to the man, and others would have stood in frozen silence, trying to make sense of what they had witnessed.  A few others would have followed the Lord out of the building and gone a little ways up the road after him in their amazement.  Let us note that the Lord does not remain in the synagogue after the exorcism.  His business done there, he moves on to Peter’s house.  It seems that the Lord had lived in or around Capernaum for some weeks after leaving Nazareth, for Luke says, “And he went down into Capharnaum, a city of Galilee: and there he taught them on the sabbath days” (Luke 4, 31).  But it is only after he had already preached there for some weeks that he casts out the demon, and it is only then that Peter brings him to his house in order to ask him him to cure his mother-in-law.  

“Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever.”  A fever of this kind in those days spelled death.  “And they interceded with him about her.”  The intercession of the saints in heaven is no different than the intercessions of the members of Christ’s Body here on earth.  “He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her.”  He rebuked the fever as though it had intelligence, and as he had earlier rebuked the demon in the synagogue.  Later, he will rebuke the raging sea and wind and they calm immediately.  We rebuke those over whom we have authority.  The Lord hereby demonstrates to the world that he possesses authority over these things.  Again, “with authority and power he commands”.  “She got up immediately and waited on them.”  Just as the demon had gone out of the man without hurting him, so the fever leaves her without a trace of itself.  She needs no time for recovery or convalescence.  She goes not to her bedroom to lie down but to the kitchen to work.

“At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him.”  Since the people of that time took their main meal around noon, news of what the Lord had done had time to get around to neighboring villages.  “He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.”  We are accustomed to hearing of the Lord Jesus healing the sick, but we ought to think about this simple sentence.  It hides, because nothing could reveal, tales of long-term suffering, sickness, agony, birth-defects, wounds that would not heal, broken bones not set right, blindness and deafness, and more cases of possession, too: “And demons also came out from many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God.’ ”  But, “he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ.”  The Lord does not accept the testimony of Satan.  He healed all of these, one by one, and the formerly afflicted person rose and went home.  

“At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.”  We are not told whether the Lord had time to rest first.  “The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried to prevent him from leaving them.”  St. Mark adds that the Lord went out to the deserted place to pray, and that Peter was among those looking for him.  “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.”  According to Luke, Jesus had already spent some weeks in Capernaum, teaching in the synagogue.  He ended his stay there with many miracles of healing that underscored his doctrine.  And now it was time to move on.  “And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”  Capernaum lay in the far north of Israel, in Galilee.  Luke tells us that he went south into Judea in order to teach there.  Most of the Lord’s teaching preserved in the Gospels was done in Galilee, with some in Jerusalem.  How we wonder about all that he did and said in “the towns of Judea” which is not recorded!

The people of Capernaum tried to prevent the Lord Jesus from leaving their town.  We ought to prevent him from leaving us by turning away from sin and wicked habits and to dedicate ourselves to doing good, according to our calling, as he did.