Wednesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 1, 2021

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.”  St. Luke presents the most likely sequence of events at the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry: after his baptism by John in the Jordan, he is tempted in the wilderness.  Coming out of the wilderness, “Jesus returned in the power of the spirit, into Galilee: and the fame of him went out through the whole country.  And he taught in their synagogues and was magnified by all” (Luke 4, 14-15).  And then he came to Nazareth and was rejected by his former neighbors there.  After this rejection, he moved on to Capernaum, called his first Apostles, cast out the demon from the possessed man in the synagogue, and now goes into Simon and Andrew’s house.  St. Matthew mentions that Jesus left Nazareth and came to Capernaum (cf. Matthew 4, 13) but tells the story of his rejection there further on in his Gospel (cf. Matthew 13, 54-58).   

“Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever.”  It is unknown whether Simon Peter and Andrew knew before they entered the house that the mother-in-law was suffering from illness.  But when they and Jesus, and, presumably, James and John, came inside the house, “they interceded with him about her”.  A high fever in ancient times often meant the imminence of death.  Peter’s wife may not have known Jesus and so there confusion would have reigned between the frantic wife, the dying woman, and the Apostles attempting to instill calm and introduce the Lord, as well as pleading with him to cure the older woman.  Jesus alone remained quiet in the midst of this, his gaze upon the her on her bed.  “He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it [the fever] left her.”  Let us note the utter dispassion of Luke’s account.  In a very cool, matter-of-fact fashion, he tells us that Jesus healed the woman.  He saved her life.  And then, just as cooly, Luke tells us that “She got up immediately and waited on them.”  One moment she lay at death’s door, and the next she went about helping with dinner as though she had not been sick at all.  The woman did not merely recover; she was granted her health back immediately.  The Lord had administered no potions, spoke hardly a word, and had healed her.  Any neighbors in the house at that time would have run out of the house, astounded, and spread the news.  The Lord, for his part, made no speeches or explanations after the healing.  The Apostles saw in him no sign that he had done anything so extraordinary.  Perhaps he and the stunned Apostles sat in silence together as the meal was prepared.

“At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him.”  In third world countries today, even a rumor that a doctor has arrived in a particular village brings out people from miles away who have nursed injuries and borne sickness for a long time.  They come across the fields and roads, desperately seeking relief.  From Capernaum the news had spread that a healer had arrived.  He had cast out a demon in the synagogue and cured without delay a woman sick unto death.  Those who could walk, walked.  Those who could not, were carried.  They waited until sunset to set out so as not to break the Sabbath.

“He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.”  One day, we hope to feel the Lord Jesus’s hands upon us as he greets us in heaven.  We can try to imagine what that will feel like, to have the hands of God upon us.  These sick and injured felt his hands upon them and felt the power which healed them and made them whole. Even the demons fled in terror from him.  Everyone who came to him was healed.  He turned no one away.  

“At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.”  Luke does not tell us how many hours the Lord spent healing people.  At some point the last person needing healing departed and the crowd drifted away, and perhaps the Lord went back to Peter’s house and slept a little.  But he was up at daybreak to pray: “At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.”  We ought to marvel at how little sleep the Lord got during his public life.  The Apostles, too, slept little, but more than he.  It was as though he was aware that his time was running out, and still so many villages to visit and crowds to preach to.  The Apostles and the crowd, discovering he had left the house, went looking for him.  They wanted him to stay.  Together with their amazement at his the miracles, they felt drawn to his person who filled them with hope, and who spoke of the arrival of the Kingdom of God.  They said to one another, “No one has ever spoken as this man has” (cf. John 7, 46).

“To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.”  The Lord tells them this without the hint of apology or softening.  And as he has done in Capernaum, so will he do in towns and villages throughout Galilee and Judea.  And having spoken to the crowd, he gathered his Apostles and moved on.

We should be aware of the contrasts in Luke’s account here.  The almost silent Jesus performing incredible cures and exorcisms.  He is set apart even in the midst of the crowds by his quiet, authoritative demeanor, by his simple gestures.  Around him surges a crowd of the diseased, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, those suffering from great pain, the howling demoniacs, and those who came only to watch.  So much disorder around him.  It is the same Lord who will sleep in Peter’s boat during the raging storm, the same Lord who will walk on the billowing sea, the same Lord who hung on the Cross on Calvary, assailed by the mockery of the priests, Pharisees, and scribes: “He opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53, 7).