Study of Mark Part 3: Jesus Redefines Expectations

²⁹ Now as soon as they left the synagogue, they entered Simon and Andrew’s house, with James and John. ³⁰ Simon’s mother-in-law was lying down, sick with a fever, so they spoke to Jesus at once about her. ³¹ He came and raised her up by gently taking her hand. Then the fever left her and she began to serve them. ³² When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and demon-possessed. ³³ The whole town gathered by the door. ³⁴ So he healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. But he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Notice several of the Markan themes that surface again in this episode:

·         Immediacy –  “as soon as they left”; “at once”

·         Authority over demons – “drove out many demons”

·         Commanded Silence (formerly Messianic Secret) – “He would not permit the demons to speak”

Jesus further demonstrates authority, now over sickness, which is treated as something different than demon possession (v.34: he healed many who were sick and drove out many demons). Mark is gradually working towards Jesus’ declaration that he has the authority to forgive sins.

If Jesus and company left the synagogue and immediately went to Simon’s house then Jesus would have healed Simon’s mother-in-law on the Sabbath. This miracle, done in private, makes a significant point because it shows that Jesus’ Sabbath healings were not done simply to poke at the Pharisees and make them mad or to make a theological point in public for the onlookers. Instead, Mark is setting a pattern of compassionate behavior in Jesus; one that starts subtly and then progressively becomes more overt, as Jesus will declare that “the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” in chapter 2:28. The exorcism on the Sabbath is also met with no resistance; possibly due to the fact that Jesus’ ministry has not become popular enough to threaten the power of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law.

Another question also needs to be asked: When the disciples spoke to Jesus “at once” about Simon’s mother-in-law, did they do so with the expectation that he would heal her, or were they just informing him of the situation (and possibly why they would have to serve themselves a Sabbath meal)? In Luke chapter 4 the disciples specifically ask Jesus to help her. In Matthew chapter 8 there are no disciples present. Jesus sees her by himself and acts on his own. In Mark the interaction is more ambiguous. We can’t know for sure, but if they are asking Jesus to intervene, then they are asking Jesus to violate Sabbath Law by healing her. Does this point to a possible reason why Jesus might have picked them as disciples, i.e., they already on some level understood that need, love, and compassion for others supersedes religious ritual (as he will tell the Pharisees in the next chapter)? I don’t know, but it is an interesting idea to mull over.

The way that Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law is also interesting. “He...raised her up by gently taking her hand.” This detail, present in Mark but changed in Matthew (Mt 8:15 – “he touched her hand”) and in Luke (Lk 4:39 – “he rebuked the fever”), indicating that it might have been a secondary violation regarding lifting on the Sabbath, also strongly emphasizes the compassion and humanity of Jesus. In Mark, we see more of Jesus’ humanity and emotional range than in the other Gospel stories. Here we see a very compassionate and gentle way to approach a healing. We will also see Jesus tired, frustrated, angry, sad, and indignant. Mark’s Jesus is fully human.

“She began to serve them” is meant to be an indicator of how much better she had gotten. She had originally been so sick she had to lie down. Had this been a normal progression of sickness, one would expect a period of weakness after the fever left where she had to stay in bed and recover her strength. Jesus removes the fever and she is back to 100% immediately.

The people wait until after sunset because the Sabbath day would have been over. Due to the order of time in Genesis 1 (evening and then morning, day one), the Jewish calendar started each new day at night. Thus the Sabbath begins Friday after sunset and went until Saturday after sunset. The people wait until after sunset to bring their sick to him because it was the absolute earliest they could have possibly done so and still been abiding by Jewish Law. This shows a great eagerness on the part of the crowd to at least have Jesus perform more healings for them. We will see shortly, however, that Jesus actually does not want to be labeled as a healer-exorcist. Instead, he sees himself more as a preacher, prophet, and priest. The healings and exorcisms are part of Jesus’ overall compassion for humanity, but it is not the focus of his mission, and he will actually leave the city in a few verses, when he feels people are coming to him only for him to do healing miracles for them.

Remember also that Mark likes to be hyperbolic with his crowd numbers. It is unlikely that the entire population of the town gathered outside the door (just as “everyone” in Jerusalem probably did not make the trek to see John the Baptist). Rather, we need to read “whole town” as “a lot of people.”

We also see Jesus again not allowing demons to speak. I think we need to examine another possible reason that he is silencing demons: it is part of his attempt to redefine the meaning of Messiah for the people. If people begin to associate terms like Holy One of God with miracle working or exorcism, then they will miss the point of Jesus’ true ministry and mission as the suffering servant-redeemer. Multiple times the crowds and the disciples will misunderstand something Jesus does or says because they are stuck in their old framework. Jesus is trying to break that framework and redefine their expectations, so he does not want there to be a hindrance to their new understanding.