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Catholic Bible Study
Lectio Mark: Come, Follow Behind Me
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Following his baptism in the Jordan River and temptation in the wilderness, Jesus returns to Galilee where he invites the first disciples to follow behind him, and begins the work of regathering the scattered people of God.
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Welcome back to our next study on the Gospel of Mark. Here we find Jesus now in Galilee. We've seen him baptized, driven by the Spirit, tested by the devil. And now in verse 16, we see him walking on the shore of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. So let's turn to that passage. It says in Mark, chapter 1, verse 16, and passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Andrew the brother of Simon, as he goes on to say, casting a net in the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. Of course, it's immediate. You expect that in Mark's Gospel. Now, right. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and. And John his brother, who were in their boat mending their nets. And immediately he called them. And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. Now, it's pretty dramatic. This is the first encounter that Mark narrates of Jesus encountering Andrew and Peter and James and John. And Jesus passes by them and calls them, and they drop their nets and they leave everything and follow Jesus. Very dramatic. Now, in John's Gospel, we get the idea that, you know, there's more conversation. And there was hearing In Luke, Chapter 5, Luke narrates how Jesus had given a sermon out of Peter's boat before Peter follows him. Right. So historically, we know from both Luke and John that there was a lot more interaction with. But for Mark, he wants to make it dramatic. He wants to sum it down to Jesus came, encountered them, called them, and they followed. Jesus is passing by. Mark is saying, and we have to immediately answer his summons. If you delay at responding to the call of God, you can miss Christ passing by. That, in a sense, is Mark's message. We have to be quick to the summons. But I think there's something else going on that Mark is subtly showing us this idea that Jesus passed by and then called them to follow. He doesn't go up to them, he passes by them. That's a very odd way of describing the encounter, the way Mark does that. He says he passes by them, and then literally in the Greek, he tells them to follow behind him, to get behind him and. And be a disciple. So part of discipleship is letting Jesus lead the way. And one of the great temptations, we'll even see it with Peter later on, where Peter wants to get out in front of Jesus and lead Jesus where he thinks he ought to go not to the cross, but later on we'll find Peter trying to lead Jesus. But we have to get behind and we have to follow. That is a key earmark of discipleship, is obedience following Jesus. But we like to take the lead. But the other element of this strange image of Jesus passing by, I think refers to First Kings, chapter 19 and 11, and also verse 19 of First Kings 19. And this is the story of Elijah the prophet. When he calls Elisha to be his disciple, it's a very odd encounter. Elijah does the same thing that Jesus does. Elijah passes by the same word. He passes by Elisha, and then he throws his mantle on Elisha. And Elisha, who's plowing with oxen, leaves that and wants to follow Elijah right away. And then he ends up offering up the oxen as a sacrifice and becomes a disciple of Elijah. So Elijah passes by Elisha, and here we get Jesus in a sense, as the new Elijah, Jesus as the new Elijah. Now, what's interesting is Jesus just left the Jordan river, which is where Elijah was taken up in the fiery chariot into the heavens. And so, in a sense, Jesus is picking up where Elijah left off. And Jesus, like Elijah, Jesus is calling disciples to follow after him. And so we see Jesus, in a sense, as a new Elijah. But there's another echo, I think, further back, and that's to Exodus chapter 3 and Exodus chapter 33 and 34, where God encounters Moses. And God in Exodus 33 will have all of his glory pass before Moses, right? And so that idea of God passing by Moses with his glory and Jesus passing by, it looks at Jesus is not only taking up the mantle of Elijah, the great prophet, the most powerful of all the prophets, but Jesus is taking the mantle of Yahweh as well, which is rather suggestive. And that's why, because this is the Lord. And of course, remember how Mark queued up the Gospel last time? He told us that this is the way of the Lord, right? Prepare the way of the Lord. And now Jesus is like the Lord passing by. And his presence is so powerful, his summons so inviting, because he is God, that they are willing to drop their nets and leave everything to follow him. And then we pick up the story in verse 21, where it says, and they went into Capernaum, which is the hometown of Peter and Andrew. They went into Capernaum. And immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were all astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. Now, that's the Jewish way of describing demons. Demons and demonic powers are called unclean spirits. And Mark uses that term quite a bit. And here we get something very interesting. Mark shows us who the enemy is. And in order to have a great story, to have a great hero and an epic drama, you have to have conflict. And Mark wants to show us that at the heart of this conflict, conflict. Not with the Pharisees and not with the chief priests. There will be plenty of conflict with them. But that's not the primary target. That's not the primary enemy. The real enemy, Mark is showing us, is the demonic spirits and Satan himself. We already saw Jesus tested by the devil right away in the wilderness. And now we see Jesus going, and he's teaching. And in the midst of his teaching, his teaching is interrupted by unclean spirit, a man in the synagogue who is possessed by a demon. And again, where do we find the demons? In the heart of the people of God. In the church, in the synagogue. Because where else does the devil want to do an attack but in the church? So again, Mark is saying, don't be scandalized if you find demons in the church, in the synagogue, that's exactly where the devil wants to be, because that's the place he wants to attack the most. And so we see this encounter. Now, this encounter, I'm going to read you the narrative. And everyone, and I know I always used to until I studied this and studied the scholarship behind this event, we all hear this event in a particular way that's wrong. And so you're going to misunderstand what I'm going to read to you, most likely, as I did when I first read it. And then immediately there was a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him. Now, when we hear that, it sounds like the demon is saying, oh, I know who you are. You're the Holy One of God. In other words, the demon is kind of making a confession of faith. It seems like the demon's surrendering, but that's not at all what's happening in the story. Far from surrendering, the demon here is attacking Jesus. He is attacking Jesus. He is trying to exorcise Jesus. He is doing an exorcism on our Lord. Because in exorcisms, you call out the name of the one you're exercising. And by naming the one you're exercising in an exorcism, you are controlling them and you are showing your authority over them. And so when the demon says, I know who you are, the Holy One of God, he's not making a humble confession. He's making a demonic counter attack. He's going after Jesus. He's saying, I know who you are. You're the Holy One of God. He's trying to do an exorcism on Jesus. And Jesus responds by saying, be silent. Jesus rebukes him. He tells him to shut up and shut down and to leave the man. Now, later on in Mark, chapter five, we're going to find Jesus encountering a man who's possessed by demons. And I just want to jump to that to give you a little sense of the flavor of this. In Mark, chapter five, Jesus is encountering this man who's possessed in verse eight. And he said to him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus asked him, what is your name? Right. That's part of exorcisms, is getting the name. And then the demon replies, my name is legion, for we are many. Now, again, you misunderstand what that demon just did. Did the demon give Jesus his name? No. He disobeyed God, which is what he's done in the beginning. And this is the nature of demons to disobey God. The demon doesn't give his personal name. He says, we are a legion, for we are many. He's elusive, and Jesus casts him out in spite of him not giving his name because Jesus is Lord overall. But I want to use that example in terms of naming and exorcism. You see it clearly in chapter five, where Jesus asks the name as he's doing the exorcism. And here, when the demons call out the name of Jesus, whatever name and title they give, I want you to know the demons are not capitulating. They are attacking. And Jesus shows himself master, and he says silences them. And so that's important because oftentimes I remember hearing that and you think, well, the demons keep saying who Jesus is. They say, we know you're the Holy One of God. You're the beloved of God. Why doesn't Jesus. Why does Jesus silence the demons? Why doesn't he not let them just say that? Because they're confessing who Jesus really is. But they're not confessing, they're attacking. And that's why Jesus silences. It changes the whole narrative, doesn't it? When you get that deeper element of the story. And then of course, the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice. In other words, the demon doesn't want to obey. He's trying to hold on to the man. And so that's why the man's going through convulsions. And that's why he's screaming out and then he comes out of him. And they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves, saying, what is this a new teaching? And the idea of new is going to be very important. We saw that with rk, the very first word, the idea of a new creation. And now we get the idea of a new teaching. What is this a new teaching. With authority, he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him as reluctantly as they do at the end. They obey. And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew. So we move on to the next story with James and John. Now, Simon's mother in law lay sick with a fever. And immediately they told him of her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her and she served them. So Jesus heals Peter's mother in law. And then evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered together about the door. And. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. So we have at sundown all the village gathers to be healed. Why did they wait for sundown? Because it was Sabbath. And for the Jews especially, because the teaching of the Pharisees, the Pharisees added to the Torah that you couldn't do work on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees added that you couldn't do healing, therefore. And that's why they all wait for Sabbath. But notice in the house, Jesus heals on the Sabbath. And we're going to see this conflict with the Pharisees over the Sabbath interpretation. And that's going to grow. But I'm struck by the imagery here. And they were all gathered together about the door. And the root word there in the Greek is sunagoge. And we just found him entering the synagogue and leaving the synagogue. And the word synagogue means in Greek, it's a Greek word, it means to gather or a gathering place. And that's very important, this idea of gathering or gathering place. And it's used throughout the prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and even Isaiah used this imagery of gathering. So why do the Jews call their gathering places a synagogue? From synagogue to gather, because God made a promise. He told and the prophets that he was going to scatter Israel, that he was going to scatter them amongst the nations to the east and to the west, all over, from Babylon to Egypt to all over Asia Minor and even Rome itself, the Roman Empire. The Jews will be scattered, but God promises that when he restores Israel, he will regather them. And the word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament is synagoge. I will synagogue my people. I will gather them. We find this in Isaiah, chapter 11. We find this where God promises he will gather them from the nations. We find it in Isaiah 43, verse 5, where God promises to gather. And it's again found in Isaiah 57. It's found in Jeremiah 31, or over and over again we get these prophecies that God will regather. Well, I think it's significant that Mark uses this word, this verb, that the whole town was gathered together at the door. At the door where Jesus is staying, at the door of Peter's house. Where does God gather all the people together? At Peter's house, at the threshold of Peter's house, where Jesus will teach and heal. And so they're gathered together, and this is fulfilling the prophecies that God would regather his people and bless them. So we see that happening here, I believe. And again, it's a small word, small verbs, small action. But if you know the story of Israel, it resonates with deep meaning, right? And then verse 35, in the morning, a great while before the day, he rose and went out to a lonely place. And there he prayed. I love how Mark shows us from Peter's memory Jesus getting up before sunrise because he's got the crowds on him all day. He gets up early to pray to his Father and Simon, and those who were with him followed him. And I love that imagery of a disciple, those who are with him. To be a disciple of Jesus, we have to be with him, and we have to be with him in prayer. And they found him and said to him, everyone is searching for you. And he said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. And then we get another episode here in verse 40, of a leper. And a leper came to him, beseeching to him and kneeling, said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. So I love this imagery of the leper coming to him and in humility, kneeling before Jesus and saying, if you will, you can make me clean. And I love the imagery. The leper doesn't say, you can heal me. He says, you can make me clean. Because In Leviticus, chapter 13 and 14, when you have leprosy, you're considered ritually unclean, and you have to live outside the city or village, out in the wilderness, out in a rural area, alone, isolated, and you cannot go to the temple. And so what he wants is to be made ritually clean, which means he could re enter the liturgical life of the people of God and he can go to the temple. So the isolation that hurts this leper the most is the isolation from God's presence, from God's temple. He doesn't simply want to be healed of the physical suffering and ailment he has. He wants to be healed, to be socially restored as well as liturgically restored to God's presence, to be able to go to the temple. And moved with pity. He stretched. And I love that idea of moved with pity. Because the lament of Isaiah in Isaiah 63 says, show us your compassion and pity and come down. And now we see Jesus embodying the compassion and pity of Yahweh and healing. So moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him. Now, Jesus could have healed him by a command, by a word, but instead, Jesus reaches out and touches the leper, who is ritually unclean. Now, in the Old Testament and in Judaism, when the unclean encounters the clean, the unclean is trump, Unclean is the trump suit. Well, something new is happening. When the heavens were torn at Jesus baptism with Jesus new teaching with Jesus presence and the Holy Spirit, now Jesus changes the trump suit. Now, when the unclean encounters the clean, the unclean is converted and healed and transformed. And so when Jesus touches the leper, the leper is made clean. Jesus is not made unclean. And Jesus does this by touching him. And of course, we think of the great story of St. Francis of Assisi, who encounters the leper, and he had an aversion to lepers, and he ends up embracing the leper and hugging him, right? And we think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who took care of the lepers and loved them. And here for a leper to feel that isolation, and that isolation is embodied by the fact that they cannot have human contact, that they'd be at a distance, but they wouldn't have anybody touching them. And here Jesus reaches out and touches with love and pity this leper. And not only does he heal him of his leprosy, he heals him of his loneliness and isolation by touching Jesus. And again, that's the kind of eyewitness account, right? We don't just simply have the account of Jesus healed the leper, but that he reached, reached out, reached out towards him. Because the leper is withdrawn, Jesus has to reach out and touches him. And Jesus says, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And he sternly charged him and sent him away at once. And he said, him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priests and offer for your cleansing. What Moses commanded for a proof to the people. But he went out and began to talk freely, openly about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country and the people came to him from every quarter. Now notice the reversal that happens here. It's striking. Notice this reversal. The leper is supposed to be on the outskirts, he's supposed to be isolated. And Jesus comes to him and heals him. And now the leper can openly go and talk with people, but Jesus can no longer openly enter a town because he'll be crushed by the crowds. And Jesus now has to dwell in the periphery. And what we see here is the way Jesus redeems us. He takes our place. He takes the leper's isolation, he takes the leper's loneliness and being on the periphery. And Jesus embodies that now. And the leper is free to go openly, but Jesus is no longer free to go openly. It's a wonderful exchange, and it shows the beauty of Jesus love for us as the Redeemer. Now that leads us to one of my favorite stories that happens here in Jesus Galilean Ministry in chapter two. And this is the story that they returned now to Capernaum. And after some days it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And of course he's home. Notice that Jesus makes his home in Peter's house. Jesus makes his home in Peter's house. And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let him down. They let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. Now, it's a striking scene, and it never totally made sense to me until I had first gone on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and went to Capernaum, where we see the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus teaches. And just a short, not even a very far stone's throw from the synagogue is Peter's house. And we have the ruins of Peter's house, and there's a church built over it. And you can see, and we know from 2nd century graffiti about Peter naming Peter, we know that was the ancient house of Peter, and it's a powerful place to be. But when you at Peter's house, you can see some of the other ruins of Caphernaum in the village, and you can see stairs. And if you know how a first century house was designed, there would be several rooms. And a typical Jewish home at that time would have a little open courtyard where you would have maybe your chickens, not pigs, because they didn't have pigs. You have your chickens and maybe the animals there in that open courtyard, right? And in the open courtyard, oftentimes what you could see is you can see some steps, some stone steps to some of the houses near Peter's house, where you would in the courtyard have a stairway that went up to your roof. And of course, you'd have that in your inner courtyard, not outside, because you don't want anybody coming into your house or coming up to your roof. And on your roof, you. You would go up to the roof to catch the breeze of the day when it was really hot. In fact, in Acts we find peter in Acts 9 at the house of Simon the Tanner. And he's on his roof during lunchtime, right, in order to catch the breeze. And so you would go. So we have those steps that would lead up to the roof. And on the roof it would be like a porch or patio would also be a place for storage. And so that's where there'd be steps. And so how do these men get the paralytic up on the roof? They take Peter's steps from inner courtyard and they go up on top of the house on the roof, and then they start trashing all the roofing to lower the paralytic. And you can just imagine Peter's reaction to that as he's watching what is going on on my roof, and they're lowering the paralytic. And Jesus is like, don't worry, Peter. Be calm. Right? And so that archeology, I think, opens up the depths of the story. And how that happened. But there they are gathered, they lower the paralytic. And when Jesus saw their faith, I love that their faith, they believe in Jesus. They believe that Jesus can heal. And so what do they do? They are going to take all the measures they can I extraordinary measures to bring their friend to healing. He said to the paralytic, my son, your sins are forgiven. He even goes beyond what they had hoped for physical healing. Jesus spiritually heals him and forgives him of his sins. Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning their hearts. Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone? If you've been following Mark's gospel so far, you know this is God, that Jesus is the son of God. And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your pallet and walk. In other words, there's no empirical proof when Jesus said, your sins are forgiven, that the sins are forgiven. But if Jesus says, rise, take up your pallet and walk home, well, that will be empirically demonstrated, proven or disproven. The efficacy of Jesus words will be visible to all in terms of the healing of the paralytic. The efficacy of his words, your sins are forgiven are invisible. Those are not seen. And so to manifest the truth of his words, of the forgiveness of sins, he is going to heal him physically to show that the more important healing of his sins and of his heart is also affected by Jesus words. So Jesus says, but that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home. Now that verse so that you may know is full of Old Testament allusions. So that you may know is a phrase used in the story of the Exodus. So that you may know is what God says through his servant Moses during the first Exodus. And Pharaoh is hard hearted and notice that the heart is a big issue here. Pharaoh is hard hearted and he refuses to believe. And God gives plague after plague, and he says about the plagues so that you may know that there is a God in heaven above and earth below. I will make a sign and the Nile will turn to blood, or I will, you know, over and over again. So in Exodus chapter seven, I think it's verse 17 and chapter eight of Exodus, and over and over again we find this phrase, so that you may know and it's Moses speaking to hard hearted Pharaoh. But who is Jesus speaking to here? Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees. He's saying so that you may know. In other words, the Pharisees have taken on in this new Exodus story, the role given in the old Exodus to Pharaoh. They are hard hearted. They are hard hearted. And so Jesus here is clearly doing a new Exodus. And what we're going to see next time is how this story prepares us for a healing and a reconciliation of a sinner, Matthew the tax collector, and many other things that are going to happen in the rest of chapter two. But we now have the framework of seeing that Jesus is bringing a new Exodus and he's doing these great signs that we may know who Jesus truly is. He is God.