Finding Jesus Powerful and Personal (Mark 1:29-34, 40-45)

In this episode we dive into the next two miracles in the first chapter of Mark. These miracles give us some insight both into Jesus's identity and kingdom. Together we'll learn:

• How Jesus balanced the crowds and the one
• Why Jesus responded with emotion to the leper's request
• And how the first chapter of Mark foreshadows the Gospel message

Join us as we study together to find Jesus both powerful and personal! 

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Transcript

Welcome back to Hanging on Every Word. This season we’re studying 18 miracles in the book of Mark and today we get to dive into our second and third miracles, so let’s make Mark proud and not waste any time. Let’s get into its

The second miracle in the book of Mark takes place right after our miracle from last week. In my Bible it’s called “Jesus Heals Many” and it’s found in Mark 1:29-34

This is a Bible study podcast and so we like to read scripture around her. So to start off our time together I”m going to read those verses to you. 

29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

In keeping with Mark’s active language, this event takes place as soon as they left the synagogue. Remember last week we talked about Capernaum being like a hub or home base for Jesus’s ministry. Peter and Andrew lived in Capernaum and we see that Jesus, James and John head back to Peter and Andrews house after their exciting day at the synagogue. 

Peter’s mother in law is in the house and in bed with a a fever. Mark says they immediately told Jesus. we see Jesus’s willingness to follow Peter and Andrew to their home. There was no pretense in Jesus that because of his authority and spending fame he was above one on one ministry. Jesus consistently models for us the effectiveness of speaking to a crowd, and the importance of ministers to the one. 

I think our social-media world has a lot to learn from Jesus’s balance. It’s not that he didn’t speak and minister on a large scale, as we see celebrity pastors and viral Christian influencers on social media doing. It’s that he balanced the large scale stuff with the really small stuff. If the Christian leaders you admire online have a big following but aren’t serving in their local church, loving their local community, or ministering one on one in real ways, that should be an immediate red flag for us. 

We also see that the disciples immediately tell Jesus about Peter’s sick MIL. It seems the people in the synogogue weren’t the only ones who were impacted by Jesus’s display of authority. These disciples, who, by the way, are newly called to follow Jesus, have seen his power on display for maybe the first time and now they realize Jesus can do anything. He can certainly heal Peter’s mother in law. And so they call on him. 

There is a picture here of family - James and John, Peter and Andrew,2 sets of brothers, all in Peter and Andrew’s home. It’s a picture of connections. A reminder, perhaps, of what the disciples have left behind and what they’ve sacrificed to follow Jesus. Peter, clearly, has a wife. Which is news. And so when they entrust their MIL to Jesus they are inviting him not only as healer but into their family dynamics and trusting him with their closest loved one.

Without hesitation, Jesus went her, touched her, and helped her up. He had no fear of catching the sickness she had. What he did in this miracle was neither showy nor complicated. He simply held her hand and helped her up. A small miracle, perhaps. 

 But we see the depth ofJesus’s healing the next line - the fever left her and she began to wait on them. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a fever as an adult, but I can tell you it’s different than when you’re a kid. It’s not just uncomfortable, it drains everything out of you. You feel like you might die, literally. Your head aches, you’re hot and then cold, and all of it is exhausting. So even when you wake up and the fever is broken, you’re weak and exhausted from fighting it.

That’s not the case for Peter’s MIL. She is healed completely, her energy is restored and she is able to get about serving the guests right away. This was a lovely response, not just a womanly duty by this woman who was healed. We see in the rest of this passage that Jesus went on to heal many who were sick and oppressed by demons. The whole city gathered at his door. But only Peter’s MIL was recorded to have responded to her healing with service.

May that response be our instinct too. To long to serve the one who has saved us. 

Now, the rumor mill in Capernaum must have been really effective because by nightfall the whole town knew about Jesus. And they believe in him with a faith that is quick and complete. They bring their most vulnerable loved ones to Jesus trusting that what he did in the temple can be done for them too. It says the whole town is crowded at the door to Peter’s house waiting for an encounter with Jesus.

And Jesus heals without hesitation. He heals without concern for his own time or energy. He gives of himself to this little town in capernaum in this little house of some fishermen and in doing so he begins to show the townspeople who he really is. More than Jesus of nazareth. More than a carpenter. More than a Rabbi. Jesus is a healer. Disease and demons listen to him. 

This miracle revels Jesus’s identity in a new way, to the disciples and their family first and then to the whole town. 

So already in the first chapter of Mark we see Jesus’s authority and identity on display through his miracles. 

Now, let’s move into our third miracle in the book of Mark. In my Bible it’s called Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy and it’s found in Mark 1:40-45

Let me read it to you:

 A man with leprosy[h] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

41 Jesus was indignant.[i] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

I’ll preface this miracle with saying it’s one of my favorites in all the gospels. I remember reading it once years ago and the request of the man with leprosy really caught my attention because when you think about it, it’s strange. 

If you are willing. 

You can make me clean. 

We would expect the leper to say, if you are willing, you can heal me. And we see that Jesus has a reaction to this man’s request as well. There’s something about it that’s a bit outlandish. The text here says that Jesus was indignant. This is the NIV translation. If you look up this verse in other versions, you’ll find this same line says that Jesus was quote moved with compassion. Two opposite translations, it seems, so which is it? 

That’s still up for debate and here’s an opportunity to do a little digging of your own. Head over to a resource like Blue Letter Bible type in Mark 1 and look at the different translations, find the original greek word, which I won’t even attempt to pronounce on here, and see what conclusions you come to. I think it’s important to understand there’s a sense of question around that one line of this verse. 

But Here’s what I want to focus on here - one way or another, either with anger or compassion - this man’s request prompted a response from Jesus. And either way, whatever the accurate translation Jesus’s response is, the result was the same - Jesus healed him. 

So why did Jesus respond to this question with emotion? I think it’s two-fold, first, the “if you’re willing” implies that the leper believes Jesus is able, meaning his power is sufficient, but he’s unsure if Jesus wants or desires to heal him. And second is the bold request - you can make me clean. 

I want to lean into this request because it’s really powerful. In Jewish culture there was a great emphasis put on what was clean and unclean. The book of Leviticus spends a long time recounting in great detail the ritual laws or laws of cleansing. Leprosy was one of the diseases that was considered unclean. Leprosy was terrible. It had no cure. It was a degenerative skin condition that was contagious. As it progressed it would make fingers and toes fall of (I know, gross, right) and cause blindness, which, when I’ve reflected on this, may perhaps provide some explanation for why there are so many sick that Jesus healed who were specifically lame, blind, and had leprosy.

If someone had leprosy they were required to separate from the people and live outside of the town. Whatever job they had they could no longer do. If they had a family they could no longer be with them. It was altogether devastating not just physically but to every aspect of life if you got leprosy. Leviticus 14 describes the cleansing laws for lepers. It includes some very specific rituals that a person healed from leprosy must go through to be considered clean again. They were meant to go to the priest and bring some birds, some hyssop, a scarlet string, and some cedar wood. The priest would then perform a ritual with these things and sprinkle the persona with leprosy to pronounce him clean. They then had to shave off all their hair, wash their clothes, and bathe in water. Then they could stay in camp but outside their tent for another week when they would have to shave off all their hair, including their eyebrows, it specifies, wash their clothes, and bathe again. Then they would have to take two lambs, some flour, and some oil as another offering to priest. And finally, after ALL of this, he would be clean. 

So now we start to see the magnitude of this request. If you are willing, you can make me clean. It wasn’t just the healing he was concerned with, but the cleansing. Though there may have been some sense of the man wanting to skip this long ritual, there is an underlying recognition that Jesus is not just a healer is is, as Hebrews describes him, the Great High Priest. He is able not only to heal, but to cleanse. 

Jesus responds with not one, but two extraordinary miracles. The first, I am willing was the healing. The second, be clean was the ritual cleansing that only a priest could perform in a temple. 

And we see Mark’s favorite word - immediately - the leprosy left him AND he was clean. A ritual meant to take over a week perfumed in a second. That’s the authority of Jesus. This miracle is extraordinary. 

Then Jesus, knowing the magnitude of what has occurred, strongly warns the man not to tell anyone. Here’s that Messianic Secret again. There would be grave consequences for someone claiming to have the authority of the priesthood but outside of the temple. And so he instructs this man, though he is clean, to go and perform the long ritual with the priests. Jesus says this will be a testimony to them, a sign of respect for the law of Moses, a moment to humble yourself to the standards God set. 

But the man didn’t listen.

 And the text says that as a result, Jesus could not enter the town but had to stay outside in the lonely places. I want us to lean into this for a moment because it’s really powerful. We said earlier that a person with leprosy was cast out of town. They could not work or be with their family. They were unclean. Then, with this cleansing that Jesus gave the man, he immediately entered town, cleansed and welcomed back into society, but Jesus, who was not unclean, was treated as such, taking the place the leper once had. 

This is a picture of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. He takes our place of uncleanness though he himself is perfectly unclean. He places himself outside so that he might buy our freedom. In this miracle we see picture of the Gospel, the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. 

 And so this miracle shows us a picture of the kingdom of God, a kingdom based on a King who ransoms his people with his own blood, who bought our freedom and inheritance through his own suffering and sacrifice. 

And I find it amazing, beautiful, exciting, and intriguing that in the first chapter of Mark we’ve learned about three miracles. And each one of them has shown us something beautiful about Jesus - first his authority, then his identity, and now his kingdom. 

If this the first chapter, friends, what other Good stuff is coming? I’m looking forward to it. And I’m especially looking forward to next week when we will welcome our FIRST guest to the podcast to help us study through our fourth miracle in Mark! 

Until then, I can’t wait to study with you again!