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I’ve been wondering about the disciples’’ family members ever since they abruptly abandoned their fishing nets and took off with Jesus!  Just 12 verses earlier in this very same opening chapter, the very same Simon and Andrew, brothers, Mark says, dropped everything they were doing and followed after Jesus.  Apparently it really was everything… their responsibilities, their business, the tools of their trade—fishing nets, boats, oars, and everything.  They dropped their family responsibilities too, I would presume.  Here, we find Jesus right inside, of all places, back at home in Simon’s house where Simon’s wife and mother-in-law are present!!  Considering all that has happened in that short time, don’t you think that might have been an icy reception?

This is the very first healing story in Mark’s gospel. I like that because it’s the first instance in which Jesus reaches out to touch a suffering individual with his own hands, making this, truly a “hands-on” experience.  My imagination ran wild with me this week as I pondered this story!  Was Simon’s wife upset with him for leaving?  Did she run home to her mother when Simon neglected to come home that day like he always did?  Was her mother sick with worry about her daughter’s well-being?  Whatever the case, Jesus didn’t ignore her.  Neither did he avoid her.  Straight away coming out of the synagogue there in Capernaum with his freshly called fisherman disciples, Jesus enters Simon’s house where his mother-in-law lay sick.  This was Home-Health, First Century Capernaum-style.

Though Simon’s wife is not named or even her feverish mother, the healing story has plenty of tenderness and kindness.  Put aside your 21^st Century ideas about equal work around the house for a moment and imagine how elated Unnamed Mother In Law felt at being able, after the healing touch of Jesus, to be restored to her rightful place of honor of elder, right there in her daughter’s home.  In a short 16 chapter action-packed adventure-story about Jesus, Mark would have us know that healing does begin at home, that’s for sure.  We can have all the charm in the world and still ignore our own family members to their great sorrow and disappointment.  But such is not the kind of healing where Jesus is present.  His home-health practice soon spills out of Simon’s much-happier home, blessed by the loving touch of Jesus to the neighborhood nearby.  Thus it is when one is touched by Jesus.  It sets you free to touch others, to serve others; Jesus took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand, yes… but soon she got up and got busy!  You’ve heard it said before, “You’re blessed to be a blessing!”  A person touched by the healing power of Jesus is blessed to be a blessing.  A congregation touched by the healing power of Jesus is blessed to be a blessing.  A city touched by the healing power of God’s grace is blessed to be a blessing!

It’s no wonder that Jesus quickly became so popular, urgently needed here, then there.  The news spread fast and many clamored to be around him.  Then, just when you’d think an all-out effort should be launched to capitalize on such fame and popularity, Jesus steals away to a quiet place and insists on NOT following good “PR” advice.  “No Simon, despite the fact that, as you say, “everyone is looking for you,” we will not pander to the crowds-we’ll just go someplace else, for proclaiming the message of the gospel is what’s important, not crowd-pleasing.”

And again, more  Home-Health-First Century Capernaum Style.  Not only does true healing begin at home, it prevails and continues when followers of Jesus know about finding quiet and solace within.  There in that quieter place, Jesus pulled himself away from the adoring crowds where, as Isaiah proclaimed, “We wait upon the Lord and find our strength renewed, so that we can run and not be weary, walk and not faint.”  (Is. 40:31)

Are you aware of some of the healing ministries going right now in this faith community?—On Mondays, these beautiful altar flowers are re-purposed by a team of ladies who call themselves, “The Flower Girls” and they meet in the Sacristy/Flower Room to re-assemble these simple flowers that silently sing praise to God in their simple beauty into dozens of smaller arrangements which they take into the hospital rooms and nursing-home settings of dozens of others.  On Fridays, Pastor Mary Jane scans the prayer-request rolls of the congregation and publishes anew a list for an intercessory prayer team to pray over.  Sunday School classes, youth group meetings, and choir practices often begin with prayers for healing for class members who are ill and not present that day.  Taize services every 1^st Wednesday begin in silence, meditation, candlelight, and song-lifting to Almighty God the names of people in pain and great need; the places and situations that grieve the soul-like war, injustice, addictions, and abuse.

Finally, back to 1^st Century Capernaum and Simon’s home where his mother-in-law was restored.  Mark writes that Jesus took her by the hand. It’s the first instance of Jesus doing anything with his hands, the first instance of him actually touching anybody.  If you stay tuned in to Mark’s story, you’ll see he does something even more dramatic with his hands on his way to Calvary.

When Tommy Dorsey, stricken by grief and sorrow over the death of his wife, Nettie, in childbirth, followed soon by the death of their child, began writing what is now a beloved classic gospel song, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” he did not write about the grand design of God’s amazing love.  He did not write about the creative genius of God that flung the world into existence.  He wrote about the hands, the precious hands of Jesus that reached out to him, even in his sorrow and sadness there in Chicago in 1932.[1]  The very same hands with which Jesus longs to touch you today-so that you too can be healing hands for those in need around you.  May Christ’s hands of grace lift you up today and grant you healing… and in your healing, may you serve others to the Glory of God.  Amen.