Daily Devotional for Friday 19th April
Jesus heals many
We see here that Simon (i.e. Peter) must have lived nearby because Jesus visits Peter’s family immediately after the events at the synagogue. And we learn that Peter was married. I often try to imagine how it worked with Jesus and the Disciples – did they visit different families and stay with them? Did they go to their own homes each night and meet up in the day? Eventually they left Galilee and went to Jerusalem – so did their families follow also? What happened to their day jobs? Did Matthew give up tax-collecting and some of the others give up fishing? The impression is that Peter & Co carried on doing at least some fishing – whether just for their own needs or as a business, we don’t know. But however it worked, it must have meant a sacrifice on their part – a real commitment which meant other things had to be side-lined. But in today’s reading we see how, already, Jesus is associated with the power to heal. And our response? Like Peter’s mother-in-law in verse 31: to serve Him willingly.
Throughout this week I have quoted from the words of one of my favourite hymns, ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’, written way back in the early 18th century by someone called Isaac Watts – one of the first great English hymn-writers. It’s all about seeing and understanding who Jesus is, and how much that changes everything. Which is, I think, the main theme of Mark’s gospel. The Disciples undertook a new road that would lead many of them to suffering for the sake of the Gospel – but also gave them the greatest gift possible on this earth – to be a follower of Jesus.
Did you know the hymn has another verse which we don’t normally sing? I’ll leave you with that, as a summary of these opening verses of Mark – the theme of giving all in return for Jesus’ sacrifice for us:
His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o'er his body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
