This coming weekend is the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle C. For the two previous weeks in the lectionary cycle, Jesus has been in Nazareth engaging the citizens of his own hometown (4:14-30). As Jesus indicated, no prophet is accepted in his own native place (v.24). Leaving Nazareth, Jesus moved on to Capernaum. Again he amazed people while teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. While present, there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon (v.33). Jesus casts the demon from the man, again amazing the people: For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. (v.36) Also while in Capernaum, Jesus cured Simon’s mother-in-law (vv.38-39) and all manner of people sick with various diseases (v.40) and cast out other demons (v.41). 

⁴² At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place. The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried to prevent him from leaving them. ⁴³ But he said to them, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” ⁴⁴ And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. 

This is the first place in Luke where Jesus mentions proclaiming the Kingdom of God as a compelling necessity – something that will become a hallmark of later sections of Luke’s gospel.

The Capernaum ministry consists of four scenes in which Jesus performs the first healings and exorcisms in the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s account of the healings in Capernaum makes several connections. It connects the healings and exorcisms with Jesus’ teaching so that the power of his words is dramatically demonstrated in his mighty works. By implication, where his words are heard, there the power that was manifested in the miracles continues to be active. As Culpepper notes [112-113], “Running through both the Nazareth and the Capernaum episode, however, is the warning that the power of God cannot be possessed, contained, or limited for our own purposes. It moves on, and it is always reaching across the barriers that separate communities and peoples from one another. The mighty works of Jesus’ ministry, however, are a manifestation of the power of the Spirit. As the Lord’s anointed, Jesus was empowered to extend the work of the prophets and begin the work of the kingdom. What was stated in the reading from Isaiah 61 saw its first small beginnings in the healings in Capernaum. God was moving to free persons from the debilitating and dehumanizing conditions that prevented human beings from living as God willed life to be. In that respect, the text gives up a significant clue when as a result of Jesus’ healings, demons flee from those who have been delivered from their illness or impairment. The healings are theologically significant, therefore, because they convey important insights into God’s intention for human life and God’s unrelenting efforts to free captives and give sight to the blind. Healing and deliverance are manifestations of the work of the kingdom.”

Jesus continues his Galilean ministry near Capernaum and Nazareth in the territory around the Lake, here called Gennesaret after the fertile plain on its northwest shore. To this point Jesus has acted alone, unaccompanied by disciples – that however is about to change.

Image credit: Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew | Lorenzo Veneziano, 1370 | Staatliche Museen, Berlin | PD-US