This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  “When Jesus had crossed again (in the boat) to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him…” Jesus is returning from his experience in Gentile territory and the casting out of a demon from a man in the Gerasene district. The transition to our text is simple and stated in one verse. Jesus returned to the western shore of the lake, perhaps to Capernaum and a multitude gathered around him, immediately upon his arrival, so it seems. No indication is given whether the crowd came together as soon as he arrived or after an extended period of time; it is simply the first fact that Mark records, offering a contrast to Jesus’ experience on the eastern shore where the inhabitants urged him to depart. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The account of the healing of the woman and Jairus’ daughter are part of a four-fold miracle narration in which Jesus has shown power over chaotic nature (4:35-41) and destructive demons (5:1-20), and now over debilitating illness and death itself. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  These miracles have to be understood as within the framework of ceremonial cleanliness. What is clear is that both the woman and the girl were not pure/clean in the Levitical sense because of illness/death. In Jewish thought uncleanness was infectious, a human being might incur it by contact with any unclean person or thing (Lev. 5:3); but the law regarded three forms of uncleanness as serious enough to exclude the infected person from society. These were leprosy, uncleanness caused by bodily discharges, and impurity resulting from contact with the dead (Num. 5:2-4). This is not a topic that is just being introduced in Mark 5. Recall the connection with the ending of Mark 4: the exorcism of the unclean spirits from the man living in the (unclean) tombs into the (unclean) pigs. Continue reading →

This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle B. Last Sunday, in the 12th Sunday’s gospel, Jesus begins teaching the disciples with the first in a series of miracles that demonstrate the extraordinary character of Jesus’ power

• Calming the storm at sea — the disciples still have no faith (Mk 4:34-41)
• Casting a demon from a man and the subsequent desire of the locals that  Jesus leave town even as the healed man becomes a witness (Mk 5:1-20)
• Raising Jairus’ daughter – “don’t be afraid, only believe” (Mk 5:21-24, 35-43)
• Healing the bleeding woman – her faith saved her (Mk 5:25-34)

Continue reading →