JESUS CAME TO HEAL BOTH BODY AND SOUL

For  Mark the Gospel is fundamentally about freedom.  This Jesus might be a good preacher and teacher but he is much more than that. He is the only one who can release us from all that binds us, from all our inner demons, from all our sinfulness.  He is our liberator in the very deepest sense of that word.

More of the implications of this passage may reveal themselves if we remember the narrative context into which Mark places it.  After this cure of the demoniac, Jesus cures Simon’s mother-in-law and many others afflicted either by illness or by evil spirits.
It is with these acts of power done out of compassion for the needs of others that Jesus begins his public life.

There is considerable debate about whether the people whom Jesus healed were really possessed by the devil or were mentally disturbed. The debate is utterly beside the point. These individuals were deeply troubled and Jesus healed them. Jesus came to heal both body and soul.  Most scripture scholars now agree that miracles were an important part of Jesus’ ministry and of the memory of that ministry in the early church.  We simply cannot abandon them to please those who say miracles are impossible. The precise explanation of how these healings were accomplished is another matter and perhaps one that is also beside the point.  Jesus did not work miracles to prove anything. Rather they were signs that God’s healing love is at work in the world.

…… Fr Dispin John