Wednesday, January 12, 2022                                   (today’s lectionary)
She meets Jesus, and she is telling everyone she is loved
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
Can anything good come out of Capernaum? Well, yes. That is apparently so. You wouldn’t believe what happened! Glaphys was sick for the first time in her life, and he brought a scraggly preacher home with him, and …
They immediately told him about her. He approached, grabbed her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
Well, I don’t know what happened but all of a sudden she wasn’t sick anymore and she just got up out of bed and started making lunch for her sons and their friend, and their other friends as well. So.
And this was on the Sabbath!
We never heard of such a thing. But it’s true, and we’ve never known our friend to tell a tale, or spin a yarn out of nothing, nor even to exaggerate. (Well, maybe exaggerate, just a little.) Anyway, I’ve been feeling sick too, and my own mom’s almost unable to get out of bed, and what about our neighbor who’s been lame since he fell and broke his leg and it healed all wrong?
I must know twenty people who need healing for one thing or another! And the grizzly preacher hasn’t left yet. Sabbath will be over soon. Shouldn’t we go and see if he still has the magic touch? Peter’s mom as much as told me I should come over after supper and see.
When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door.
And so we did. Jesus (that’s his name, the preacher) touched us all, and healed us. And he wouldn’t really let us speak, you know? He just made us all well. So many faces changed, and mine changed too! Can you believe it? Well, no, you can’t if you weren’t there.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
This is a new thing. No one can do what Jesus did. Who is this man, anyway? Where did he come from? He’s gone now. Glaphys told me he went away very early, and his friends went to look for him.
Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
They said he prays all the time, especially in the early morning. He doesn’t just say the regular prayers at the Hours of prayer; he calls God his Abba, his father, the one who loves him, and the one who he loves. It’s almost like they are joined at the hip.
He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come.”
Maybe it’s God who does all that healing, and who gives him the words to say to one person and then the next, and then to all of us at once, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I don’t know what he means by that, but he is very definite about it.
So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
Repent! Turn away from your sin, and turn toward the One who made you and gave you life. You are loved! Above all and over all, you are loved.
 If you wish to hear God’s love, listen to the birds sing.
If you wish to see God’s love, watch the sun set.
If you wish to taste God’s love, smell a rose.
And if you wish to feel God’s love, place your hand over your heart
and be attentive to the pulsing of “I love you, I love you, I love you,”
over and over. (poem by Clarence Heller)
(1 Samuel 3, Psalm 40, John 10, Mark 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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