as i read the gospel of mark, it is difficult to see past the superstitious explanations of the day to the teachings of jesus. in the next occasion when mark purports to convey jesus' words, jesus has gone away to a quiet place to pray and his followers come looking for him. when they find him, they tell him that "everyone is searching for you." jesus replies, " let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that i may proclaim the message there also; for that is what i came out to do.” mark says that jesus and his companions travel throughout galilee as jesus teaches in the synagogues and casts out demons.
jesus was not the only teacher/miracle worker who lived in galilee, and many common people were followers of these rabbis. because galilee was ruled by a king placed there by the romans and had more independence from direct rule by the romans, there were more messianic figures who fomented rebellion against rome and the herodian ruling family and who engaged in social protest against the political elite. to be a galilean meant to be a rebel, a nonconformist, to be a questioner of orthodoxy. in the southern part of galilee where capernaum was located, there were speakers of hebrew, aramaic, and greek, and more tolerance for diversity.
against this backdrop, it's easy to see jesus as a typical galilean religious/political figure, who attracts followers through both his teaching and working of miracles. he is not the only miracle worker of the period, and people who struggle to put food on the table from day to day and live under the difficulties of being an occupied population are eager to see miraculous deeds of healing. what sort of messiah would be unable to perform such miracles? jesus would have been seen as ineffective and powerless had his teaching not been accompanied by the working of miracles.
the gospel doesn't say what jesus taught in the synagogues he visited as he wandered around galilee, and that's what's more interesting to me than the descriptions of miracles. there must have been a lot of madmen in galilee at the time, since casting out demons seems to play such a prominent role in the life of jesus. the widespread belief in demonic possession being the cause of many maladies would have made it necessary for jesus to be able to exorcise demons in order to effect cures, and the power of suggestion, the belief that jesus was indeed a miracle worker, would have resulted in many cures, just as modern day miracle workers appear to be able to do. i remember as a child watching some of these, like oral roberts, on television as they placed their hands on the ill and commanded their diseases and handicaps to leave their bodies, after which the "healed" would walk away cured and the audience would gasp and applaud. something of this sort must have happened when jesus and others like him performed their miracles in galilee, if mark is to be believed.
jesus' own words, according to mark, made no mention of miraculous cures. his desire was to proclaim his message to a wider audience. this suggests that the healings were less important than the good news jesus wished to convey, that the miracle working was a product of jesus' compassion for those who were hurting and in some ways a distraction from his teaching. one wonders, though, if jesus would have been able to attract followers without the miracles, if the healing was more important to those who came to see and hear jesus that the words he spoke. these miracles seem to figure large in mark's gospel here at the beginning of jesus' public life.
may we see jesus in the context of the time in which he lived. may we seek to understand what made jesus a more important figure that men like judas the galilean or "the egyptian." may we sort out the superstition from the teaching, the biases of jesus' biographers from the message jesus sought to convey. may we not accept by faith that which is not reasonable. shalom.
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