My wife and I had a conversation the other evening with someone about a pastor we know. The prevailing opinion was that this pastor was a bit too full of himself, too arrogant to be bothered speaking with anyone but the select few in his elite tier of society. One might believe that he is far too busy with holy matters to be distracted by polite social conventions.
In Mark we have Jesus being taken to the home of two of his disciples. Where did Jesus go? Who was with him? What was wrong? What did Jesus do?
We have a simple story of Jesus performing healing, something we are very familiar with. We can imagine that since Jesus was the Son of God it required little effort to conduct such healing – and likely this is true.
But we have more than a simple healing going on here. True, Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever and Jesus healed her of the illness – healing her so thoroughly, in fact, that she was able to get up and become a servant. But we also have Jesus taking the time to be a friend, to be kind, to be compassionate.
Was Jesus busy and pre-occupied with holy matters? We can certainly believe that to be true. In Mark 1:38 Jesus tells his disciples that he wants to go to other villages and preach. That was the reason for his being there.
But before he would go out and start spreading the message of salvation, before he would begin healing others and driving out demons Jesus took the time to be with a few of his disciples.
More than that, he took the time to have some compassion on an older woman who was ill. Jesus was not too busy or too pre-occupied with pressing matters to neglect the people around him.
We too must be certain that we put our lives and our faith in the correct place when dealing with other people. We may have to set aside our own worries and concerns to be polite and welcoming to others. We may have to set aside our desire to save souls so that we can be a friend first.
DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you recognize everyone you meet as a person before you worry about yourself?
