Capacity to Be Bothered!

Monday, January 29, 2024

2 Sm 15:13-14,30;16:5-13; Mk 5:1-20

Today’s Gospel is puzzling for many reasons. 

Jesus heals a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit. The description of his suffering evokes pity, and no one can overlook his misery. How would Jesus walk by him without healing him if we ourselves felt that he needed healing? Chains and fetters failed to bind him. Among humans, no one was strong enough to master him. It is that man that Jesus heals. 

There are some details that draw our attention. 

1.The demons would know Jesus if the people were blinded to his identity. 

2. When the people of the town came to see the healed man who was ‘sitting there clothed and in his right mind,’ they were seized with fear. Put differently, they were not afraid of the man when he was possessed by the Legion (a Roman legion was about 6000 soldiers), but now they were afraid of someone sane. This is insane!

3. They beg Jesus to leave their territory. It looks as if they prized their herd of swine above the life of the man!

For Jesus, what mattered more was the glory of God manifested in the man’s good health. 

He wants the healed man to proclaim God’s glory as a mark of his gratitude. 

Jesus helps us understand that if the suffering humanity does not bother us, we do not have the Divine in us!

Let us pray for the capacity to be bothered like Jesus!

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar