Same day after PETER'S MOTHER-IN-LAW'S FEVER:
(Matthew 8:: 16, 17; Mark 1:32-34; Luke 4:40-41)Matthew 8:16-17 -
When evening came they brought to him many who were possessed by evil spirits, which he expelled with a word. Indeed he healed all who were ill. Thus was fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy - 'He himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses'.
Mark 1:32-34 - Late that evening, after sunset, they kept bringing to him all who were sick or troubled by evil spirits. The whole population of the town (of Capernaum) gathered round the doorway. And he healed great numbers of people who were suffering from various forms of disease. In many cases he expelled evil spirits; but he would not allow them to say a word, for they knew perfectly well who he was.
Luke 4:40-41 - Then, as the sun was setting, all those who had friends suffering from every kind of disease brought them to Jesus and he laid his hands on each one of them separately and healed them. Evil spirits came out of many of these people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!"
But he spoke sharply to them and would not allow them to say any more, for they knew perfectly well that he was Christ.
(Matthew 8:14-15; Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38-39)Matthew 8:14-5 - Then on coming into Peter's house (in Capernaum, after healing the leper and the centurion's servant in Matthew's Gospel) Jesus saw that Peter's mother-in-law had been put to bed with a high fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her. And then she got up and began to see to their needs.
Mark 1:29-31 - Then (after healing the madman according to Mark's Gospel) he got up and went straight from the synagogue to the house of Simon and Andrew, accompanied by James and John. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever, and they lost no time in telling Jesus about her. He went up to her, took her hand and helped her to her feet. The fever left her, and she began to see to their needs.
Luke 4:38-39 - When Jesus got up and left the synagogue (after healing the madman) he went into Simon (Peter)'s house. Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus about her. He stood over her as she lay in bed, brought the fever under control and it left her. At once she got up and began to see to their needs.
(Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44)Matthew 4:23-25 - Jesus (after calling the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John to be his disciples, and before the Sermon on the Mount) now moved about through the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news about the kingdom, and healing every disease and disability among the people. His reputation spread throughout Syria, and people brought to him all those who were ill, suffering from all kinds of diseases and pains - including the devil-possessed, the insane and the paralysed. He healed them, and was followed by enormous crowds from Galilee, The Ten Towns (Decapolis), Jerusalem, Judea and from beyond the river Jordan.
Mark 1:35-39 - Then (after calling the first four disciples and healing Simon Peter's mother-in-law.....), in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Simon and his companions went in search of him, and when they found him, they said, "Everyone is looking for you."
"Then we will go somewhere else, to the neighbouring towns," he replied, "so that I may give my message there too - that is why I have come."
So he continued preaching in their synagogues and expelling evil spirits throughout the whole of Galilee.
Luke 4:42-44 - At daybreak (after healing the madman in the synagogue and Simon Peter's mother-in-law), he went off to a deserted place, but the crowds tried to find him and when they did discover him, tried to prevent him from leaving them. But he told them, "I must tell the good news of the kingdom of God to other towns as well - that is my mission."
And he continued proclaiming his message in the synagogues of Judea.
(Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16)Matthew 8:1-4 - Large crowds followed him when he came down from the hillside (after the Sermon on the Mount). There was a leper who came and knelt in front of him. "Sir," he said, "if you want to, you can make me clean." Jesus stretched out his hand and placed it on the leper saying, "Of course I want to. Be clean!" And at once he was clear of the leprosy.
"Mind you say nothing to anybody," Jesus told him. "Go straight off and show yourself to the priest and make the offering for your recovery that Moses prescribed, as evidence to the authorities."
Mark 1:40-45 - Then a leper came to Jesus (as he continued preaching and healing throughout Galilee), knelt in front of him and appealed to him, "If you want to, you can make me clean."
Jesus was filled with pity for him, and stretched out his hand and placed it on the leper, saying, "Of course I want to - be clean!"
At once the leprosy left him and he was quite clean. Jesus sent him away there and then with the strict injunction, "Mind you say nothing at all to anybody. Go straight off and show yourself to the priest, and make the offerings for your cleansing which Moses prescribed, as public proof of your recovery."
But he went off and began to talk a great deal about it in public, spreading his story far and wide. Consequently, it became impossible for Jesus to show his face in the towns and he had to stay outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from all quarters.
Luke 5:12-16 - While he was in one of the towns (of Galilee after the calling of Simon Peter, Andrew, John and James), Jesus came upon a man who was a mass of leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he prostrated himself before him and begged, "If you want to, Lord, you can make me clean."
Jesus stretched out his hand, placed it on the leper, saying, "Certainly I want to. Be clean!"
Immediately the leprosy left him and Jesus warned him not to tell anybody, but to go and show himself to the priest and to make the offerings for his recovery that Moses prescribed, as evidence to the authorities.
Yet the news about him spread all the more, and enormous crowds collected to hear Jesus and to be healed of their diseases. But he slipped quietly away to deserted places for prayer.
(Matthew 12:15-21; Mark 3:7-12; Luke 6:17-19) Matthew 12:15-21 - But Jesus knew of this (the Pharisees desire to get rid of him, especially after healing the man with the shrivelled hand) and he left the place (possibly Capernaum).
Large crowds followed him and he healed them all, with the strict injunction that they should not make him conspicuous by their talk, thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy: 'Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench, till he sends forth justice to victory. And in his name Gentiles will trust' .
Mark 3:7-12 - Jesus now retired to the lake-side (of the Sea of Galilee) with his disciples (again after healing the man with the shrivelled hand). A huge crowd of people followed him, not only from Galilee, but from Judea, Jerusalem and Idumea, some from the district beyond the Jordan and from the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. This vast crowd came to him because they had heard about the sort of things he was doing. So Jesus told his disciples to have a small boat kept in readiness for him, in case the people should crowd him too closely. For he healed so many people that all those who were in pain kept pressing forward to touch him with their hands. Evil spirits, as soon as they saw him, acknowledged his authority and screamed, "You are the Son of God!"
But he warned them repeatedly that they must not make him known.
Luke 6:17-19 - Then (again after healing the man with the shrivelled hand, but here, in Luke's account, also after Jesus has chosen the twelve apostles ...) he came down with them and stood on a level piece of ground, surrounded by a large crowd of his disciples and a great number of people from all parts of Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal district of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. (And even those who were troubled with evil spirits were cured.) The whole crowd were trying to touch him with their hands, for power was going out from him and he was healing them all.
(Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10) Matthew 8:5-13 - Then as he was coming into Capernaum (after healing the leper) a centurion approached. "Sir," he implored him, "my servant is in bed at home paralysed and in dreadful pain."
"I will come and heal him," said Jesus to him.
"Sir," replied the centurion, "I'm not important enough for you to come under my roof. Just give the order, please, and my servant will recover. I'm a man under authority myself, and I have soldiers under me. I can say to one man 'Go' and I know he'll go, or I can say 'Come here' to another and I know he'll come - or I can say to my slave 'Do this' and he'll always do it."
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished. "Believe me," he said to those who were following him, "I have never found faith like this, even in Israel! I tell you that many people will come from east and west and sit at my table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. But those who should have belonged to the kingdom will be banished to the darkness outside, where there will be tears and bitter regret."
Then he said to the centurion, "Go home now, and everything will happen as you have believed it will."
And his servant was healed at that actual moment.
Luke 7:1-10 - When Jesus had finished these talks (the Sermon on the "Plain" in Luke's Gospel) to the people, he came to Capernaum, where it happened that there was a man very seriously ill and in fact at the point of death. He was the slave of a centurion who thought very highly of him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him with the request that he would come and save his servant's life. When they came to Jesus, they urged him strongly to grant this request, saying that the centurion deserved to have this done for him. "He loves our nation and has built us a synagogue out of his own pocket," they said.
So Jesus went with them, but as he approached the house, the centurion sent some of his personal friends with the message, "Don't trouble yourself, sir! I'm not important enough for you to come into my house - I didn't think I was fit to come to you in person. Just give the order, please, and my servant will recover. I am used to working under orders, and I have soldiers under me. I can say to one, 'Go', and he goes, or I can say to another, 'Come here', and he comes; or I can say to my slave, 'Do this job', and he does it."
These words amazed Jesus and he turned to the crowd who were following behind him, and said, "I have never found faith like this anywhere, even in Israel!"
Then those who had been sent by the centurion returned to the house and found the slave perfectly well.
This healing story is tucked into the THE RAISING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER
(Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5: 25-34; Luke 43-48)Matthew 9:18-22- While he was saying these thing to them (parables such as the bride and the bridegroom, and the new cloth sewn onto old; also after healing the madman in the region of the Gadarenes) an official (or synagogue ruler or president) came up to him and, bowing low before him, said, "My daughter has just this moment died. Please come and lay your hand on her and she will come back to life!"
At this Jesus got to his feet and followed him, accompanied by his disciples. And on the way a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years approached him from behind and touched the edge of his cloak.
"If I can only touch his cloak," she kept saying to herself, "I shall be all right."
But Jesus turned right round and saw her.
"Cheer up, my daughter," he said, "your faith has made you well!" And the woman was completely cured from that moment.
Mark 5:21-34 - When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side of the lake (after the incident of the madman and the Gadarene swine), a great crowd collected around him as he stood on the shore. Then came a man called Jairus, one of the synagogue presidents. And when he saw Jesus, he knelt before him, pleading desperately for his help.
"My little girl is dying," he said. "Will you come and put your hands on her - then she will get better and live."
Jesus went off with him, followed by large crowds jostling at his elbow. Among them was a woman who had a hamorrhage for twelve years and who had gone through a great deal at the hands of many doctors (or physicians), spending all her money in the process. She had derived no benefit from them but, on the contrary, was getting worse. This woman had heard about Jesus and came up behind him under cover of the crowd, and touched his cloak, "For if I can only touch his clothes," she said, "I shall be all right."
The hemorrhage stopped immediately, and she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble. At once Jesus knew intuitively that power had gone out of him, and he turned round in the middle of the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"
His disciples replied, "You can see this crowd jostling you. How can you ask, 'Who touched me?'"
But he looked all round at their faces to see who had done so. Then the woman, scared and shaking all over because she knew that she was the one to whom this thing had happened, came and flung herself before him and told him the whole story. But he said to her, "Daughter, it is your faith that has healed you. Go home in peace, and be free from your trouble."
Luke 8:40-48 - On Jesus' return (again after healing the madman), the crowd welcomed him back, for they had all been looking for him.
Then up came Jairus (who was president of the synagogue), and fell at Jesus' feet, begging him to come into his house, for his daughter, an only child about twelve years old, was dying.
But as he went, the crowds nearly suffocated him. Among them was a woman, who had a haemorrhage for twelve years and who had derived no benefit from anybody's treatment. She came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak, with the result that her haemorrhage stopped at once.
"Who was that who touched me?" said Jesus.
And when everybody denied it, Peter remonstrated, "Master, the crowds are all round you and are pressing you on all sides ...."
But Jesus said, "Somebody touched me, for I felt the power went out from me."
When the woman realised that she had not escaped notice she came forward trembling, and fell at his feet and admitted before everybody why she had to touch him, and how she had been instantaneously cured.
"Daughter," said Jesus, "It is your faith that has healed you - go in peace."
Matthew 9:27-32 - As Jesus passed on his way (after bringing the daughter of Jairus back to life) two blind men followed him with the cry, "have pity on us, Son of David!" And when he had gone inside the house these two came up to him. "Do you believe I can do it?" he said to them.
"Yes, Lord," they replied.
Then he touched their eyes, saying, "You have believed and you will not be disappointed."
Then their sight returned, but Jesus sternly warned them, "Don't let anyone know about his." Yet they went outside and spread the story throughout the whole district.
(Matthew 14:34-36; Mark 6:53-56) Matthew 14:34-36 - When they had crossed over to the other side of the lake (of Galilee, and after Jesus had walked on the water), they landed at Gennesaret (a plain on the north west coast of the Sea of Galilee), and when the men of that place had recognised him, they sent word to the whole surrounding country and brought all the diseased to him. They implored him to let them "touch just the edge of his cloak", and all those who did so were cured.
Mark 6:53-56 - And when (again after Jesus had walked on the water) they had crossed over to the other side of the lake, they landed at Gennesaret and tied up there. As soon as they came ashore, the people recognised Jesus and rushed all over the countryside and began to carry the sick around on their beds to wherever they heard that he was. Wherever he went, in villages or towns or farms, they laid down their sick right in the road-way and begged him that they might "just touch the edge of his cloak". And all those who touched him were healed.
(Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30)
- The woman is a Gentile Canaanite living in the Phoenician part of Syria - present day Lebanon. This is another difficult account to understand. First Jesus says the Gospel is only for the Jews - the "lost sheep of the house of Israel". Then, in using the term "dogs" to refer to Gentiles, he is being uncharacteristically unkind.
The term "dogs" is believed to have been meant in the more gentle form of domestic "young puppies". But whatever the actual incident, or how it is reported, Jesus did not refuse her request, and her daughter was healed. And later in the early Church, it is the Gentiles who become the main beneficiaries of the Gospel of Jesus:
Matthew 15:21-28 - Jesus left that place (the Galilee region after clashing with the scribes and Pharisees about what really makes a person clean) and retired into the Tyre and Sidon district. There a Canaanite woman from those parts came to him crying at the top of her voice, "Lord, have pity on me! My daughter is in a terrible state - a devil has got into her!"
Jesus made no answer, and the disciples came up to him and said, "Do send her away - she's still following us and calling out."
"I was only sent," replied Jesus, "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Then the woman came and knelt at his feet. "Lord, help me," she said.
"It is not right, you know," Jesus replied, "to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
"Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs live on the scraps that fall from their master's table!"
"You certainly don't lack faith," returned Jesus, "it shall be as you wish."
And at that moment her daughter was cured.
Mark 7:24-30 - Then (as in Matthew's account) he got up and left that place and went off to the neighbourhood of Tyre. There he went into a house and wanted no one to know where he was. But it proved impossible to remain hidden. For no sooner had he got there, than a woman who had heard about him, and who had a daughter possessed by an evil spirit, arrived and prostrated herself before him. She was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she asked him to drive the evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus said to her, "You must let the children have all they want first. It is not right, you know, to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."
But she replied, "Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under the table eat what the children leave."
"If you can answer like that," Jesus said to her, "you can go home! The evil spirit has left your daughter."
And she went back home and found the child lying quietly on her bed, and the evil spirit gone.
Mark 8:22-26 - So (after going on to the Dalmanutha/Magadan area, and Jesus has refused to give the Pharisees a sign from heaven) they arrived at Bethsaida where a blind man was brought to him, with the earnest request that he should touch him. Jesus took the blind man's hand and led him outside the village. Then he moistened his eyes with saliva and putting his hands on him, asked, "Can you see at all?"The man looked up and said, "I can see people. They look like trees - only they are walking about."
Then Jesus put his hands on his eyes once more and his sight came into focus. And he recovered and saw everything sharp and clear. And Jesus sent him off to his own house with the words, "Don't even go into the village."
(Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43) Matthew 20:29-34 - A great crowd followed them as they were leaving Jericho (on the final stage of the journey to Jerusalem), and two blind men who were sitting by the roadside, hearing that it was Jesus who was passing by, cried out, "Have pity on us, Lord, you Son of David!" The crowd tried to hush them up, but this only made them cry out more loudly still, "Have pity on us, Lord, you Son of David!"
Jesus stood quite still and called out to them, "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Lord, let us see again!"
And Jesus, deeply moved with pity, touched their eyes. At once their sight was restored, and they followed him.
Mark 10:46-52 - Then (as in Matthew's Gospel) they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving it accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimeus (that is, the son of Timaeus), a blind beggar, was sitting in his usual place by the side of the road. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to call out, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!"
Many of the people told him sharply to keep quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me!"
Jesus stood quite still and said, "Call him here."
So they called the blind man, saying, "It's all right now, get up, he's calling you!"
At this he threw off his coat, jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked him.
"Oh, Master, let me see again!"
"Go on your way then," returned Jesus, "your faith has healed you."
And he recovered his sight at once and followed Jesus along the road.
Luke 18:35-43 - Then, as he was approaching Jericho, it happened that there was a blind man sitting by the roadside, begging. He heard the crowd passing and enquired what it was all about. And they told him, "Jesus the man from Nazareth is going past you." So he shouted out, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!"
Those who were in front tried to hush his cries. But that made him call out all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me!"
So Jesus stood quite still and ordered the man to be brought to him. And when he was quite close, he said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Lord, make me see again," he cried.
"You can see again! Your faith has cured you," returned Jesus. And his sight was restored at once, and he followed Jesus, praising God. All the people who saw it thanked God too.
