Shock therapy!

Thursday in the Second week in Ordinary Time

1 Sm 18:6-19:7; Mk 3:7-12.

The mark of a good master or teacher lies in his ability to teach his or her disciples especially when there is a truth which they find hard to understand and accept. When they do not want to listen to him, one of the techniques he might use is that of shocking his disciples so that they might learn their lesson once and for all.

In a way this is that today's gospel does to us: it shocks us because it makes us question seriously who is Jesus for us.

On the one hand we have people who came from all the surrounding towns and villages to touch Jesus and to be healed by him. What, exactly, were they looking for? It turns out that they were only after him because he was a wonder-worker. In other words, for them he simply was one who satisfies their wishes, who makes spectacular miracles, but nothing more than that.

Here again we have the same theme over that runs throughout the Gospel of Mark: those closest to him, his own disciples to not recognise who Jesus really is. Rather, who recognises him as the Son of God instead? Who falls down before him in adoration? The demons, the very unclean spirits whom he casts out!

This is the shocking point of today's gospel. We might easily be in a situation where we take Jesus for granted, we invoke him regularly, we consider ourselves as his disciples. Like the disciples in today's gospel, we go to Jesus asking him favours, we want him to make us feel good. Yet perhaps our conviction might not be strong enough to pronounce him as the Son of God, and of falling down before him in adoration!

By these two things I am not merely referring to external gestures. I am referring much more to our internal convictions, our attitudes. In fact, to recognise Jesus as the Son of God means to place him at the centre of our life, making him the absolute priority. To fall down before him is to submit all we have to him, most importantly our will. When we do so, we start approaching Jesus not merely because we want certain graces to be granted, or because we want to feel good, but simply because he is God.

This is one of the reasons why Jesus gives them that enigmatic order, not to make him known. To pronounce Jesus as Son of God and to fall down before him in adoration is not something done externally, but a conviction that grows deep within us. It is not something that we can learn in a parrot-like fashion and repeat, neither is it something that we can merely imitate.

Lord Jesus, help us to approach you not simply because you heal our diseases and grant our prayers. Help us realise that when it is when we recognise you as the Son of God that we are really healed, for it is when we submit all that we are to you do we really become whole whole again.