The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany is February 4, 2024.

Traditionally, this is Sexagesima Sunday — the sixth Sunday before Easter — in Shrovetide, which was a preparation period for Lent that included going to Confession before beginning the 40 days of fasting with prayer.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Mark 1:29-39

1:29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

1:30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.

1:31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

1:32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.

1:33 And the whole city was gathered around the door.

1:34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

1:35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

1:36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him.

1:37 When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”

1:38 He answered, “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.”

1:39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

This episode picks up from last week’s reading, Mark 1:21-28, where Jesus healed the man in the synagogue who was suffering from a demon.

For those who have not been following the past few weeks of readings from Mark, John MacArthur recaps the Gospel writer’s objective for his Roman audience:

Mark opens his history of the life and ministry of Jesus in verse 1 with a declaration of truth; that is, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That is the affirmation that Mark will prove. He says it at the beginning, he is going to write a history, at least the beginning of the history of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

To say that any man is the Son of God is a grandiose statement, must be supported, and so Mark begins immediately to give unmistakable testimony to the fact that his identification of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, is supportable …

By the time you get to verse 28, you have amassed a great amount of evidence from all different testimonies to the deity and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is another characteristic of Mark’s Gospel which is the use of words or phrases implying immediacy. Some translations use the word ‘immediately’:

… it says in verse 30, “Immediately they spoke to Jesus about her.”

There’s that “immediately” again, everything with Mark is immediately.

As soon as they — Jesus, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John (two sets of brothers who fished together) — left the synagogue, they entered Simon Peter’s house (verse 29).

This took place in Capernaum after the Sabbath worship at the synagogue. It was probably early afternoon at this point.

MacArthur has more:

This isn’t the first time they’d seen Him do a miracle. According to Luke chapter 4, He had done many mighty works in Capernaum already. He had done many mighty works in the year before in Judea in the south. They knew His power. And it’s because they knew His power that they invite Him home for lunch.

By the way, they were originally Simon and Andrew – Simon, who later became known as Peter – they were originally from Bethsaida. Bethsaida is a town on the north shore of the Lake of Galilee, a little bit to the east, easy walking distance. They had relocated. John 1:44 says they were from Bethsaida, they had relocated to Capernaum, no doubt for the sake of business. And so they invited Jesus to come home. They would be regular synagogue attenders anywhere that they went, but certainly here in their hometown synagogue, they were there when Jesus spoke.

MacArthur describes Peter’s house, which appears to have been massive:

Now, Simon Peter was married. We know that from 1 Corinthians 9, verse 5, where it is said that Simon Peter has a wife who literally goes with him on missionary trips. And the implication is that the church supported that, that he took his wife along on mission trips, which would indicate by the time he’s into his full-blown ministry in the book of Acts, his children, if he had some, and tradition says they had children – the Bible doesn’t say anything about it – but if they did have children, they would be old enough to be able to care for themselves and Peter could take his wife along with him on mission trips. That’s the statement of 1 Corinthians chapter 9 in verse 5.

But at this particular point early in the ministry of Jesus, Peter still lives in Capernaum, and he has quite a house there. You say, “How do you know what kind of house he had there?” Because I’ve been there …

Excavations have been done in that area that have unearthed the synagogue. And if you go to Capernaum today, about all there is in Capernaum, there’s one little tiny building that is a kind of a monastery, that’s the only occupied building in Capernaum area, the rest is ruins and the dominant ruins are the ruins of the synagogue …

A one-minute walk from the slope where the synagogue is toward the water, and you come to Peter’s house, what is traditionally known as Peter’s house. One writer describes it as a house that’s part of a large insula complex. In an insula complex, you have all the windows and doors on the inside, surrounding a courtyard, and the walls are not windowed on the street side. You go into an entrance door and you have a large plaza courtyard and apartments all surrounding it that were shared by all the members of the extended family. That’s why Peter could live there and his wife would live there and his mother-in-law would live there and Andrew would live there and the children would live there.

It tells us a little bit about the fact that Peter was not just a guy with a hook and a fishing rod, he was a little more up the food chain than that. This house, the excavations of this house, they have found hearths, several of them, meaning there were a number of kitchens there. They have found millstones for grain. They have found stairways to the roofs of the dwellings. The building itself originally was built out of black base salt stone over which a flat roof of wood and thatch was placed.

What is really interesting about it is that archeological investigations have discovered sacred devotional graffiti written on the stone in Greek and Latin and Syriac and Aramaic scratched also in plaster, indicating that it was a gathering place for Christians and most likely a church, get this, going back to the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century. So they were close enough that they knew people who knew Peter, who knew where Peter lived. When you have a tradition that is that old, one writer says, this is a strong possibility that the site indeed preserves Peter’s house.

Well, the synagogue, a one-minute walk to Peter’s house, and that’s what Jesus was invited to do.

Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her ‘at once’, immediately (verse 30).

MacArthur says:

They see Jesus being in Capernaum in this occasion as an opportunity for Him to display His power on behalf of a family member. Verse 30, Now, Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever. Luke, the physician, adds, “megas fever,” high fever. She had some kind of a severe infection, that’s what produces a fever, right? The body working really hard to fight the infection.

MacArthur reminds us of the primitive state of medicine up until the late 19th century. This is really important to understand:

… no one was really cured of a disease until 1885. In the ancient world, they didn’t know what we know in modern medicine. They didn’t know about viruses and bacteria. People just languished. She had a severe infection, producing a high fever, which was of grave concern to her daughter and her son-in-law, Peter. So it’s a family crisis. And it’s clearly the reason they invited Jesus to lunch. And it says in verse 30, “Immediately they spoke to Jesus about her.”

There’s that “immediately” again, everything with Mark is immediately. No sooner had He come to the house than they made request of Him, in Luke’s account. Luke 4 has an account of this. Matthew 8 has an account of this.

Jesus went to her, took her by the hand and lifted her up; the fever left her and she began to serve them (verse 31).

Matthew Henry reminds us of the completeness of our Lord’s Healing miracles:

Observe, How complete the cure was; when the fever left her, it did not, as usual, leave her weak, but the same hand that healed her, strengthened her, so that she was able to minister to them; the cure is in order to that, to fit for action, that we may minister to Christ, and to those that are his for his sake.

MacArthur tells us more:

Verse 31, “He came to her and raised her up.” Luke adds, “She was lying down and He was standing over her.” So she was so fevered that she was lying flat. He was standing over her. And it simply says, “He raised her up.” How did He do it? By taking her by the hand. He just pulled her up. And Luke adds, “He rebuked the fever. ‘Go away, fever.’” That’s some kind of power when even a fever obeys, when all of the causes of the fever disappear.

You remember back in verse 25 he said – Mark said that Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, rebuked the demon. Here He’s rebuking fever. He has total sovereign control over the spiritual world and total sovereign control over the physical world. He commands and there is instant compliance. Luke says she immediately arose.

Mark’s account, “Taking her by the hand, raised her up and the fever left her.” I don’t know how long she had been ill, but she had been ill long enough to be prone, flat, and they were fearful. But at that very moment, the fever left her. And it says, end of verse 31, “She waited on them,” diakoneō, she served them. She got up and made lunch. That’s maybe the most important comment. The infection was gone. The fever was gone. The symptoms were gone.

Now, you know if you’ve had any kind of a fever for any length of time that even when your temperature starts to come down, you feel – what? – weak and that’s when you don’t want to do nothing but have somebody bring you chicken soup or something. She had no weakness, no dizziness, no sweating, no struggling. All symptoms were gone. She was as if she had never been ill. So well, she served Sabbath dinner. And she didn’t have a microwave and she didn’t have an oven and there wasn’t a store nearby and she didn’t have a freezer. She did everything you had to do to feed four big fishermen and Jesus and the rest of the family, who would have all been there.

That evening at sundown, they brought to Him all who were sick or possessed of demons (verse 32).

The whole city was gathered around the door (verse 33).

Henry says:

It was on the evening of the sabbath, when the sun did set, or was set; perhaps many scrupled bringing their sick to him, till the sabbath was over, but their weakness therein was no prejudice to them in applying to Christ. Though he proved it lawful to heal on the sabbath days, yet, if any stumbled at it, they were welcome at another time. Now observe …

That one cure in the synagogue occasioned this crowding after him. Others speeding well with Christ should quicken us in our enquiries after him. Now the Sun of righteousness rises with healing under his wings; to him shall the gathering of the people be. Observe, How Christ was flocked after in a private house, as well as in the synagogue; wherever he is, there let his servants, his patients, be. And in the evening of the sabbath, when the public worship is over, we must continue our attendance upon Jesus Christ; he healed, as Paul preached, publicly, and from house to house.

Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He would not permit the demons to speak because they knew Him (verse 34).

In last week’s exegesis, I cited reasons why Jesus did not permit demons to say much if anything at all. First, He did not want their publicity. Secondly, the Jewish hierarchy later accused Him of having a demonic spirit which caused Him to drive demons out of people; that was when He replied that blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the enabler of His power on earth, was a deadly sin. And there is a third reason, which is that demons pervert the truth if given a chance. False teachers are the devil’s agents. St Paul’s letters tell us that they always come up with a perversion of God’s truth, especially when it involves money.

Returning to our Lord’s healing miracles, MacArthur gives us their characteristics:

… let me give you six realities about the healings of Jesus. This is a good place to do this. Number one, He healed with a word or a touch. He healed with a word or a touch. He rebukes the fever, picks her up, she’s healed by His word, His touch. You find out throughout His healings, there are many of them like that.

Secondly, He healed instantly – He healed instantly. Centurion’s servant, Matthew 8:13, was healed that very hour. The woman with the bleeding problem, Mark 5, as we’ll see, was healed immediately. Jesus healed ten lepers in Luke 17 instantaneously. He touched the man with leprosy in Luke 5, and immediately the leprosy departed. It’s always that way.

He heals with a word or a touch, not some incantations, not some formulas, a word or a touch, and He heals instantly. I’ve heard people say, “I’ve been healed and ever since I was healed I am getting better.” What in the world? Jesus never did anything that made people start to get better. It was all instantaneous.

Thirdly, He healed totally. Mark 1, we just read it. She may well have been dying from infection. He rebukes the fever and she is fully functioning in full strength, no recuperation period. He didn’t say to her, “Sip a little honey and water and take it easy for a few weeks.” He didn’t say, “Claim the healing by faith to make sure you can secure it.”

Fourthly, Jesus healed everybody. He healed everyone. In Luke’s account, it’s the parallel to this passage, Luke 4:40, Luke says, “And while the sun was setting, all who had any sick with various diseases brought them to Him and laying His hands on every one of them, He was healing them.” Every one of them – every one of them. You didn’t have to qualify to make it to the healing line. You notice that people missing a limb or people paralyzed never make it to the TV healing line? Or people who have no eyeballs in their sockets? He healed everyone, absolutely everyone.

… He healed absolutely everyone. This is just one day and He did it every day. He banished illness from Israel.

Fifthly, He healed organic disease. He didn’t heal lower back pain or heart palpitations or a headache or some other invisible ailment. He reversed paralysis, palsy, things that were undeniably supernatural.

So when you look at a healing the way Jesus did it, He healed with a word or a touch. He healed instantly. He healed totally. He healed everyone. He healed organic disease. And sixthly, He raised dead people. That was no more difficult than any other healing because you had to create in any case. He had to create a new limb. You had to create health where there was disease. It was all creative …

And by the way, Jesus did all of this healing in full public view every day in a different location. Not in some kind of fixed environment, high-control circumstances, but any place, any time, in any condition, any circumstance, and always in the open. Oh, and by the way, His miracles didn’t require faith. Be pretty hard for dead people to have faith. “If you believe, I’ll raise you.” His miracles didn’t require faith – virtually everyone He healed was an unbeliever.

Some of them came to faith as a result of the healing, like one out of the ten lepers, but they weren’t believers when He healed them. That wasn’t the point. To say to somebody, “If you have faith, you can be healed,” there’s no precedent for that in the Bible. His miracles were strung out through His whole ministry, not in special controlled environments or circumstances. Everywhere all the time, every day just as a routine of daily activity. And He healed everybody. There were no categories that were beyond His power.

Looking at the word ‘many’ in that verse, MacArthur says:

Somebody might conclude, “Well, He didn’t heal them all, then.” Doesn’t say that. It simply says that the “all” was many as opposed to a few. You know what I’m saying by that. The all were healed. Luke says He healed them all, and there were many of them who were ill, and there were many of them who had demons.

Not a small number. In fact, some take the word “many” and it’s pretty consistently this way as a sort of Semitic expression, a Hebraism meaning the whole. You could apply that in other portions of the Scripture, like in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. But they wanted to be healed. They brought everybody.

MacArthur addresses mankind’s unchanging nature:

I might add at this point that they were looking for healing and they were not looking for salvation. They were not looking so much for the – for the soul issues as the body issues. Are you surprised by that? Hey, you ask yourself the question. If you offered our generation of people in our society physical perfection, physical health, and physical wholeness or spiritual salvation, nine out of ten of them would take what? Physical – the physical. Has there ever been a generation more consumed with that than ours? They want the healing. That’s nothing new.

Verse 34, they got it, He healed many. The “all who came” were many, various diseases, cast out many demons.

MacArthur contrasts our Lord’s merciful miracles with the demonic ways of televangelist faith healers:

Now listen, folks, this is an important place for me to say some things I want to say about healing. So hold onto your seatbelt and just listen, okay? I’m saying this because I care and because it’s true and it’s necessary. There have always been false healers who claimed to be able to heal, who prey on people’s sicknesses, who prey on people who are suffering, who prey on people who have disabilities – for money – for money. They are, I think, the lowest of the low, the basest of the base. You don’t get any lower than to get rich by promising a healing to suffering people, a healing you cannot deliver, and a healing God does not promise.

Every time I hear Benny Hinn and his ilk say, “If you send me your seed faith, you send me your money, I’ll pray over your letter and God will send you a healing,” I grieve in my heart. Those false promises prey on desperate people and the world is full of them. It is, to me, the most heinous possible misrepresentation of God and Christ. To me, it is a kind of blasphemy because the net effect is you got all my money, I’m still sick, I reject your God. It’s horrendous …

Can I tell you something? If there was such a thing as a gift of healing, I’d ask God for it. I went to the hospital the other night, a man I’ve known for 60 years, critical care, tubes going in everywhere. I walked through that hospital, I saw little children who were seriously ill. I saw all kinds of people who were suffering. I went in and stood by the bed of my friend and talked with him and to pray with him. I would have given anything for the gift of healing.

I would love to be able to do what Jesus did. I’d love to just go up and down the halls, go in the room, out of the room, in the room, out of the room, in the room, have everybody get out of bed and walk out. By the way, I didn’t run into any healers there. Benny Hinn was not there.

… Think of how thrilling it would be if I had that power or if somebody had that power. If you could just go through the cancer ward and heal everybody, go through the AIDS clinic and heal everybody. Go where they have tuberculosis and whatever other diseases, tumors, just heal everybody.

Why don’t the healers do that? Where were they? Well, maybe if they all got together and they just – like twenty of them went through a hospital, maybe they could do it collectively. You’re never going to see one of them in a hospital unless he’s visiting his sick friends or sick himself. They have to stay in their tent or their building or their TV studio to pull off their deception.

They aren’t going to go to Africa and heal people. They aren’t going to go to India and Bangladesh. Why? Because they can’t heal, no one can heal. And listen to this: Even God doesn’t promise you healing. What He does promise you is death. It’s appointed unto men once to die. You have that promise from God. You will die. You have no promise that you will be healed. Your faith has nothing to do with whether you’re healed or not healed. You can’t activate some kind of healing by just believing. That kind of positive thinking is useless and pointless, and people are becoming filthy rich by selling that deceptive lie.

I watched one the other night that said, “Send me a thousand dollars. Send me a thousand dollars and I will talk to God and your healing will come” …

By the way, if God did give the gift of healing today, He wouldn’t give it to people with really, really bad theology. What, would He authenticate that? You think God is authenticating Benny Hinn’s theology who wrote a book that said there were nine members of the Trinity? That each member himself is a trinity himself? No, God doesn’t authenticate bad theology by giving miracles to people who espouse heresy. The only people who ever did miracles were the people who were given that power by Jesus directly, the seventy and the twelve, so that their message could be authenticated, and it disappeared very fast because once the New Testament began to be written down, then any true teacher could be measured by whether he agreed with Scripture …

… if I had the power to cast out demons – some people think they do – if I had that, I wouldn’t be going over to somebody and trying to get rid of the demon of post-nasal drip or the demon of anxiety or the demon of – I’d be going to the headquarters of every false system, every false representation of Jesus Christ and I’d be saying, “Out. All of you.” I don’t have that authority, so I have to spend my life fighting them another way, writing books and preaching sermons and attacking all those people who falsely represent Jesus Christ.

MacArthur adds a biblical note on the lack of healing in the Old Testament:

You know, the implication of modern healers today is “God has always been a healer, and God is the healer, and He’s always wanted to heal; and people of faith, they’ve always been able to claim their healing.” That is just not true. The first healing in the Bible is in Genesis 20 at the time of Abraham – at the time of Abraham. That’s 2200 B.C. That’s a couple of thousand years after creation. There are no healings before that. There’s a lot of other stuff, as you well know, in the opening 19 chapters of Genesis, a sweeping look at two thousand years of history, but there’s no healing there.

You do have a healing in Genesis 20 and then from Abraham to Isaiah, let’s go from say 2200 B.C., 2300 B.C. to Isaiah 750 B.C., that’s fifteen hundred years, you can search that entire period of fifteen hundred years in the report of Scripture and find maybe twenty miraculous interventions by God that resulted in a healing – maybe twenty among the millions and millions of people who lived in the hundreds and hundreds of years that passed.

And then if you want to go from Isaiah 750 B.C. to Christ, there are no healings in Scripture. None. Not one. And during that period of time, sickness and disease were everywhere. Everybody was dying. That is why when Jesus did a miracle, the Jews responded with shock. Look at Mark 2:12, He had just healed this paralyzed man and in verse 12, man got up, picked up his pallet, his bed, and went out of the sight of everyone so they were all amazed, glorifying God saying, “We have never seen anything like this.” Which is to say, “We’ve never heard of anything like this.” Matthew 9:33, at one of Jesus’ miracles, they said, “Nothing like this has ever been done in Israel.”

So the idea that the healing explosion that occurred around the ministry of Jesus Christ is some kind of standard operating procedure for God among His people is just not true. Jesus had the power of healing and the power to cast out demons, and He delegated that power to two groups, the seventy who represented Him and the twelve and Paul. Why? Because they were going to preach the gospel. How do you know if what they were preaching was true? Because you had all kinds of people preaching all kinds of messages.

The ability to demonstrate power over disease and power over demonic sources, demonic powers, was to say that the message of Jesus Christ is the message of the One who has power over the physical and spiritual effects of the curse. It was a supernatural authentication of true teachers.

Even in the New Testament, we see signs of the Apostolic Era coming to a close with St Paul in his later years:

You go into the New Testament, you get into the book of Acts, into the epistles of Paul, the general epistles, all of a sudden, guess what? Paul is sick. Trophimus is sick and Paul leaves him sick. Timothy is ill. Epaphroditus is ill. There’s no mention of healing in the final pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. There’s no mention of, you know, have a healing ministry. There’s no promise of healing in the future.

The healing explosion was not to provide health; it was to affirm the true gospel and the true Messiah, to show His power over disease and demons, to show His power over the physical and spiritual world, to show that He had the power to conquer sin and Satan, and to rescue souls, and to show that He had the power to raise a glorified, perfect body into heaven.

Returning to today’s Gospel verses, the next day, Jesus left while it was still very dark to go to a deserted place, where He prayed (verse 35).

Henry discusses the example that Jesus set for us with regard to prayer:

III. His retirement to his private devotion (v. 35); He prayed, prayed alone; to set us an example of secret prayer. Though as God he was prayed to, as man he prayed. Though he was glorifying God, and doing good, in his public work, yet he found time to be alone with his Father; and thus it became him to fulfil all righteousness. Now observe,

1. The time when Christ prayed. (1.) It was in the morning, the morning after the sabbath day. Note, When a sabbath day is over and past, we must not think that we may intermit our devotion till the next sabbath: no, though we go not to the synagogue, we must go to the throne of grace, every day in the week; and the morning after the sabbath particularly, that we may preserve the good impressions of the day. This morning was the morning of the first day of the week, which afterward he sanctified, and made remarkable, by another sort of rising early. (2.) It was early, a great while before day. When others were asleep in their beds, he was praying, as a genuine Son of David, who seeks God early, and directs his prayer in the morning; nay, and at midnight will rise to give thanks. It has been said, The morning is a friend to the Muses—Aurora Musis amica; and it is no less so to the Graces. When our spirits are most fresh and lively, then we should take time for devout exercises. He that is the first and best, ought to have the first and best.

2. The place where he prayed; He departed into a solitary place, either out of town, or some remote garden or out-building. Though he was in no danger of distraction, or of temptation to vain-glory, yet he retired, to set us an example to his own rule, When thou prayest enter into thy closet. Secret prayer must be made secretly. Those that have the most business in public, and of the best kind, must sometimes be alone with God; must retire into solitude, there to converse with God, and keep up communion with him.

Beware of people who make a public spectacle of prayer out in the streets. They want others to see them and be impressed, just like the Pharisees did. They have their reward from man, not God.

MacArthur tells us of our Lord’s prayer time and links it to the Holy Spirit, His enabler during His time on earth:

He goes to a secluded place, the word is erēmos. It’s the word translated wilderness four times already in this chapter. Here it’s translated a secluded place, away from people. He went to pray because He was fully dependent on the Father’s will, fully dependent on the Spirit’s power.

Remember, I told you the Spirit came on Him because the Spirit intermediated between His deity and His humanity. Three times in Mark, it tells us that He went into that kind of secluded place to pray, Mark 6 and Mark 14. But He prayed all the time. You look at the four gospels, He prayed before His baptism, He prayed before calling the twelve, He prayed before feeding the multitude, He prayed at is transfiguration. He prayed before He taught the disciples how to pray. He prayed before He raised Lazarus. He prayed on the last night with His disciples in the upper room. He prayed in Gethsemane, and He prayed even hanging on the cross.

Why? Because He was subject to the will of the Father and the intermediary power of the Holy Spirit, and He placed Himself always under the Father’s power and under – under the Father’s will, I should say, and under the Spirit’s power. He prayed that all those things that were in the will of God would be accomplished. You can read how He prayed in John 17, there’s a model of His prayers right there. Communing with God was crucial to Him. He had laid aside His prerogatives as the Son of God.

That’s what Philippians 2 means when it says He emptied Himself. He didn’t give away His deity, He just gave away the free exercise of it and submitted Himself to the Father and the Spirit as a part of His humiliation. That’s why He said, “I only do what the Father tells me to do, what the Father shows me. I only do what I see the Father do. I only do what pleases the Father. I do it in the power of the Spirit. And if you say I do it by the power of Satan as in Matthew 12, you blaspheme the Holy Spirit.” Wonderful dependence on the will of God and on the power of the Spirit. That dependence is made manifest in His prayer.

Simon Peter and the others ‘hunted’ for Him (verse 36).

When they found Him they said, ‘Everyone is searching for you’ (verse 37).

MacArthur says:

Luke says, “They tried to keep Jesus from leaving Capernaum.” You’ve got to come back. Hey, this is what we hoped for. You are popular, do you understand this? This is your moment. Wow, this is it. You’ve got to capitalize on this. They’re all back, come on.

Jesus said that they would go on to the neighbouring towns instead, so that He could proclaim His message there, too, for that is what He came out to do (verse 38).

MacArthur tells us:

Verse 38, “He said to them, ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’” I like that. I made my point, right? It’s not about everybody getting their little healing, it’s about proving who I am. I’ve done enough to make it evident. Let’s go somewhere else because somewhere else we can do it again. Let’s go somewhere else, to the towns nearby. Listen to this, “So that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for.” Folks, that’s worth underl[in]ing.

If you ever ask why Jesus came, He came to be a preacher. “The Son of man has come to seek and to save the lost.” “I am come to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” Mark 2:17. Here He says, “I’ve come to preach.” How does He call sinners to repentance? How does He seek and save the lost? By preaching. That’s what I came for – to preach. Remember when He went to the synagogue at Nazareth just before this event? And He came into the synagogue and He opened to Isaiah 61, “The Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel.”

God only had one Son and He was a preacher. That’s why He came, to preach. The miracles only verified the authority and the truthfulness of His message, but there was no salvation in the miracles, the salvation was in believing the preaching – believing the preaching.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons (verse 39).

MacArthur explains:

So He left. This is so important. Listen to Romans 10:13, “Whoever will call in the name of the Lord will be saved. How will they call on Him whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they’re sent?” No wonder it’s written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news of good tidings.”

Jesus was a preacher because faith comes by hearing the Word. Same passage, Romans 10. So for weeks, even months, He went from town to town and village to village, preaching and proving the truthfulness of His message by miraculous deliverances from demons and healings. Savior not only verifies who He is, but proclaims salvation through faith in His name. And so Mark pulls together these three realities that we will see played out throughout our Lord’s entire ministry, a ministry of proof, a ministry of prayer, and a ministry of preaching.

Henry has this brief comment:

Note, Christ’s doctrine is Satan’s destruction.

MacArthur gives us two important points on which to end. One is the scope of our Lord’s miracles, and the second is their fulfilment of prophecy:

This is just one day in a three-year power display. There are ninety, 9-0, gospel texts on healing. During our Lord’s ministry, there was an unparalleled healing explosion that virtually banished disease from Israel. This one little spot on the earth, disease was banished. Never was there in history such a healing barrage …

In Matthew’s account of this same miracle, there’s one statement at the end of it that’s worth noting. Matthew chapter 8 … this closing comment, verse 17, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet.” And what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet? Isaiah 53:4, “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.” The prophet said that He would have the power to bring our diseases, our infirmities, to an end. Will He heal all our diseases? Yeah, in the future – in the future. But He proved that He’s able to do it in the future by doing it when He was here. 

May all reading this enjoy a blessed Sunday.