Tears came to my manly eyes as we read the story of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5 this morning. This man, separated from his land and people, is worse than dead, crying out like the Hyenas of the wilderness behind the cliff line. Not only does Jesus heal the man, but tells him specifically to go home to his land and to his people declaring what the master has done for him. The steep banks running into "Yom," the dangerous sea in the distance, bring back memory to the chapter before where Jesus was shown to be master even over its furious storms.
Charozim and Capernum were reminders of the nature of Jesus' call - both by his own trade and by the trade of his disciples. Chorazim was a brand new town of Jewish nationalists - a growing city where a tecton like Jesus would have found jobs. After the lame man was lowered thorugh the roof one could speculate that Jesus himself would have helped to patch the hole. In Capernum we see a fishing village where fishermen were called from their nets to work alongside the very men like Matthew who may have taxed the fishing trade for the government. The mishna notes that rabbis of Jesus' day kept their jobs. Is it any surprise that we find the disciples back at their nets later in the gospels? Would we be surprised to find Jesus working on a house in the middle of his 3 year ministry in Galilee? Does such information demand that contemporary ministry look the same or is it just another cultural aspect in which Jesus worked?
Our 4 day trip to Galilee ended at the Tel of Beth-Shean/Scythopolis. It stands as a pillar through time. Egyptian ruins poke through the Grecco Roman pillars, bath-houses, and theaters. The imprint of Hellenism is as massive as the Tel itself.
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