The unofficial apostle of Christ.

The unofficial apostle of Christ.
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Mark’s Gospel tells us a particularly striking healing incident.

A man had been “possessed with an impure spirit,”   rather a legion of spirits.

Something horrifying had happened to this man, and his mind, body, and spirit had been overthrown.

Unable to control  himself he was always violent.

Nobody could tame him.

Of course this man too had been made in God’s own image,

  but he could no longer see that image in himself nor in anyone or anything else.

All he saw was darkness and nothingness.

All he heard were lies and hostile voices in his head.

All he felt wss rage, pain, and humiliation.

He lashed out at anyone and anything in order to be heard,

to be whole,

to feel something,

to regain what had been lost,

even though  he couldnot remember what that was.

He was broken, incoherent, and a danger to himself.

The gospel says that he was chained from time to time,

suggesting he might also have been a threat to other people.

He lived, naked, in the graveyard on the outskirts of the town.

He howled and yelled.

He injured himself.

No one knew what he ate and how he survived.

All we know is this hopeless man was incapable of being fully human as God intended.

It is here that Jesus entered  this situation.

He did not run away.

He did not  ignore the man.

Instead, He carefully reached through the spiritual smog surrounding the man and sought to bring him back to life.

Jesus helped the man to recognize himself,

to know his own history and family,

and to remember that he was a child of God.

Jesus expelled from him the legion of demons, that had taken control of him.

He sent them into a herd of pigs.

He used his own healing powers,

to cleanse the man of this pollution and return him to his senses.

The man became whole.

He remembered who he was,

where he was from,

and what had happened to him.

His mind, body, and spirit were sound again. 

The man was grateful to Jesus for what He had done to him.

He wanted to follow  Jesus.

He begged Him to allow him to go with Him.

The man wanted to be always with Jesus.

But Jesus refused to let the man come with him.

Instead,

he instructed the man,

“Go home to your own people

and

tell them how much the Lord has done for you,

and how he has had mercy on you.”

Elsewhere, Jesus had allowed the cured to follow Him.

In some instances He had asked the cured not to tell anybody about the cure.

But here He refused to allow the cured man to follow Him.

What is more,

He instructed the man

to tell his own people

how much the Lord had done for him.

The man complied. 

He got up

and

" went away and began to preach in the Ten Cities,

how great were the things that Jesus had done for him.

And everyone wondered."

The healing incident highlights the connection between the gift of healing and the call to discipleship.

By instructing the man to tell his story of being healed,

Jesus is making him a disciple,  in an unofficial capacity.

Jesus commissions the man to preach the Good News of God

to those whom the man knows best. 

The man is being made into a messenger (literally, apostle) of the gospel to others. 

The man’s life itself  has become the good news.

Let us allot a few minutes for self examination.

Holy Mother, the church, has put in our hands a Bible,  for what?

To keep it safely in a prominent place in our house as thing of exhibition?

To be just carried to and fro the Church to show that we are Christians?

To be just read regularly without understanding what is read?

Or

To make it our life?

If we read the Bible to make it our life,

all of us would have turned into Apostles of Jesus by now,

though in an unofficial capacity.

How many times have we have received what we had prayed for?

How many times have we been cured during prayer meetings conducted by prayer groups?

Innumerable times, surely.

Have we ever once thought of becoming an Apostle?

Have we ever once thought of spreading the Good News among  the unbelievers?

Bible has been given to us not merely for our self use.

Who so ever receives the Good News

from what so ever source he happens to come across,

is duty bound

to give it to whom so ever he meets with.

We need not have  received the sacrament of Holy Orders in order to spread the Gospel.

In fact it easy for the laity to do it

as we are always together.

Let us not forget that we are the unofficial Apostles of Jesus.

It is not a difficult job to be an Apostle.

Our only duty is to give what we receive!

Lourdu Selvam.