I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
lo, I have not restrained my lips,
as thou knowest, O Lord.
I have not hid thy saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of thy faithfulness and thy salvation;
I have not concealed thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness
from the great congregation. (Ps 39.9-10)
And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they should crush him; for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. (Mk 3.9-10)
. . .
There is a connection, I think, between 'the glad news of deliverance' and the healing that people quickly come to expect from Jesus (especially in Mark's gospel). People draw near to Jesus, because he is not just the bearer of God's salvation, he is that salvation.
It is difficult to read passages like this one from Mark without wishing that deliverance was so straightforward: diseases are healed, demons cast out. What's wrong is obvious, and salvation is immediate. People go their way, having been made well by the one in whom all things hold together (Col 1.17). And I wonder what he would say to me, if I appeared before him in Galilee? He would know immediately, in a way that I do not, what it is that ails me. But in what would my faith consist? I suppose all I have to offer is my presence before him, which is the only testimony to my belief that he has the power to make me whole again.
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