Sitting with someone

Once, someone ordered some fast food to be delivered. Upon receipt they checked through the various carrier bags and containers. Main course – yes!, starts – Yes!, pudding – Yes!, and what’s this?, and it costs this much: ah, it is riceless! We even might rush eating our food, but…

If we might take that time to pause, how might we see the situation today?

I recall spending time with one person who were in their last days. Their children had organised a Spotify playlist suited just perfect – I wonder how long that had taken? – and had been patiently sitting with their parent for a day or so, when I called. They asked if I could just stay so they could have a coffee away from the bedside. So, there I was, listening to a wonderful selection of classical music – not my favourite, I must admit, but I wonder whether the one asleep may have heard its flowing rhythms, and recalled them from their younger days? They didn’t talk, or even open their eyes, they were at peace: yes, in this last days, there may be pain save that of the wonderful nursing staff seeking to avert it. After an hour of so, the children returned. The time had flown by, I had felt. Was it a waste of my own time? I seriously would contest that. What the person may have felt, I do not know. I do recall that it was a priceless period of time, being with another on their journey of life.

In Mark 1: 29-39 we may read of Jesus, on his way fresh from healing someone who had ‘immediately’ arrived in a church setting and who had tried to verbally harass Jesus as he taught. The man is ‘cured’ and people are astonished. The disciples have now moved on to the house of Simon and Andrew, where Simon’s Mum-in-law is rather ill. She would be healed as well. Following on from this, we will also have a leper healed as Jesus wends his way through Galilee. Healing the sick is the on-trend thing for Jesus to do! But why?

For some, we might focus upon the word ‘demonic’ which might appear in our translations, and then jump to conclusions at what exactly what medical complaint these folk had. We might suggest that this is to show that Jesus wasn’t one of the many magicians which wondered from settlement to settlement, as, according to the Gospel, ‘he healed’, actually healed. But, we might wish to reflect on how many times – contrary to the immediacy of the Gospel – that Jesus pauses in his ministry.

He just stops, he just waits around, he just reflects on what is going on. Do we?

I wonder if we might possibly see more of what God is doing if we were able to merely be in this world for a wee few moments. It would be like, coming off the motorway and taking five minutes in the service station. That hot drink – the reason we always take our thermos with us – might allow our senses to calm down, return to what we perceive to be normality.

Throughout the Gospel according to John-Mark, we will hear that the disciples were confused, the leaders quickly misinterpreted the situation, and at the end, the women also were a tadge confused.

If we might take that time to pause, how might we see the situation today?