Over this past weekend, we heard that the word “amazed” appears 24 times in the short Gospel of St. Mark. His Gospel is also the one that starts many sentences with “And” or “Then” … as in “Then Jesus did this”or “Then Jesus did that.” There is a tremendous urgency about the Good News according to St. Mark. His words convey what we would call a “breakneck” pace. In fact some Bible scholars affectionately call it the “Pony Express Gospel” – because we get on the horse in chapter 1 and gallop our way through until the end of the final chapter, chapter 16.
There are two examples of all of this in Mark 5, 21-43: everyone is amazed at Jesus’ healing power (both the woman healed and Jairo and his family), but St. Mark is in such a hurry to tell the Good News that he can’t even finish one story without starting another! St. Mark is like a breathless child saying “this and then that and this other thing … grandma, you should have seen it!”
What St. Mark wants to convey is this: “Dear Christians, this is such good news and it’s breaking upon us even now … watch, pay attention … God is breaking through! It may overwhelm you or confound you with sudden surprise or wonder … surely you will be amazed, but that’s God’s way – and you are invited to follow it right now!”
