Healing in Galilee - Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44

While staying at Simon’s house and healing the people brought to Him, the next morning, “rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Jesus must have been tired after having spent so much time the day before walking from Nazareth to Capernaum, from what I could find it’s about 20 miles, after being chased around in town and then spent the rest of night healing people and probably teaching. He must have been exhausted, but he still woke up “a great while before day,” so it was probably still dark outside to pray. Jesus put such an importance on prayer that he gave up sleep for it, and wasn’t flashy about it. He might have been praying for guidance on what to do, the people clearly wanted him to stay with them in Capernaum, but he must have received the instruction to move on. Simon and the other disciples go to look for him and “they said unto him, All men seek for thee.” Jesus answers them, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.”

What follows isn’t super specific, but a generalized, “and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.” During his mortal ministry, Jesus healed all day every day, but the IM quotes Elder Jeffrey R. Holland as comparing Jesus’s physical healing to His spiritual healing as well. He says, “Now, the teaching and the preaching we know and would expect. But we may not be quite as prepared to see healing in the same way. Yet from this earliest beginning, from the first hour, healing is mentioned almost as if it were a synonym for teaching and preaching. At least there is a clear relationship among the three. In fact, the passage that follows says more about the healing than the teaching or the preaching… Now, let me make myself absolutely clear. By ‘healing,’ as I have been speaking of it, I am not talking about formal use of the priesthood or administration to the sick or any thing as that. That is not the role of those called as teachers in our Church organizations. But I believe our teaching can lead to healing of the spiritual kind… As with the Master, would it be wonderful to measure the success of our teaching by the healing that takes place in the lives of others?... Could we try a little harder to teach so powerfully and so spiritually that we really help that individual who walks alone, who lives alone, who weeps in the dark of the night?” The IM continues, “The Joseph Smith Translation makes clear that the Savior healed all manner of sickness and disease ‘among the people which believed on his name.’”

Reading Elder Holland’s remarks reminded me of what we talked about with the woman at the well in Samaria, how can she be healed? Through repentance and embracing the gospel. There is a Christmas video put out by the Church and it showed a back and forth between the Savior’s mortal life and how we can act similarly as well. The video was quite powerful because it showed Jesus healing people and serving them, and it showed us being friends with others, serving them, easing their burdens, and comforting them. We might not possess the ability to heal others on command like Jesus does, but we can do our part to help them where we can.