Mk 6:53-56
Powerless healing: Mark here presents Jesus as a healer once again. No specific person is mentioned; rather, Jesus heals all the sick from the villages, towns and surrounding countryside. In the community for whom Mark wrote this Gospel, Jesus was definitely remembered as an itinerant healer.
Those sick who were able to touch the tassel of Jesus’ cloak were healed. This Marcan touch is an echo of an earlier healing of the woman with the hemorrhage who was able to touch Jesus’ clothes and immediately experience healing (cf 5:25-29).
For the reader, these healings can leave the impression of a powerful Messiah, who, when his cloak is touched, generates healing for those who need it. This type of hero, from a literary perspective, is very appealing.
And this is exactly what Mark has done. He wins the reader over in the first eight chapters of the Gospel with his portrayal of a healing, miracle-working, exorcising Messiah. However, in chapter eight, the reader will suddenly find his expectations turned up-side down as he or she learns that Messiahship requires suffering, death, and resurrection. It is in powerlessness that real power resides.
What Mark has done is to use the tradition of Jesus as a healer of physical ills to push the meaning of healing in a new direction. Mark is not interested in physical healings; he is interested in making the reader realize that physical healings are not sufficient reason to believe in Jesus. He downplays the power of Jesus, a power to which every person is attracted. In power’s place, Mark has set powerlessness. A person believes in Jesus, not because of Jesus’ ability to heal, but because one has come to see that real power consists in powerlessness.