Here we are on the edge of Lent. Our last week in ordinary time or epiphany (depending on which calendar you are using). For some this week is the commemoration of the transfiguration. But we are using the readings for 6 th Sunday in Epiphany/Ordinary Time. And we hear “what next” for Jesus. Mark is fast paced, and the story is moving rapidly. Jesus leaves Capernaum to preach to all the towns of Galilee and encounters a man with a skin disease. It is a strange story. The translations vary – is Jesus filled with compassion or anger? And it raises all kinds of questions like, what is it with Jesus ordering people not to tell? At the end Jesus and the man trade places and Jesus returns to the wilderness, where it all began. Last week I noted that healing stories are difficult. Many of us struggle with them. Even in the stories not everyone got healed. Those that got healed still got sick again and died. Healing was important. But I don’t think it was the point. The point was that “Now ...