Member-only story
Featured
Faith in Action
Four Friends and a Miracle (Mark 2, 1–11)
What happened that evening in Capernaum?
There were four of us sitting at the bar in Capernaum, the only place to be in this godforsaken place that almost seems to have been abandoned by men. There was me, Charlie, Joseph, known as Joey, and Johnny: four like many, or rather like everyone.
We were drinking a cold beer at the end of a day like any other: hot, dry, unbearable. It’s the kind of day where you can’t help but wonder what you’re doing in a place like this and why you don’t just pack it all in and go to Jerusalem: that’s where the fun’s at!
We were there, saying the same things to each other as we do every day, after finishing work in the fields, before going home, when Johnny said, “You know, Jesus has arrived.” He said it quietly, with his hands on his beer glass and his eyes on the bottom of the glass.
‘That charlatan!’ Charlie interrupted him, not really paying attention, slouching in his chair, swinging from one leg to the other. He was definitely thinking about something else, maybe girls. He didn’t even let the other two of us get to the end of what Junin was saying. But that’s just how Charlie was. In his house, everyone was family and friends, and that was certainly his father’s opinion, an opinion that Charlie breathed with…
