I wonder if Peter knew that his wife's mother was ill, when he said to
Jesus Christ, after that exciting morning in the synagogue, 'Come
home, and rest in our house'? Probably not. One can scarcely imagine
hospitality proffered under such circumstances, or with a knowledge of
them. And if we look a little more closely into the preceding
narrative we shall see that it is at least possible that Peter and his
brother had been away from home for some time; so that the old woman
might easily have fallen ill during their temporary absence. But be
that as it may, they expect to find rest and food, and they find a
sick woman.
There must have been at least two rooms in the humble house, because
they 'come to Jesus Christ and tell Him of her.' Now if we turn to the
other Evangelists, we shall find that Matthew says nothing about any
message being communicated to Jesus, but brings Him at once, as It
were, to the side of the sick-bed. That is evidently an incomplete
account. And then we find in Luke's Gospel that, instead of the simple
'tell Him of her' of Mark, he intensifies the telling into 'they
besought Him for her.' Now, I think that Mark's is plainly the more
precise story, because he lets us see that Jesus Christ did not commit
such a breach of courtesy, due to the humblest home, as to go to the
woman's bedside without being summoned, and he also lets us see that
the 'beseeching' was a simple intimation to Him. They did not ask;
they tell Him; being, perhaps, restrained from definite petitioning
partly by reverence, and partly, no doubt, by hesitation in these
early days of their discipleship--for this incident occurred at the
very beginning, when all the subsequent manifestations of His
character were yet waiting to be flashed upon them--as to whether it
might be in accordance with their new Teacher's very little known
disposition and mind to help. They knew that He could, because He had
just healed a demoniac in the synagogue, but one can understand how,
at the beginning of their discipleship, there was a little faltering
of confidence as to whether they should go so far as to ask Him to do
such a thing. So they 'tell Him of her,' and do you not think that the
tone of petition vibrated in the intimation, and that there looked out
of the eyes of the impulsive, warm-hearted Peter, an unspoken prayer?
So Luke was perfectly right in his interpretation of the incident,
though not precise in his statement of the external fact, when,
instead of saying 'they tell Him of her,' he translated that telling
into what it meant, and put it, 'they besought Him for her.'
Ah! dear brethren, there are a great many things in our lives which,
though we ought to know Jesus Christ better than the first disciples
at first did, scarcely seem to us fit to be turned into subjects of
petition, partly because we have wrong notions as to the sphere and
limits of prayer, and partly because they seem to be such transitory
things that it is a shame to trouble Him about such insignificant
matters. Well, go and tell Him, at any rate. I do not think that
Christians ought to have anything in their heads or hearts that they
do not take to Jesus Christ, and it is an uncommonly good test--and
one very easily applied--of our hopes, fears, purposes, thoughts,
deeds, and desires--'Should I like to go and make a clean breast of it
to the Master?'
'They tell Him of her,' and that meant petition, and Jesus Christ can
interpret an unspoken petition, and an unexpressed desire appeals to
His sympathetic heart. Although the words be but 'O Lord! I am
troubled, perplexed; and I do not know what to do,' He translates them
into 'Calm Thou me; enlighten Thou me; guide Thou me'; and be sure of
this, that as in the story before us, so in our lives, He will answer
the unspoken petition in so far as may be best for us.