A crowded room- 2:1-4

Chapter 2
And entering into Capernaum again after some days it became known that he was at home. - Is this Peter's place? Wherever it was Jesus considered at home there (en oikw). How long did he spend there all up? What did he do when he was at home? Did he do any woodwork for people? Don't hear anything of that in the gospels- get the feeling that he completely left that, for this particular task- and that there wasn't much down time in the three years- is that the case? Need to do myself a big calendar and map it all as well as I can.

(After the wedding in Cana John writes- “After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days”- I wonder if there was a family connection there)

A crowd gathers around and he speaks to them 'the word'. - the message- not much room- not even around the door- since the man got let in through the roof, does that mean they were all crowded into the house? If so, I imagine it wouldn't be much more than 100 people- how big would have the house been? What was a normal design? The four friends can't get in the front door - because of the crowd- maybe 200 – a whole lot craning to see and hear around the door- take him up to the roof – and unroof it- digging through- they let down their friend on his mat- krabbaton. Doesn't seem like it was brief 'the word'. There is enough time for a sizable crowd to gather, then for the four to come and see they couldn't get in by the front door- then to go up on the roof, with their cargo, and dig a hole through it- and find things to lower him down with. Mark doesn't give us much of the teaching content- would get in the way of his fast paced story- but how good would it have been to be in that house and listening for a few hours? to what Jesus considered the word...

100 teenagers in the Pizza shop at Broken Hill- they didn't all fit in the shop- totally crowded in there and the overflow on the paved area outside, but there was some room to move around. Still can't be too too many- in future years you could talk to other people in the town – were you there that day in Peter's house when we were all crammed into the living room (are they only one roomed houses?) and Jesus was speaking and then there was this banging on the roof- yep got half the roof on my head... Surely there must have been some in Capernaum that became followers and cherished memories such as this- even if the majority of the town did a Uncle Andrew trick with it all (where he hears Aslan singing Narnia into existence and when he sees it is 'only a lion' tries his hardest to believe it wasn't singing and never had, but only roaring as any lion might in a zoo.)