In our gospel readings for the last few weeks, Jesus has done quite a bit of traveling. He went back and forth from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other. Two weeks ago he went to Tyre which is a city in Lebanon and then he went to the cities of the Decapolis which was on the far Eastern border of the Roman territory and included the ancient city of…Philadelphia!
In this week’s text, Jesus and his followers have returned to the place he called home – the territory of Galilee, but he didn’t want anyone to know he was there. Why would he do that?