After making the crossing, they came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. 54 As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. 55 They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.
Mark ends this chapter of his Gospel with a brief scene that gathers up what has been happening around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and the disciples come ashore at Gennesaret, and the moment they step out of the boat, the people recognize him. News spreads quickly. People carry the sick on mats, bringing them to wherever they hear he has gone. Mark’s words give the sense of constant movement: villages, towns, and the open countryside. Wherever Jesus enters, the sick are laid in public places, and the request is simple and repeated—let them touch even the tassel of his cloak, and they will be made well.
That detail about the “tassel” has roots in Israel’s story. In the Law of Moses, the people were instructed to wear tassels as a visible reminder to remember the LORD and keep his commandments (Num. 15:38–40). Mark does not pause to explain this, but the image matters. The sick are not asking for an object to work magic. They are reaching toward a sign that belongs to a faithful Israelite’s way of life—an outward reminder of belonging to God and living under his word. In the Old Testament, God’s healing is often shown through tangible signs and concrete actions, because God deals with real human bodies and real human needs. Mark presents Jesus in that same line: God’s saving help comes close enough to be touched.
Mark has already shown a similar moment when a woman in a long illness touches Jesus’ clothing and is healed (Mk. 5:27). Here, that single episode becomes a pattern. Mark describes many people doing what she did, and many being restored. The crowds carry the sick to him “wherever they heard he was,” because they have learned, through repeated encounters, that Jesus’ mercy is not limited to one house or one moment. The scene also fits the wider Gospel picture where Jesus’ power reaches out to many at once: “a large crowd… had come to hear him and to be healed,” and “power came forth from him and healed them all” (Lk. 6:17–19).
At the same time, Mark’s wording keeps the meaning from being only medical. The sentence ends, “as many as touched it were healed.” In Mark’s Gospel, the same kind of language can point beyond physical cure to God’s deeper saving work in a person’s life. That is consistent with how Jesus has acted earlier: he forgives sins (Mk. 2:5), he restores the unclean to the community, and he draws people toward trust in God. So even in this short summary, Mark is not only reporting that bodies were restored. He is showing how God’s salvation is arriving in public view, in ordinary places, through contact with Jesus.
This passage also prepares what comes next. Mark moves immediately from an eager crowd in Galilee to disputes about purity and tradition (Mk. 7:1–23). Here the people bring their sick openly into the marketplace and beg for help. The next scene will bring opposition and argument. Mark wants the reader to see both: the wide reach of Jesus’ healing work, and the growing conflict that follows him.
Lord Jesus, you welcomed the sick who were brought to you and you restored them with mercy. Draw me close to you in faith, and let your saving work reach the places in my life that need healing. Amen.
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Sources and References
- The Holy Bible, New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), Mk. 6:53–56; Num. 15:38–40; Mk. 5:27; Mk. 2:5; Mk. 7:1–23; Lk. 6:17–19.
- The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark, notes on Mk. 6:53 and 6:56, p. 77.
- Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 611, para. 46.
- The Navarre Bible: St. Mark (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), p. 187.
- Ronald D. Witherup, The Paulist Biblical Commentary (New York: Paulist Press, 2018), p. 994.
- John J. Collins, ed., The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, 3rd fully revised ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2022), p. 1258.
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