Just before this passage in the Gospel of St. Luke, we find Jesus calling his disciples to himself, then, from among them, calling the Twelve Apostles. We pick up the story this Sunday when those disciples and apostles arrive with Jesus “on a stretch of level ground” where “… a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon …” have come to meet Jesus. To complete the context of the passage we hear this Sunday it is helpful to notice two verses which are left out. Those verses say that the great crowd “… came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.”