Hebrews 2:14-18 / Mark 1:29-39
To step down from a position of power and authority is never an easy thing to do. At least one of the things that one has to get used to is the downsizing of the office.
Where once everyone is at your beck and call, now you will have to make your own coffee and get your own lunch and wash your own dishes.
What would be really difficult to accept will be that where once the final decision would lie with you, now you don't have a say anymore, and you would feel quite redundant and maybe even useless.
So when Jesus emptied Himself and took on flesh and blood and became like one of us, we can imagine what it was for Him.
But as the 1st reading puts it, it was essential that He should become completely like His brothers so that He could be a compassionate and trustworthy high priest of God, and to be able to atone for human sins.
So in emptying Himself, Jesus did not become redundant or useless; on the contrary, He was able to help those who are tempted and to save them from their sins.
In the gospel, we heard Him doing just that - He cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another and He also cast out many devils.
Yet because He emptied Himself, Jesus had to rely on the power of God for His mission and so in the morning, long before dawn, He got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.
If Jesus, the Son of God gave such an important priority to prayer, then we who are weak and wounded by sin, certainly cannot do with any lesser priority to prayer.
When we pray, we unite ourselves with Jesus, and like Him, we too empty ourselves so that we can be filled with the power of God to continue the mission of proclaiming the Good News of God's love.