Epiphany 5 B
“A Sermon – Just What I Needed”
St. Mark 1:29-39
8 February 2015 – Redeemer
The pastor stood there feeling like a fool. He was standing in the Cardiac Care Unit, at the death bed of a blessed elderly woman, a sheep of his flock. There was a quarter million dollars of equipment in the room, the best that medice had to offer. It wasn’t working – she was dying.
The Pastor felt like a fool because he stood there with a book in his hand. He wasn’t administering drugs or checking respiration or giving a blood transfusion, he was simply speaking God’s Word, the Psalms, the glad tidings of the Gospel. Where the best and most expensive efforts of humanity had failed in giving this woman life, that foolish pastor stood there preaching life. Although the pastor thought he was a fool – he knew he wasn’t because he had long before had an Epiphany about God’s Word – a sermon of God’s Word is the only way to bring life to the dying.
You are as foolish as that pastor because you’ve come here today to listen to a sermon. You expect it. You look forward to it. You may not be excited about it but you have come to believe you need it. How foolish can you be? What happened to you this past week? What do you really need? You need a vacation in a warm sunny climate. You need counseling from a professional for your marriage. You need a miracle for your daughter’s cancer or your grandmother’s stroke. You need safety for that unborn grandchild you’re expecting. You need someone to speak some sense into your son before its too late. You need $1000 for Uncle Sam or $5000 for a new roof. You know exactly what you need – you need a miracle. Yet you’ve come to God’s house and you are wise enough to know you’re not going to get that miracle here, but you’re foolish enough to believe you need a sermon.
Today’s text from Saint Mark teaches us to be fools for sermons – it teaches pastors foolishly to preach and believe that preaching is his most important task for his flock. It teaches you that the main task Jesus came to do was to preach His life into you.
The second last thing Simon’s mother-in-law wanted was a sermon. The last thing she wanted, when she was sick in bed with a fever, was for her son-in-law to invite a whole bunch of fisherman and Jesus over to the house for supper. Men, seriously, invite guests over to your house when your mother-in-law is sick and your wife is caring for her? And then, just in case you weren’t quite sure you nailed the “thoughtless husband of the year” award, tell Jesus your mother-in-law is sick and bring him into her sick room. Just what a sick woman wants to see – a male guest in her bedroom, with all the sights and smells of sickness.
But we can also turn that around – does Jesus really have time for this? In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is always in hurry, going here, running there. The word “immediately” occurs 45 times in Mark’s Gospel. We’re thirty verses into chapter one and we’ve heard John the Baptist preach, Jesus has been baptized. John has been arrested. Jesus has called his first disciples. He’s preached a few sermons and cast out a demon. His sermons are short and to the point – there’s no time for cutesy stories and life applications “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus didn’t want anyone to miss out on the Kingdom. The Kingdom is Jesus. Jesus is here. If you miss Jesus you miss forgiveness, you miss the life everlasting, you miss the resurrection of your body and its perfect restoration. Repent and believe.
So Jesus might have considered Simon’s mother-in-law a little low on his priority list. He had places to go and sermons to preach, immediately. Let’s just grab some food and a few hours of sleep and get going. But no, no one is beneath Jesus. He’s goes into her sickroom. He doesn’t even know her, what is he thinking? It’s also possible that her illness rendered her unclean by Old Testament law. By touching her Jesus Himself risked becoming unclean. Common sense, cleanliness laws, His basic mission – it all said, “Just let her be.” But Jesus didn’t come to let us be, to leave us in captivity to suffering and sickness and death. And there isn’t one person for whom Jesus doesn’t come – whether she wants to see him or not, whether He should be seen with her or not. There isn’t one person for whom Jesus doesn’t come, even you. Even if you’re embarrassed to see him. Even if you think you are least on His list. He takes hold of her hand, raises her up and the fever leaves her. That word “leaves” is interesting – it’s the same word used for forgive and divorce. Jesus separated the fever from the woman – in the same way He separates your sins from you, in the same way (although much sadder way) that a man who divorces his wife separates himself from her.
As you might expect when the neighborhood folks saw Peter’s mother-in-law up and making her famous hamburger goulash and red jello salad for Jesus they told their friends. And their friends told their friends. And as soon as the sun went down on the Sabbath, when the people could once again work, they carried their sick and lame, and wrestled their demon possessed relatives to Jesus, and now poor Simon’s mother-in-law had the whole city at her door, but at least she was feeling better.
The miracles made Jesus popular. Finally, well past midnight, the last demon was divorced and the last blind person was made to see, at least in Capernaum. Jesus slept briefly and then before anyone woke up he went off by Himself to pray. Whenever Jesus prays it is at a critical time in His earthly life – it’s a Garden of Gethsemane moment – cross or no-cross, Father, your will be done. So Jesus goes out into no man’s land to pray. What he prays we do not know. Although we do know the direction Jesus went following his prayer.
He went away from miracles to preaching. When James and John, Simon and Andrew awoke they couldn’t find Jesus. People were already starting to arrive in Capernaum seeking a miracle. Everyone was looking for him. Finally Simon and his search party found Jesus. Didn’t Jesus want to be found? Didn’t He want the crowds? Evidently not, at least not this crowd and He tells us why. They don’t need miracles. They need a sermon, as do we.
“Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” He wasn’t going back to Capernaum. A whole bunch of people weren’t getting what they wanted from Jesus. Perhaps you haven’t gotten what you needed from Jesus. Not every blind person in Galilee got their sight back. Not every leper was made clean. Not every dead person was raised like Lazarus. But every person did get a sermon, every person is included the sermon of God, the Word God spoke in the flesh. Everyone is included in the sermon “Jesus.”
In the sermon that is Jesus, God has preached the sermon we all need – the sermon that God Himself has come to separate us from our sins, that God Himself takes the suffering we deserve and the hell that we have earned. Jesus sets us free from Satan’s possession and our bondage to sickness, suffering, and death. But the miracle that accomplishes that is the mysterious miracle of His death on the cross, the mysterious exchange where He takes our place. At the cross there is no visible divine intervention – God doesn’t stop the soldiers from pounding those nails through Jesus’ flesh. He doesn’t send His angel armies to meet out heavenly vengeance. No the miracle of the cross is unseen – it’s only revealed by the sermons Jesus preached – that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priest and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mk 8:31) That’s the miracle because that death undoes your sins. I bet you didn’t even feel that miracle this morning when your sins were forgiven. And I don’t expect you’ll notice any difference in your life after we put the amen on this sermon.
But do not doubt that you have received the benefit of that greatest miracle ever worked. Your sins are forgiven because Christ died in your place. You are “not guilty” before God in heaven because Christ lived the perfect life and offered his life for yours. Because of that great miracle there are a lot of lesser miracles ahead of you – if you’re dying you’re going to live forever. If you’re going blind you will have 20/20 vision. If you’re in a wheelchair or using a walker you’ll have the privilege of divorcing yourself from it. If you’ve made funeral plans you ‘ll enjoy the same miracle as Lazarus for Jesus will call one day for you to “come out.”
Does that sound foolish? The greater gift is preaching. The lesser gift is miracles. The preaching of forgiveness that you better hear at least three times in every divine service is the greatest of all miracles – it’s God exchanging his Son for you. Everything else – the things you really think you need – life and health and hope and a future – that’s all coming for you, but it’s secondary. What you need this morning and every Lord’s day is a Jesus sermon. That may sound foolish, but it’s not and you know that – in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
7 February 2015 anno Domini