Fifth Sunday after
the Epiphany (B)
February 4, 2018
Text: Mark 1:29-39
I’m
sure you’ve caught on by now, but this is the Sunday to make it explicit: What
Jesus does for the people in His earthly ministry, He does for you here and now
in His Church as He comes among you in His Word, Baptism, and Supper. Jesus didn’t stop doing these things when He
ascended into heaven. He is not a God
removed from us. He is a God very near,
as near as His Word in your ear and His risen body in your mouth. We Lutherans talk a lot about the real
presence of Jesus, especially when it comes to the Holy Communion. But I’m not so sure we always, or ever,
really get what that means. He’s not
just “with us in spirit.” That’s a
ridiculous statement. When I tell you
I’m with you in spirit, I’m telling you I’m not really with you at all. Jesus is with us as He promised, to the very
end of the age (Matt. 28:20). That
Promise is delivered where the Baptism and teaching are going on (vv. 19-20),
and where two or three are gathered together, congregated, in His Name (the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit), agreeing on the binding and loosing of sin (Matt.
18:18-20). That Promise is delivered
where tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners
like you are gathered around the Table with Jesus to eat and to drink. As assuredly as He was with them in His
earthly ministry, so assuredly is He with us here and now. As assuredly as you are sitting in the pew,
so assuredly is Jesus in the building.
And you can’t divide Him up into His two natures in such a way that He’s
somehow with us as God but confined to His throne in heaven somewhere else as a
man. That makes two Jesuses, which I
think even the most radical anti-sacramentalists would agree is a heresy. Jesus is one Person. He has two Natures, Divine and Human, but He
is one Person. So where Jesus is, He is
there as One who is God and Man. That
means He’s here in His body. Because
this man is God, He can be everywhere as a man!
Of course other men can’t do that, because other men aren’t God, but
this man is. And that means when He says
He’s giving you His body to eat and His blood to drink, He isn’t lying. You eat Him.
You drink Him. For the forgiveness
of sins. And by the way, what is true of
the Supper is also true of the proclamation of the Word and Baptism and
Absolution. Jesus is really present in
the Word. It is His voice you hear. It is Jesus who forgives your sins. And He is really present in the water. It is His death and resurrection which
becomes your own in Baptism. It is Jesus
with whom you are washed. It is Jesus
with whom you are clothed. Your Baptism
covers you with Jesus. Really. We’re not talking about metaphors, we’re
talking about truth.
What
Jesus does in our text, He’s doing among you now. He is healing. He is casting out demons. Immediately after preaching and casting out
the unclean spirit, which we heard about last week, He enters Simon Peter’s
house, which is just across the street. (It’s
actually really cool… You can Google Capernaum synagogue and see the ruins of
the synagogue where Jesus preached. Then
you can Google Peter’s house in Capernaum and you’ll see a modern Church
sitting on stilts over what is believed to be the house where our Holy Gospel
takes place this morning.) Jesus enters
Peter’s house where Peter’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever. Well, Rome may claim Peter as the first pope,
and I really don’t care if they call him that, but let it be known to all that
Peter was married! He has a
mother-in-law. The disciples do what
every Christian should do for a family member or a friend who is sick. They bring the predicament before Jesus. You do that when you pray for someone. And Jesus immediately responds to their
petition. He takes her by the hand and
lifts her up. This is really quite
beautiful in the Greek, because the word translated here as “lifted her up” is
actually the same word used for the resurrection: Jesus’ resurrection from the
dead, and our own resurrection when He takes us by the hand on that Day and
raises us up. Jesus raises her up, and
so complete is her healing that she is able to get busy and wait on Jesus and
His disciples. And we can imagine how
that was, this old Jewish grandmother serving up a big Sabbath meal for her
son-in-law and his friends.
At
sundown the whole town came to Peter’s house to entreat Jesus for those who are
sick and suffering. They had to wait
until sundown, of course, because it was a Sabbath that day. They weren’t supposed to walk around town
until Sabbath was over. Jesus meets them
there at the door and heals many and casts out demons and silences them, much
as He had done that morning in the synagogue with the man with an unclean
spirit. It’s a beautiful thing to see,
the Lord’s great compassion for these people who come to Him or are brought to
Him by loved ones. But it does beg a
question, doesn’t it, especially in light of what I said at the beginning of
this sermon? If Jesus does all of that
for them, healing their diseases, sending the demons packing from those so
afflicted, why doesn’t He do that for me?
What about when I begged Him to heal my grandmother from cancer? Or the little child for whom we all prayed,
but he died from the leukemia anyway?
What about when I’m suffering under the dark fog of depression and I beg
Jesus for just a little crumb of comfort and peace? But I just go on suffering? If Jesus is doing here and now what He did
for the people there and then, where’s my piece of the pie? Where’s my healing?
There
are several things you should keep in mind when that question presents
itself. First, you should recognize that
it’s a legitimate question, but one most often coopted by the devil and his
friends in the unbelieving world to lead you into doubt, despair, and finally,
unbelief. Recognize that for what it
is. It’s not wrong to ask the question,
but you need to listen for the answer Jesus gives and be content not to know
all the whys and wherefores when Jesus does not immediately take away your
suffering. We live by faith, not by
sight. Second, you have to understand
that the healings Jesus performed in His earthly ministry were not an end in
and of themselves. He is not a magician
or a witch doctor. The miracles are
signs that point to the greater reality.
God has come in the flesh to save His people from sin and death and all
of death’s symptoms, which is to say illnesses.
And He does that, ultimately, not by miraculously healing cancer, but by
raising you from the dead! The case of
Peter’s mother-in-law is instructive here.
He “lifts her up,” the English says.
He “raises her,” Mark actually wrote.
It’s a little foretaste of what He will do for her in the End. He’ll do it for you, too. That is the real healing. And it is a result of the eternal life He has
already given you in your Baptism and continues to give to you here and now in
His Word and Sacraments. You have eternal
life now. And you can’t see it yet, but
that’s okay, because you will see it on that Day. Remember that all those people gathered at
Peter’s doorstep saw a little glimpse, received just a little taste, of what it
is to see eternal life. But you know
what? They all eventually got sick
again. And they all died. Now they are in heaven, and their joy is
full, but they are still waiting, as you are, for their ultimate healing: The
resurrection of their bodies.
But
keep this in mind, too: How do you know how many times Jesus has miraculously
healed you? Have you ever recovered from
the common cold? Don’t you see that that
is a miracle! Have you ever had a broken
bone mend? Or a nasty cut heal into a
scar? Did you fall on your knees in
thanksgiving to God that you didn’t bleed to death? No, you just put a band-aide on it and went
about your business. You didn’t
recognize it as a miracle because it always happens that way. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. Then you get mad and complain. And by the way, how many bad things didn’t
happen to you and you have no idea you were miraculously protected from them,
because they didn’t happen?
And
now think about this… We know that
misuse of the Lord’s Supper, partaking of it without discerning the body of
Christ under the bread, can make a person sick or even lead to death. That’s what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians
11, and that is one reason we practice closed Communion. But if that is true, isn’t it also true that
receiving the Lord’s Supper in faith that it is the true body and blood of
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins heals you inside and out? We were just talking about the fact that you
can’t divide Jesus up into two halves, one God and one man. There’s only one Jesus, and He is God and man,
wherever He goes and whatever He does, ever since His conception in the womb of
the Virgin. Well, you can’t divide you
in half, either, as much as we are always doing that, especially at
funerals. You aren’t part body and part
soul. You’re body and soul. And so, when your soul is healed, as it is
when Jesus comes to you in the Lord’s Supper, and in preaching and Scripture
and Absolution, could it not be that your body is healed as well? That’s not to say that you’re never going to
get sick or that you’ll magically get rid of that cold after coming to
Communion. That would be to make Jesus a
magician again. But it is to say that
here, in this place, is the same Jesus who healed Peter’s mother-in-law and all
those people at Capernaum. He’s really
here, and He’s really doing what He always does. He is giving you life. The Sacrament is just the medicine you need
when you are full of infirmity or afflicted in body or soul, because the
Sacrament is nothing other than Jesus.
Jesus here, for you. That is why
you call your pastor when you are sick or suffering and have him come and
preach to you and give you Jesus’ body and blood. Luther says of the Sacrament: “It will cure
you and give you life both in soul and
body. For where the soul has recovered,
the body also is relieved.”[1] This shouldn’t surprise us. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Disease and affliction and every malady are
symptoms of death. When Jesus forgives
our sin, the root cause has been cured.
That’s when the symptoms begin to subside. And, of course, there is the issue of real
presence once again, by which we mean the bodily
presence of Jesus in the Supper.
That means His crucified and risen body touch your lips. That is the body that touched, and thus
healed, so many in His earthly ministry.
But
the true and ultimate healing comes from the Word of Life Jesus proclaims. Thus when everyone was looking for Him to do
more miracles, Jesus bids His disciples, “Let
us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I
came out” (Mark 1:38; ESV). Jesus
came to preach, for it is in His Word, proclaimed, inscripturated, tucked into
the water of rebirth and renewal, given for you to eat and to drink, that Jesus
heals all that ails you. It is His Word
by which He delivers His death and resurrection to you. So here you are at Church to hear His Word
and receive it in your mouth. And in
this way, Jesus is forgiving your sins, healing you, and driving the devil far
from you. He is a real Jesus, really
present, in the flesh. He is not a God
far removed. He is a God as near as your
ear and your mouth opened to receive Him.
And having thus received Him, you depart in peace, raised to life and
made whole. In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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