Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (B)

February 4, 2024

Text: Mark 1:29-39

            We know the content of Jesus’ sermons.  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15; ESV).  He is not preaching that the Kingdom of God is merely coming at some future moment.  He is preaching the Kingdom’s arrival in His own Person, in His own flesh.  God’s Son is on the scene.  The Creator has come into His creation to heal it of its brokenness, to fashion it anew, to cast out Satan and the demons, to raise up fallen mankind, and to restore man to life with God in His Image once again.

            And He does it by preaching.  That shouldn’t surprise us.  God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them by speaking.  So, it is by His speech, that He makes all things new.  We heard the beginning of the episode in our Holy Gospel last week (Mark 1:21-28).  The members of the congregation were astonished at Jesus’ authoritative Word, and by that Word He even commanded unclean spirits and they had to obey: “Be silent, and come out of him!” (v. 25).  In this week’s Gospel, the service is over, and Jesus retires with His disciples to the home of Simon and Andrew.  Note what happens in the wake of our Lord’s preaching.  The Word is not simply left in the dust as the people head home for Sabbath brunch.  The Lord Jesus goes with those who hear and believe His Word.  He comes into their homes, and into their lives, reclaiming them whole and entire, from the devil, and for Himself.  The Kingdom of God comes where Jesus is present, speaking His Word. 

            Now, what do the disciples find when they arrive home?  Simon’s mother-in-law is seriously ill, in bed with a fever.  Yes, THAT Simon.  Peter.  The Pope.  He has a mother-in-law.  He is married.  I mean no disrespect to our Roman brothers and sisters, but it is worth noting.  And here they find that creation’s fallenness has touched dear mother to the very core.  A sickness is attacking her body.  It has stopped her in her tracks.  So the disciples do what all disciples should do when one they love is in need.  They immediately speak to Jesus about her.  They put it in His hands.  They pray. 

            Now, the Kingdom of God has come in through the front door.  What will He do when confronted with sin’s wages, the mortal effects of the Fall, the brokenness of His creation, and the suffering of this daughter of Israel whom He loves?  He will stand it no more!  Taking her by the hand, touching the sick woman with His lifegiving flesh, He raises her up.  And the fever leaves her.  He commands even fevers and they obey Him.  “Be silent, and come out!”  And the healing is complete and instantaneous.  She wastes no time, but begins to serve them.

            It is a picture of what Jesus does for each one of us when He comes to us, present with us, speaking His Word, and touching us with His lifegiving flesh.  Peter’s mother-in-law is the pattern.  We are often blissfully unaware, but that is our condition apart from the Kingdom of God coming to us.  There we are, suffering sin’s wages, dying and dead.  Spiritually so, and when we least expect it, physically so.  And so, Jesus comes.  He takes us by the hand and raises us up.  Spiritually so, and when we least expect it, physically so.  He drives out death and the devil, and gives us new life, His life.  Baptism.  Absolution.  Preaching.  Supper.  And the Promise of His hand reaching into the grave on the Last Day to pull us out.  And what happens as a result?  We get busy.  We begin to serve. 

            Now, note the order of things.  This is very important.  We don’t serve so that He will raise us up.  We don’t take the initiative, here.  How could we?  That notion is ridiculous.  We’re lying there, dead.  We don’t do good works to merit or prepare ourselves for His grace.  No, He raises us up by His grace alone, apart from any merit or worthiness or self-preparation in us.  And then we serve.  Because that is what healed and healthy, living people do.  Serve Jesus, and serve everyone else in the home with Him, and beyond, outside the walls. 

            Well, by this time, the sun has gone down, and the Sabbath is over.  And now the people are free to get up from their rest and come out of their homes.  And they come to Jesus at Simon’s house.  They saw what had happened in the Synagogue that day with the man with the unclean spirit.  They heard Jesus speak His authoritative Word.  And so, they come to the place where they know Jesus is present.  And they bring all who are sick and oppressed by demons.  They know they simply have to be where the Kingdom of God is breaking in.  Jesus heals many who are sick with various diseases, variations on sin’s curse that bend and break what God had pronounced good.  And He casts out many demons, allies of the serpent who craftily led our first parents astray, and so also us ever since.  He does not permit them to speak, because demons must never preach the Gospel.  They will always pervert it (as they do all things).  They will always bend it toward their own lie. 

            What is Jesus doing, but freeing creation from its bondage to the evil one?  Where the true Kingdom comes, the usurper is cast out.  And submission to the King is the real liberty, for the subjects of God become, with Christ, the sons of God.

            Let us not misunderstand the meaning of the healings.  The miracles are wonderful when Jesus gives them, and He gives them in love and compassion for those He liberates from pain and affliction.  But Jesus is no faith healer, and the miracles are not magic tricks.  The miracles are not ends in themselves.  You know as well as anyone, that not everyone gets the miracle they prayed for.  And even those who do, in time, get sick again, and die.  Every last one of the people Jesus healed in our Gospel is long since dead and buried.  So, if Jesus came just to do miraculous healings and exorcisms, that’s good, I guess, for a relatively few, for a relatively little while, but in terms of being the Savior of the world, it is a rather colossal failure!  Be aware of that when you pray for a miracle, and don’t get it.  You’re actually exchanging faith in the cosmos-shaking, universal reality of God entering into the flesh of His creation to redeem it from sin, death, the devil, and hell, in favor of buying a couple more years of good health.  It’s not a good deal.  Don’t miss the grand forest because you are fixated on an imperfection in an otherwise glorious tree.

            The miracles are signs of something greater, and that is the healing and salvation that results wherever the Kingdom arrives in the presence of the Lord Christ.  The preaching, the heralding of the Kingdom as it comes, as He comes, is what does it.  And then, His presence.  His touch.  The medicine of immortality that is His body and blood.

            There is something else we don’t expect as we hear our Gospel this afternoon.  After a long night’s work of healing and exorcising, taking upon Himself the diseases and afflictions, the burdens of sin and uncleanness from all these people, Jesus rises early in the morning, while it is still dark, to go out to a desolate place for prayer.  The Son of God is fully human, and it is exhausting bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows (Is. 53:4).  How does Jesus rest?  Does He sleep in?  That’s what I would do.  But Jesus needs a rest that sleep can never give.  And really, so do I.  And so do you.  Communion with God, our heavenly Father.  Rest in Him.  Laying before Him all that troubles us and burdens us.  Asking for wisdom.  Asking for help.  Asking for guidance.  Asking for strength.  And then receiving what He gives.  God answers by sending His angels.  God answers by granting His Spirit.  God answers by fulfilling His Gospel promises. 

            And it is a vital part of our Lord’s mission, this prayer.  Prayer is a key component of Jesus’ ministry of healing and preaching.  His time in prayer renews Him.  And it is prayer that strengthens Him to go on to the next towns to preach in their synagogues and cast out demons.  It is prayer, finally, that strengthens Him to go to the cross for our sins, knowing the Third Day, and resurrection, and our salvation, lay on the other side. 

            When we pray in and through Christ, we are given to participate in His mission.  We pray for ourselves and our own needs.  But so also, we name before God those who need the healing Word and touch of Jesus, all those who are afflicted physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  As the disciples spoke with Jesus about Peter’s mother-in-law.  “She is sick,” they say, and then they trust that Jesus knows best what she needs, and will do all things well.  Prayer invokes Jesus, and His Father, and the Holy Spirit, and so brings the Kingdom, Jesus Himself, into the presence of those for whom we pray. 

            And prayer brings you into His presence.  You pray, and He brings you here, to the place where you hear once again the preaching of His authoritative Word: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”  And then the Kingdom invades your very body and soul: “Take, eat; this is my body.  Take, drink; this is my blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  And all at once you are healed, and whole.  Refashioned.  Restored to God’s fellowship, and in His Image.  Rescued from sin, death, and the devil.  Don’t you know it yet?  You will, soon, when you see Him.  Just a little more time for your body and mind to catch up to the reality.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.