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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. I have to admit I’ve been thinking, and I’m convinced that certainly it’s more exciting, without a doubt. And certainly the results are much more measurable and immediate. However, the results aren’t eternal. They have a beginning and an end. And the excitement that surrounds those results doesn’t last either. It has a beginning and an end as well. That is just a brief thought on the healing of the body as compared to the healing of the soul. We’ll get to that in just a moment. Mark that in the back of your mind.
In our text, Jesus, along with two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew, or Peter and Andrew, and James and John, have just finished the evening prayer at the synagogue, and they’re going over to Peter’s house for… It’s kind of like what you’re going to do after church on a Sunday morning. You go out for brunch or you go out for lunch and talk about what was done at church and hymns or talk about the things that the church service applies to and whatnot. That’s exactly what Peter and Andrew and James and John were going to do with Jesus in Peter’s house.
Upon entering Peter’s house, however, it’s reported to Jesus that Peter’s mother-in-law is deathly ill because of a horrible fever. Now that’s an interesting note, a little sidestep here. Peter, in order to have a mother-in-law, has to have been married, which makes it very clear that if the Roman Catholic Church claims Peter as the first pope, the first pope was, oh yeah, married. Yeah. Okay, back to the text though.
So Peter has his mother-in-law living with him and he’s caring for her, and she’s deathly ill because of this high fever. Jesus heals her in a very unique way, different than he’s healed other people. He literally goes into her, extends his hand to hers, lifts her up, and shazam, the fever leaves her. An immediate result.
And her response to this healing is different than others who were healed by Jesus. Others went out to the surrounding villages and towns and proclaimed, but Peter’s mother-in-law serves dinner to Peter and Andrew and James and John and Jesus. Interesting.
Now, Jesus, after dinner, has a very difficult situation that he’s facing. Interesting, because word has been given out that in Peter’s house is Jesus. So the city of Capernaum, which sits right on the Sea of Galilee, all the people in the city, it says, all who were diseased or demon-possessed come to Peter’s door. Poor Peter’s mother-in-law and wife. They must have thought, oh dear heavens, now what are we going to do? Do we need to take care of these ladies and gents who are outside here? Don’t know. Text doesn’t say.
But what the text does do is differentiate very clearly between diseased and demon-possessed. Last week we spoke about this in the text. Demon possession is a very real thing. It’s not the most obvious, and it’s not the most common. Jacob, the most common form of demon possession is unbelief. That’s right, Jacob. Unbelief. Unbelief. He remembers from confirmation class. Don’t you worry. I know he does.
Unbelief is the most common form of demon possession. But demon possession in the sense of what happened last Sunday’s text and in this text is totally differentiated from disease. Two different things. And Jesus heals all who are brought to this door. How long that must have taken, I do not know. And how exhausting that must have been for Jesus. I can only imagine.
I’ve talked with army doctors and air force doctors and nurses who have handled large incidents of blood and guts in the OR in Iraq. And I’ve talked to them. And what happens to them is the same thing that happens to ER doctors and ER nurses and ICU doctors and ICU nurses. And for that matter, counselors who counsel many people who are going through horrific things, they become very fatigued. In fact, the word is used called compassion fatigue because it’s so overwhelming.
I can only imagine how fatigued Jesus was according to his humanity after healing all of these diseases and all of these demon possessions. He won’t even leave the demons to speak. He doesn’t need nor desire their statement or testimony. He shuts their mouths, the text says, but it had to go late into the night.
After all of that fatigue, first of all, seeing all the people, second of all, taking in all of that compassion that he’s giving and emptying himself upon these people, he’s exhausted and he lays down to sleep, but he doesn’t sleep for long, does he? The text says he gets up in the wee hours of the morning. This is important. This is the first time that it occurs in the Gospel of Mark, and it occurs a little bit later, a few more times. It’s also mentioned in Matthew and also in Luke.
Look. Here in Mark, for the very first time, it’s mentioned that Jesus steps away to a desolate place and prays. It wasn’t as if this was the only time he did that. He did that on a lot of occasions. And it wasn’t as if only those occasions that are mentioned in the scriptures were the only times he ever went to a desolate place to pray. Right?
But in this text, it is surrounded by something important. And as you look at it in the other places in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospel, it also is near something that’s very important to take note of. What is it that we are to take note of in this text that Jesus pulls out after having healed all of the people that came to the door that night of disease and demon possession to go off to a desolate place to pray?
Because he has to make a decision. A very important decision. A decision that you and I have failed to make. And we remember. He had to make a decision that we’ve only made correctly a few times. But we remember far more the many times we have failed to make that decision.
Now I bring in what we spoke about at the very beginning: the healing of body and healing of soul. Right before Jesus, Peter comes searching for Jesus. He had been praying in this desolate place because he needed to make a decision. The decision he needed to make is he could choose to continue healing and receive the immediate and measurable result that healing of body does. Or he has to choose to turn his back on all those he knows are gathering at Peter’s door in the wee hours of the morning to be healed of diseases and demons. Because sadly, they’re not going to get the same healing that the others the night before got.
Because that’s not why Jesus came. The text says he came out to preach the gospel. He came out to change people’s souls, not their bodies. The healings that Jesus did, and he did many, were important because they showed the sign that he is God in the flesh. For no one can do that except God in the flesh. But that was not why he came, just to be someone who heals your body but doesn’t heal your soul.
He would be lauded by the world if that’s all he came to do, wouldn’t he? My, oh my, would he be the favorite child of everyone in this world if all he did was to come to heal and bring peace and happiness in this short and death-ending life.
That’s the kind of decision that you and I have been faced with making. You’ve made the right decision many times in your life, but many times in your life you have chosen the easy path just as I have. The path that doesn’t want to be the different one. The path that doesn’t want to live with the truth. The path that doesn’t want to proclaim the truth to someone you love who will be upset at you for proclaiming such truth. You don’t want to deal with the consequences of standing up for the right thing.
You and I have remembered far too many times we’ve taken the choice that brings immediate gratification, and not the one that has eternal consequences. For you, for you, and for all those times when you and I did not choose truth, God chose it for us in Christ Jesus. That is why this text is so profoundly important.
The decision that Jesus had to make out there in the desolate place as he was praying is that he knew what he was facing, but a whole other group of people gathered at Peter’s door to be healed of diseases and demons. And Jesus had to walk away from that group to do what he came first and foremost to do: to save their souls.
Why did Jesus get crucified? Why did he have false witnesses come and testify against him? Was it because he healed people of diseases? No. Was it because he drove out demons? No way. The reason why Jesus was crucified and why those false witnesses came forward to confess false truths about Jesus was because of the truth he preached. Not because of the miracles, but because of the truth.
Yes. Which one converts sinners? Truth. It was Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That was why he was crucified, not because he raised the little girl from the dead. Jesus, by his very actions and other words and preaching, proclaimed himself to be the Son of God in the flesh. That was why he was crucified, not because he fed 5,000 people bread and fish.
Jesus said to the people, “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.” That was why he was crucified, not because Lazarus was raised from the dead either. Will the world hate you because you love the world and are kind to it? No, the world will hate you because of what you proclaim as truth.
Jesus was not crucified for doing those healings. He was crucified for the truth himself and what he proclaimed. There is salvation in no one else, for no other name has been given under heaven and on earth by which a man must be saved. That’s why he was crucified.
Why is it hard for me and for you to make those right choices at times, to face the flack that we receive for this truth? It’s because we would much rather have immediate results, measurable results, excitement surrounding what we’re doing and loving other people, but not bringing the truth to other people. For love without truth is empty. It is truly a clanging gong and cymbal.
Truth with love is substantial. Truth with love brings salvation. Jesus is truth and love incarnate. But truth with love, that’s what it gets you. But that’s what you get to receive as his child: eternal life. Not because you were healed of a disease that you will die from eventually. Not because all of a sudden your blindness can be restored to sight and you still die. But because you have been healed spiritually.
The most important healing he brings… And the one for which he was crucified because he proclaimed no salvation in no one else except through him. What is our congregation all about? What is this communion fellowship of which we are participating this morning all about? It is about love, but it is about proclaiming truth.
That is what the church has been doing since its inception. That is what our preschool does. That is what our school does. Love and truth. Not truth. Not love. Love and truth. Both.
And that is what our church does. That is what you do to your family. Not just truth. Not just love. Love and truth together in one. That is who Jesus is. And yes, we will face flack in this world for that. Jesus never bent, did he? Jesus never compromised, did he?
Jesus always fulfilled what he was to do for you and for me, that we might find refuge in him where there is no condemnation. In the name of Jesus, amen.
