The Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
February 5, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Isaiah
40:21-31 1 Corinthians 9:16-27 Mark 1:29-39
Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God the Father through
our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text
today comes from the Gospel lesson just read especially these words, “Jesus
replied, "Let us go somewhere else-- to the nearby villages-- so I can
preach there also. That is why I have come." Thus far our text.
Dear friends in Christ.
He did it for Peter’s mother in law, he’ll do it for me too right? In our Gospel lesson today we see Jesus
coming into a town, much like our town.
A town full of people who were sick, people who struggled people who
hurt. Jesus comes to Peter’s house. His mother in law is sick with a fever, too
sick to get up and meet Jesus., too sick to help prepare the meal and the
food. Immediately Jesus takes her by the hand, lifts
her up, and she is healed.
Immediately, she begins to help cook the food,
immediately she helps the part – the celebration – to get underway. As the news spreads throughout the town,
countless other people bring in their sick people. After all, he did it for Peter’s
Mother-in-law, so of course he will do it for them as well. It is a late night of celebration as Jesus
heals countless people, from various diseases.
As Jesus, casts out demons, but prevents them from speaking a single
word.
Finally, Jesus goes out to a solitary place, sneaking out
to take a break from healing, and he prays.
Finally Jesus tries to catch a rest from the work of healing people, for
just like you and I, the God man needs some rest. As Jesus is praying, Peter hunts him down –
“Jesus there are more people coming!
Jesus they need to be healed too
Jesus, you did it for my mother in law, you healed her. It’s only fair if you will heal these other
people too.”
Dear friends in Christ, isn’t that our cry as well. Dear Lord, we know that you healed all sorts
of people in the New Testament. You gave
the blind their sight, you gave the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. You did all these wonderful powerful things,
so won’t you just do the same thing for me?
Won’t you take away my ailment too, its only fair.
We make these deals with God all the time, and we do it
because we believe it is the most important thing. Heal my father’s cancer. Heal my uncles kidneys or livers. Take away my grandfathers weakness. That’s all I need! That’s all I want. Just do that, then I will believe in you,
then I will trust in you. Dear God,
can’t you take away my suffering, can’t you raise my friend? Do for me as you did in Capernaum. That’s all I need.
Sometimes we even get angry – Dear God, how could you let
that happen, when I know that you could have stopped it if you wanted. I know you could have prevented this
event! Why didn’t you? You did it for some, why not for others. All I need is your help in this situation,
all I need is your healing. Give it to
me! Give it to me now!
That’s the same thing Peter says to Jesus in our
text. “Everyone is looking for you
Jesus, they want you to heal their sick as well. It’s all they need. But Jesus stop’s Peter cold in his
tracks. And dear friends, he stops you
in your tracks. Healing from your
earthly maladies is not what you need
from Jesus. It isn’t the most important
thing that Jesus came for. Hear what
Jesus says to Peter in our text today.
“Let us go somewhere else-- to the nearby villages-- so I
can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Don’t you care Jesus? Aren’t you concerned with suffering? Don’t you want everyone to be healed and happy,
and to live forever here on this earth?
Can’t you save those people, or are you showing favoritism? Are you compassionate to some, and not to
others?
Dear friends, the problem is not with Jesus, it is
completely and totally with you and with me.
Jesus does care. Jesus will heal
if it is His holy perfect will. But
Jesus has a more important, a more necessary reason that he has come for first,
and he tells it to Peter in our text. I
need to preach there also. I need to go
to the next place and preach – that’s why I have come.
Friends Jesus didn’t come for the reason you wanted him
to come! He didn’t come to be your magic
healer, to take away the pain and suffering and sickness of this world through
magic tricks. Jesus came to preach –
“Repent for the Kingdom of God is near.”
Jesus came to preach “I will be lifted up, and will draw all people to
myself.” And that message of Jesus
preaching is more important than any miracle of healing, more important that
any miraculous feeding. Because in that
word the whole ball of wax is included.
That message Repent for I am going to die for your
sins. I will rescue you from your
illness, not by healing you just to die again later, but by taking death away
forever with my own death. Repent, turn
to me, and I will lead you out of death into eternity, I will spill my blood
over you, cover you in it. Whoever loves
his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it
forever and ever without end.
Faith in those words, faith in Jesus will lead you from
sickness into life, from death to heaven.
That’s what is most important.
That’s why Jesus came. Not to put
off your death. Not to leave you alive
for a little longer, but to take you away from death in his own cross.
Friends, each one of us has loved ones who are sick. Each one of us have people we know who hurt,
who are in danger, and we want them to be better. We want them not to hurt, not to suffer. We want a perfect world. We want God to take away their illness so we
can have them to ourselves a little longer.
But friends, Jesus came to give you something greater,
something more wonderful. He came to
give you something, as difficult as it is to hear and to believe, more
wonderful that the healing of your mother in law or brother. He came to give you eternity, and to give it
to you through preaching and his word.
He came to give you eternity with them before the throne of God.
God gives this to you through preaching. He gives it to you through the words of a
sinful man, who says, “In the stead, and by the command of Christ, I forgive
you all your sins.” He gives it to
through the preaching of a man who says, Christ’s own words, “Take and eat,
this is Christ’s body. Take and drink,
this is his blood.” He gives you his
word that says, “Christ suffered and died on a cross, and he did it for you,
not as a temporary from the sicknesses of this world, but as a permanent
rescue.” Yes it may hurt for
awhile. Yes it is difficult to struggle
through on this sinful earth. But what
God gives to you is something more amazing than you can imagine.
Christ may heal your loved ones, he may not. He may heal you, he may not. But he has give you his word either way. He has given you a gift of eternity, of peace
of comfort beyond all understanding – all through the preaching of his
word. Come, hear God’s word. Come believe His preaching – for that is why
he came. Amen.
