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"The Physician"

August 11, 2019 Speaker: Pastor Bob Davis

Passage: Mark 1:29–34

This week is all about Jesus exercising and demonstrating the power of the kingdom of heaven he had come to proclaim. In these few verses, we look at a series of miracles lumped together.

I. Peter’s Mother-In-Law

We start with Peter’s mother-in-law. I can state – categorically – that mothers-in-law are some of the finest, most honorable, respectable, and cherished people. And, yes, mine is sitting in the front pew.

Also, while we are on the topic of mothers-in-law, I want to take you on a digression for just a moment. If Peter had a mother-in-law, then Peter had to have been a married man. If Peter was a married man, where and how did celibacy become a requirement for Roman Catholic priests? I do not want to lose you down this rabbit-hole; so, because some of you are going to wonder about this, I am going to address it upfront.

Celibacy in the priesthood is a teaching drawn from Scriptural interpretation in the Roman Catholic Church.

Priests as sacramental ministers act in persona Christi, that is in the person of Christ. Thus the life of the priest conforms, the Church believes, to the chastity of Christ himself. The sacrifice of married life is for the "sake of the Kingdom" (Luke 18:28–30Matthew 19:27–30), and to follow the example of Jesus Christ in being "married" to the Church, viewed by Catholicism and many Christian traditions as the "Bride of Christ" (following Ephesians 5:25-33 and Revelation 21:9, together with the spousal imagery at Mark 2:19-20; cf. Matthew 9:14-15).[1]

Although I understand this interpretation, it is not one I find persuasive. At the same time, I am not going to criticize those that do find it persuasive. Celibacy is not required for those of us in ordained ministry in the Reformed tradition – and I thank God for that. We understand priesthood a little differently in the Reformed tradition -- specifically, that there is a priesthood of all believers and so, as with many of the first disciples, being married is acceptable and allowable for those called into vocational ministry. In addition, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others all were married. With that said, we return to our regularly scheduled look at miracles. 

To recap where we left off last week: Jesus had just begun his public ministry. He had been proclaiming his message throughout Galilee. He called disciples. They went to Capernaum, where Jesus taught in the synagogue. The people were amazed. He was confronted by a man with an unclean spirit. Jesus rebuked and cast out the spirit – all-in-all, a fairly eventful trip to the synagogue. And that is where we pick up the action today.

Jesus went from the synagogue to Simon and Andrew’s house. Picture the scene: it is the Sabbath, they are coming from the synagogue, they walk into the house, and the first thing that happens is that there is a lot of chatter about Simon’s mother-in-law.

She is in bed with a fever. That is a big deal.

Having a fever was a big deal in Galilee. Mark’s first readers would have known how serious a problem a fever posed. It was not like she could pop a couple of Tylenol to improve things. We do not get a description of the fever other than it was sufficient to debilitate Peter’s mother-in-law to the point of making her bedridden. That is how Mark set the scene; pay attention, though: Jesus entered a situation in which someone was broken and not able to save herself. It is a microcosm of the larger picture.

What we lose in the translation is the expression of power in action that Mark was emphasizing. Three times the word for “immediately” is used in three verses:

  • Immediately they left the synagogue;
  • Immediately they told Jesus about Peter’s mother-in-law; and
  • Immediately – when Jesus takes her by the hand – the fever leaves her.

Mark wants to make sure we have the impression of the power of the kingdom in action. Immediately, immediately, immediately: when Jesus is present, things happen. Our translations avoid the redundancy of Mark’s repeated “immediately” in order to make the narrative more readable.  But by doing so, they minimize the impact of Mark’s effort to show Jesus in action.

Translation issues aside, what happened had an immediate impact. Word spread quickly. It went viral through the grapevine of the community. As soon as sundown came – ending the Sabbath, which was not the issue Mark was addressing in this section – the whole city gathered around the door. Everybody wanted to see what was going on. They were not disappointed: they got a foretaste of the power of the kingdom of heaven.

II. A Foretaste of The Kingdom of Heaven

Let me say that again: in these miracle stories, we see the power of heaven on display. It was a foretaste of how things will be when the kingdom is fully realized. We see now in the mirror dimly; then, face-to-face.

It is important to understand what Mark was writing in this context. Yes, Peter’s mother-in-law was healed. Yes, many were cured. Yes, many demons were cast out. Those are the results, but not the cause. The focus of these stories is Jesus. Having proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven had come near – that the time was fulfilled – Jesus gave a foretaste of how the kingdom of heaven would be different than the broken world. He was demonstrating what would happen as creation was redeemed.  Mark includes these miracle accounts at this point because Jesus was embodying and revealing the truth, reality, and presence of the kingdom he was proclaiming.

The reason to emphasize what Jesus was doing rather than focusing on what was done is because these miracles can be disheartening for those looking for a miracle in their own lives. “If Jesus would heal them, why won’t he heal me?” “If Jesus would deliver them from unclean spirits, why am I still tormented?” It is where the prosperity gospel – the “God wants you to be happy and, if you are not, it is your own fault for not having enough faith” – this is where the prosperity gospel is revealed to be no gospel at all. Jesus is not simply a blessing distributer who is available to do what we want if we believe enough. We do not get to call on Jesus and imagine that he is waiting anxiously to pop a miracle out of his mouth like a Pez dispenser. Jesus is not a talisman or a magic word to grant us our wishes – he is Lord of lords, and King of kings. The focus of these accounts is on who he is.

Some of you may be pondering, “Well, what about those passages in John where Jesus said, ‘If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it’”? It is the same thing: in context, those were things Jesus said regarding himself, abiding in him, and the power of the kingdom of heaven he was proclaiming. The focus is not on our wants, but the power of the kingdom embodied in Jesus.

The miracles are important for revealing who Jesus is and in demonstrating the validity of what he was saying. Miracles are not normative. Even in these brief words, Mark was clear that Jesus did not heal or deliver everyone. “They brought all who were sick or possessed,” but “he cured many” and “cast out many.” Some commentaries have dismissed this difference, saying that Mark meant the same; however, as we have seen, Mark is happy to use the same word repeatedly. Mark does not tell us what made the difference between those who were cured and delivered and those who were not. Mark’s silence makes it clear that his focus is on Jesus and not just in the results.

It also is important to remember that the miracles were a foretaste – they were not the full kingdom of heaven. None of the people healed that day are still alive; every one of them has died. None of the people delivered from unclean spirits is walking around among us. That tells us miracles are not an end unto themselves; rather, they point to a greater reality onto which we cast our hope.

That remains true today. I can tell you of personal experiences I have had with miraculous healing. When I traveled to the Philippines with Compassion International a few years ago. I was part of a team leading a series of conferences. We had prayer times after each of the sessions. People lined up and some waited for more than two hours for us to be able to meet with us. We prayed and laid hands on them. We witnessed people relieved from pain, released from spiritual oppression, and healed from chronic conditions. This was not the “throw away your wheelchair” kind of thing and there was no announcement to the crowd of what was happening; rather, it was something we saw God do in individual lives. It was clear that God was acting. It was clear that God was doing something powerful. The miracles we witnessed were real and powerful, but beyond the lives of the individuals touched, they were moments foreshadowing what will be. At the end of the service, we were still in the Philippines, still in the midst of hurt and brokenness, still in a world groaning in anticipation of full redemption. 

We wait for Jesus’ return and the full kingdom of heaven to be realized. We pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” Because we have had a foretaste, our hope is assured that we will not be disappointed.  We wait for that day. While we wait, we recognize we still live in a broken world. If these last couple of weeks have taught us anything, it is that things are still subject to sin, evil, destruction, pain and death. But that brokenness is temporary.  

For Mark’s first readers enduring persecution, these miracles were an important word of hope. The promises Jesus made, he had the power to fulfill. The pains they were suffering for being Christian were worth it because this world was temporary and the kingdom of heaven is eternal.

If you are hurting today and have been praying for a miracle – for healing, for deliverance, for restoration, for reconciliation, for relief – hold on knowing that Jesus walks with you. Pray for what you want – pray with all earnestness and energy. Ask God to do what you want; but subject yourself to the response you get, even if it is not the answer that makes you happy. The promise is not that you will “have your best life here” – the promise is God’s presence with you. The promise is that Jesus is with you, even to the very end of the age. Those are not empty words, they are the promise of the one who is able to bring you from death to life, from brokenness to restored, from despair to hope and joy. 

III. The Difference

So, if the miracles are a foretaste of the kingdom and point to what it will be like, what do we see?

First, we see that Jesus is the one through whom the kingdom will be realized. Jesus’ presence is powerful. He was not a government program. He was not a social service representative. He is Lord and he is the one through whom the kingdom of heaven will be realized. Without Jesus, things will not be redeemed.

How powerful? The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. We see that demonstrated in Peter’s mother-in-law. Look at how this happened: Mark does not tell us that she believed in Jesus or prayed that he would heal her. She has no role until after Jesus acted. Jesus did not say anything. He did not ask any questions, run any tests, or prescribe any medications. He just took her by the hand and lifted her up. The fever left her. Then she acted. The point is: Jesus is the one through whom the kingdom will be realized. We follow where he leads.

Second, we see that the kingdom of heaven is for all of humankind – not just men. In the synagogue, Jesus delivered the man from the unclean spirit. The next thing he did was to deliver Peter’s mother-in-law; so completely and fully did he restore her, she got up to serve them.

Please do not attach negative connotations or second-class person status on Peter’s mother-in-law because she got up to serve. It simply showed that she was fully recovered. One commenter noted, the “menial service does not suggest her insignificance; on the contrary, the angels offered Jesus the same service in the desert. Serving is also a characteristic of discipleship, which Jesus tries to get across with some difficulty to his disciples.”[2] Mark was making clear that Jesus was bringing the kingdom of heaven to all of humankind – not just men.

Third, we see that encountering the kingdom of heaven – even as a foretaste – is transformative. It changes everything. The world may look the same – 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, night and day, etc – however, how we understand, interact, and exist are all profoundly different.

For those of you who grew up in the church like I did, it may be difficult to understand the scope of this kind of transformation. Let me use the internet as an illustration: many of us remember life before 1995. Many of us remember what it was like to have to go to a library to do research on topics with which we were unfamiliar. Does anyone remember the Dewey Decimal System? Anything we could not find at home in those treasured World Book Encyclopedias, we needed to take a trip to the library to find out. That all changed with the advent of the internet. Hear this from 2011:

According to Moore’s Law, every Christmas your computer games are almost twice as powerful (in terms of memory and processing speed) as they were the previous year. Furthermore, as the years pass, this incremental gain becomes truly monumental. For example, when you receive a birthday card in the mail, it often has a chip which sings “Happy Birthday” to you. Remarkably, that chip has more computer power than all the Allied Forces of 1945. Hitler, Churchill, or Roosevelt might have killed to get that chip. But what do we do with it?  After the birthday, we throw the card and chip away.  Today, your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969 when it sent two astronauts to the moon. Video games, which consume enormous amounts of computer power to simulate 3D situations, use more computer power than main frame computers of the previous decade. The Sony Playstation of today, which costs $300, has the power of a military supercomputer of 1997, which cost millions of dollars.[3]

Again, that was from a book in 2011. Now imagine how much more things have changed in just those 8 years. Think how much Amazon has changed life in the United States. It has been amazing.

As amazing as that transformation has been, it pales in comparison with in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because the internet can be corrupted. These days is it easier to be encouraged or discouraged by going on social media? Are there more edifying articles, comments, and videos or are there more trolls, bullies, and take-downs? Can you trust what you find on the internet?

The kingdom of heaven is different. 1 Peter describes it this way,

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

You can trust that – Jesus miracles reveal his identity, authority, and – gloriously – his trust-worthiness. Living into the truth of the kingdom is transformative; our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for us, and we are protected by the power of God. This is good news; particularly those who are suffering and wondering, “Is Jesus worth it?”

IV. Conclusion

Mark was demonstrating the authority and authenticity of Jesus’ proclamation that “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Jesus gave a foretaste of how the kingdom of heaven would be different than the broken world. He demonstrated what would happen as creation was redeemed. Jesus was embodying and revealing the truth, reality, and presence of the kingdom he was proclaiming.

As you go forward today, understand that the promises of the kingdom are for you, too. “Who is this?” This is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the great physician; the one through whom all of the brokenness of creation will be healed. Trusting him is worth it.

Amen.

 

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1

Q.  What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

A.  That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_celibacy_in_the_Catholic_Church

[2] David Garland, NIVAC New Testament, Mark, p. 73.

[3] http://knopfdoubleday.com/2011/03/14/your-cell-phone/ (an excerpt from Michia Kaku, Physics of the Future).