Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

Once again we see the pace of Mark’s gospel

“As soon as they left...”

the action keeps coming and we learn about who Jesus is by what he does

One commentator likens the gospel of Mark to a movie where there’s no previews

You sit down and the feature presentation is in full swing already

But, keeping with that theme, there’s another sense in which what Jesus is showing us is actually more like a preview itself

Because Jesus enters a world that is not as it should be

And both his teachings and his actions reveal a world set right again

Like a movie preview that offers a glimpse of what’s coming later, watching Jesus shows us a glimpse of the kingdom

And like a good movie preview or a tv show that leaves you wanting more, watching Jesus makes us want more of what he’s revealing

Lots of people watching WandaVision right now on Disney+ but one of the common responses is that there’s SO MUCH being revealed and hinted at in each episode but it’s only like 25 minutes long and people are like “I cannot wait another week”

The actions and teachings of Jesus ought to kindle that longing and expectation in us for the kingdom to come in full.

As we look at this passage I want to highlight five things going on that should kindle our hope, specifically about what restored humanity looks like in the kingdom

Again, the world is not as it should be.

It’s broken and caught in endless cycles of pain

We’ve rebelled against God and now run from him

We run from ourselves and don’t want to face reality

We war against each other and use each other

The world is not as it should be

I’ll pull out five here.

But Jesus offers us these glimpses into what God’s good design for humanity was meant to look like before the fall

And what wholeness and restoration can look like again in the kingdom

The kingdom is about healing

In the previous passage we saw Jesus cast out demons

We see the same here, along with the healing of illness

This is a tangible picture of what God is doing in setting the world right

To set the world right means to deal with sin and evil, to banish them forever, and to heal creation of their effects

So we have this imagery in revelation 21:3-5 that talks about the end of their story

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

This is “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”

Ultimately God’s will will be done on earth because heaven will come down and restore it

The end of the Christian story isn’t going to cloud to play a harp, it’s heaven and earth coming together in a restored creation in which sin and evil no longer bring pain and destruction.

So, various times in Jesus’s ministry he heals people and says, the kingdom of God is here, it’s in your midst

When a human body is healed of disease, when a person is liberated from demonic forces, the kingdom has broken in

That’s a taste of what’s to come

For humanity, death, disease, demons do not have the last word. The kingdom is about healing.

Jesus kingdom is about connection.

Specifically here I want to point to Jesus touching Peter’s mother in law

There’s an economy of words in Mark so the details given mean something

Notice that Mark doesn’t just say that Jesus HEALED Peter’s mother in law

Rather, Mark tells us that he took her hand and helped her up

Jesus touching people is a powerful powerful picture in the gospels

Particularly because the people he touches are often the outcasts or even, like the lepers, people whom it was thought that if you touched them you were bringing doom on yourself

Think of the loneliness and isolation of being someone who no one would get near let alone touch

Now think of how profound it was for Jesus to move toward those people and reach his hand out

Physical touch is a powerful thing

We need it

I won’t explore the brain science but you can look up studies of the effects on children especially who were never held or touched.

The physical impacts the mental and emotional and spiritual and social dynamics of our lives

Touch is humanizing and connecting

And of course there are different kinds of touch, some of it destructive

But in a world that is so dehumanizing and mechanistic and isolating and increasingly digital

caring touch like a safe warm hug is so valuable

and when it’s missing we feel it

And now think about the reality that God is not only NOT some distant cold force

He came down and offered gentle, caring, humanizing physical touch

An isolating, marginalizing, cold, inhuman world is evidence of the fall.

The kingdom is about connection.

The kingdom is about belonging

The whole town gathered at the door

What strikes me about this is that it’s a picture of even Jesus existing within the web of human relationships

And in the midst of people he offers himself to bless them how he can

We rightly talk about Jesus modeling love for others and how his death is a picture of his love for humankind

But this takes it from an abstract idea to a town of names and faces and stories

Real people in need

And Jesus finds himself at the center not just healing individuals but creating a community of healed people

And in a sense that’s what the church is

A community of people, liberated from sin a death, with Jesus at the center

No man is an island, said John Donne

You are not isolated. The kingdom is about belonging.

The kingdom is about rest

This part might seem contradictory to the previous point, but I’d suggest they go hand in hand

Notice that after healing many Jesus retreats to find solitude

We belong to community and we were meant to play an integral part, giving ourselves for others

BUT, we were not meant to be machines, going going going all the time

We need sleep every night

We need food and water regularly

Similarly we need rest and refreshment

In the old testament God commands his people to let the land and crops rest every seven years.

Just don’t even try to harvest anything, let it be.

Why? Because the land needs to rest and replenish.

In American in the 30’s new machine technology emerged for planting and harvesting crops and people worked the land harder than every before in history and you know what happened?

The dust bowl.

The land gave up. It was totally stripped.

The land isn’t part of a machine stuck in the on position turned to higher and higher output levels

Neither are human beings

That’s a beautiful corrective of the kingdom, you aren’t a machine

Even Jesus, in his humanness, regularly got away from the crowds after giving much of himself, in order to replenish and rest

Yet in our society we’re often made to feel guilty for having free time and down time

Do you know how sick and twisted it is?

Times of rest and retreat should not be seen as something you earn by winning at life

They should be seen as something necessary if you are going to survive in life

Because you are not a machine.

The last one, the kingdom is about union with God.

The end of the story is God dwelling with is people as heaven and earth come together

We get this poetic imagery of not needing light because God will be our light

We will be closer to him than ever before and spend eternity getting closer

caught up in a restored, reconciled relationship with our creator

And in one sense, prayer functions as a preview of this, albeit often a dim one

prayer gives us this moment of right relationship with God, where we come to him in humility and dependance and awe and thanks

and we talk

we share and we listen

we give our attention and attend to the fact that he receives us and loves us

Whatever spark of peace we find in our most beautiful times of prayer, we can take it as a hint of what’s to come when we see God face to face in he kingdom and dwell with him

That is restoration of a world where we are alienated from God.

That is restoration of the first humans walking with God in that garden in the cool of the day.

That’s how it was meant to be.

We live in a broken world that is not the way it’s meant to be

In Jesus the kingdom breaks into that world

And as we observe Jesus’s ministry we see these moments of the inbreaking kingdom revealing a world set right

He’s still at work and with us in our time, bringing moments that offer a picture of what’s to come

Previews

Signposts

Small tastes

Let’s hold on to these to kindle and maintain our hope until the day when he returns and makes all things new once and for all