Epiphany 5B

5th Sunday after the Epiphany

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

As we are now in our fifth week of the season of Epiphany, we’ve been hearing about the various ways in which Jesus has been revealed to the world. We’ve heard how Jesus has been revealed to the world as The Christ, The Messiah foretold by the prophets by Gentiles (the Wise Men from the East), by God the Father, and even by demons. Now this week, we see in the Gospel reading from Mark how Jesus is revealed through his work - healing and casting out demons. And as before, Jesus “would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.” In this scene, the demons don’t have time to speak about who Jesus is; he shuts them up before they have the chance.

But in this relatively short Gospel lesson, there is a lot that is happening that all comes together in these ten verses. This section begins with the description of Jesus with a few of his disciples, and they had just left the synagogue. This takes place at the house of Simon - who we know better as Peter - whose house was in the town of Capernaum. Capernaum today calls itself “The Town of Jesus” - Jesus himself lived here for some time during his life. It’s right on the shore on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee, maybe 10 miles east of Nazareth.

Peter’s house is about 200 yards from the synagogue…so they didn’t have far to walk when they left. Of course, if Jesus was in the synagogue, he was teaching and preaching, but if you remember the lesson from last week, Jesus cast out an unclean spirit there, too. That’s the one that announced to everyone that Jesus was “the Holy One of God”. Jesus was demonstrating his divine authority already.

So, when he got to Peter’s house and healed his mother-in-law, it was just another example of what Jesus had come to do: he came to preach, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick. So it’s no surprise that in the evening - after the sun went down, so Sabbath restrictions were over - people started bringing their sick to Peter’s house. But let’s look closely at how this is described: “…they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered at the door.” This was not just a couple of kids with a fever. This was everyone in the city who was sick, and everyone who wasn’t sick came out to see the miracles that this carpenter’s son was doing.

Think about that. What would it take for everyone in Hickory to show up for one person? Is there any one person who could draw out the whole city? I mean, we had the President of the United States show up last year…and nowhere near the whole city went to that. Ok, that’s not a fair comparison…pandemic restrictions and all…but you get my point. What do you think it would take to bring out a whole city to crowd around one person’s house? And for the record, Peter’s house wasn’t all that big. If you go to Capernaum today, you can see the remnants of the house.

So the entire population of the city of Capernaum showed up at the door to Peter’s house. Historians think the population was about 1,500 people. And there were apparently quite a few sick or oppressed by demons in this town. And Jesus healed every single one of them. I know our Gospel lesson says that Jesus healed “many”, but the way Mark wrote this in Greek, it’s clear that he meant that Jesus healed all who were sick or had a demon.

At some point it appears that the townspeople actually let him get some rest, but Jesus did what we see him frequently do: he goes off by himself, to a “desolate place” where he can pray. Whenever we read about Jesus taking the time to pray, it always has to do “with something important in his ministry...” [R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 86.] In this case, Jesus knows that he must bring the good news to ALL of Galilee. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Listen to this description by a very respected scholar: “Jesus prayed because he was a man. His prayers were communions with his Father...the Son had become man and as such he was dependent on his Father in all things. It was thus that he prayed and voiced his obedient love and his perfect accord with his Father.” (Ibid.)

So Jesus, in taking the time to pray, was again showing obedience to His Father. But by going out alone, he was also handling another problem, which we see in Peter’s statement: “Everyone is looking for you.” (v. 37) Jesus knows that because he has healed so many sick and demon-possessed people, and has done so very publicly, he knows that the people are starting to think about forcing him to become their king. We see this in how the other Gospels tell this same story.

But if the people in Capernaum make Jesus the King of Capernaum, what will that do to Jesus’ mission? How can he obey the Father’s Will for him if he is stuck only in one little seaside town ruling the people who were healed by him? Obviously, he can’t. He can’t just cater to the whims of the people he just freed from their sickness. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the people of Capernaum want to keep Jesus all to themselves. Imagine having every single sick person in your town healed in one day? All colds and flu and fevers - gone. COVID too. Heart disease, diabetes, cancer, kidney failure…all of it healed. Oppressed by demons? Not anymore. Now we don’t think about demons the same way that they did in Jesus’ day, but they are certainly out there working against Christ and His Church. But they, too, would be gone - cast out. If someone came to town and did all that, of COURSE we wouldn’t want to let that person leave. We’d want them to stay right here…you know, in case someone else gets sick. Or so that we have time to call our cousins to come to town to get healed too. How great would it be if we could get everyone to come here to be healed? Right?

It’s easy to see how tempting it is to want to have Jesus do what WE want him to do. I don’t blame the people of Capernaum for wanting to keep him there. But that’s a misunderstanding of what Jesus came to actually do. And I think we can all be guilty of that at times. We want Jesus to do what we ask him to. Sometimes our prayers even sound like that. “Jesus, please do this thing that I’m asking you, because it’s something I really want, and I’m praying it in your name. Amen.” I know that sounds terrible, and I really exaggerated that example. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask God for things in Jesus’ name. God wants us to ask Him.

But I think there’s room for caution here. Let’s not tell God what He has to do, just because we want it…even if it’s something noble. Let’s trust that God knows what’s best in every situation. After all, God does know EVERYTHING. So our prayers should reflect our trust in God to know what the best thing is.

There’s another problem here, and that’s this idea of keeping Jesus to ourselves. I don’t think we look at it like this, but I’m concerned that we do. And here’s why I think that: out of the 7 days in a week - that’s 168 hours - how many hours do we spend with Jesus Christ? Either in prayer, or in His Word, in worship? How about this: how many people do we talk to about Jesus Christ? That’s not so easy to do in this day and age, I know. It’s hard for me. We Lutherans have a reputation for being notoriously bad at sharing our faith.

Back to the Gospel lesson: why did Jesus “come out”? Look at how he answered when Peter said “Everyone is looking for you.” He didn’t say “ok, let’s go see them.” He said, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” Jesus wanted to be sure that the Good News - the Gospel - was brought to ALL of Galilee, not just one town. He had many more people to teach and preach to. And very likely many more demons to cast out and many more sick to heal.

When we keep Jesus to ourselves, we are not helping him complete his mission. We are not helping him reveal himself to parts of the world that don’t know him yet. He wants to make sure that his message of the boundless love and mercy of God is not only available to everyone, but FREE for everyone. And yes, there are people in our society who don’t know about Jesus Christ. There are people who don’t know the story of the birth of Christ, and they don’t know what the cross means. They don’t know that he didn’t stay dead…that on the third day he rose from the dead to show that death is not the end. They don’t know that he suffered all of that to atone for our sins…to pay the price that we could not possibly pay for our own sins, when he didn’t deserve any of it. There are a shocking number of people who don’t know any of this.

I’m not saying that any of us should go and stand on the street corner with a sign that says “John 3:16” or something like that. What I *am* saying is that we have all been given a precious gift in our baptism, our faith, and our salvation…and that gift is meant to be shared. Each of us will, at some point, be given the opportunity to share that gift in our own unique way…we just need to be open for that to happen, and to be ready for it when it does.

Let me wrap this up with a story. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), the world-famous violinist, earned a fortune with his concerts and compositions, but he generously gave most of it away. So, when he discovered an exquisite violin on one of his trips, he wasn't able to buy it. Later, having raised enough money to meet the asking price, he returned to the seller, hoping to purchase that beautiful instrument. But to his great dismay it had been sold to a collector. Kreisler made his way to the new owner's home and offered to buy the violin. The collector said it had become his prized possession and he would not sell it. Keenly disappointed, Kreisler was about to leave when he had an idea. "Could I play the instrument once more before it is consigned to silence?" he asked. Permission was granted, and the great virtuoso filled the room with such heart-moving music that the collector's emotions were deeply stirred. "I have no right to keep that to myself," he exclaimed. "It's yours, Mr. Kreisler. Take it into the world, and let people hear it."  (Our Daily Bread, February 4, 1994.)

I pray that those words would echo in all of our ears this week: “Take it into the world, and let people hear it.” So many people need to hear the Gospel right now. If God can use us to spread His Good News, then let’s pray that we won’t just keep Jesus to ourselves, but that He will show us how to share it with others when the time comes!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.