Why the Miracles
Why the Miracles? To Enable Service
Mark 1:29-39
February 6, 2000
Introduction: Have you ever had those days when you think you must feel just like Job? Perhaps it’s not that we have been deprived of prized possessions or relationships as he was. It’s that sometimes we feel like we have done nothing of importance in our life, or that nobody will understand my problems. Isn’t that what Job says? “I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.” Don’t you sometimes just want to shout your, “Amen!” to that? Don’t you sometimes feel like you have no control over things upsetting your life? …
I suspect that people Jesus healed of diseases, and those from whom he cast out demons, felt much the same way. So, there is common ground among us and those Jesus healed. Consider this: are we not by nature, like them, “slaves to sin?” Our goal today is to understand how Jesus gives us spiritual healing so that we are enabled to serve others.
Jesus comes not to condemn us for our sinful blindness and inactivity. He comes to turn us into his friends who know what the master is up to. As he says in Jn. 15:15, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Do you understand the implication of this on our mission and ministry at Trinity? As Jesus changes us into his friends, we are truly changed from the demonic to the godly, who are enabled to serve God. And we do so by serving others. That, my friends, is what happened long ago in the seaside village of Capernaum when Jesus went about teaching, and healing, and casting out demons.
1. Jesus was pretty busy there. Mark tells us that he “began to teach … as one who had authority. … He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” What strikes me, in Mark’s account, is how the evil spirit knows who Jesus is, yet is held in condemnation because of its prideful, puffed up, egotistical boast of knowing that Jesus can destroy because he is “the Holy One of God.”
Today, Mark leads us to a place where Jesus heals the mother-in-law of a friend. He goes on to touch the lives of “all the sick and demon-possessed” people that were brought to him at that place. So, as we ask ourselves the question, Why the Miracles? Mark helps us to see and to understand this aspect of their purpose: they enable, the in-able, to serve.
2. People responded to Jesus.
But, this requires a response of faith on the part of the people. Consider how Peter’s mother-in-law, now healed, “began to wait on them.” Now why did she do that?
Was it, as someone at our Wednesday morning bible study quipped, “Men will do anything to be waited on.” I don’t think so. Neither do I think she served because it was her house (it was the home of the brothers, Simon and Andrew).
No, this woman’s action was more than servanthood, more than a sense of duty, more than role playing; it was an act of faith prompted by love. It was a response of thankfulness, because being in-able due to illness, the Lord enables her to serve, not in servitude, but in shear joy of what the Lord has done for her.
Consider the townspeople who also responded with service to the Lord’s teaching and healing. They see the grace he offers, and they want “the sick and demon-possessed” to share Christ’s healing power.
3. We also respond to Jesus’ love for us.
Now, the question might well come to mind about how Jesus has healed us, or touched us, or cast out our demons? My friends, it is in God’s promise given in our Baptism that God touches us. It is in our use of Word and Sacraments that He touches us and heals us from being sin-bound and in-able to serve, to being forgiven and enabled to serve. It is in His promise to touch us again in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. “Take eat, this is my body. Take drink, this is my blood, he says, so that we might grow and strengthened in faith, that our demons might be cast out, and we be enabled to serve.
You see, we are like the people who live in “nearby villages.” We too have heard of Jesus and seen his miracles before our very eyes. We too witness the authority and power of the Savior as strongly and as boldly as did the people of Capernaum. We too are people of faith.
Consequently we too are moved to serve others. It might be on the job, where we are asked to give an account of the hope we have. It might be at home that a relative asks about this Jesus in whom we profess faith. It might be in our school or neighborhood that people notice something peaceful and quiet about us. It might be right here within this congregation of believers that we are given opportunity to help. And that is just what we do. We can’t help it. This is what love does when it touches us right where we live, in the very midst of our sin and grief.
Conclusion: It’s true that many times we feel like Job and want to say, “my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again” (Job 7:7). But we have an advantage over Job. We have witnessed the Epiphany of our Lord. God has revealed himself to us in Jesus. Through the washing of baptism, He has healed us of our sin, called us by His name, and enabled us for service in the knowledge that we are His very own people, his very own precious friends. Amen.