Year B, 5 Epiphany, Mark 1:29-39, I Cor 9:16-23
February 5, 2012
UNEDITED
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
What a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Wouldn’t you love to have been there that Sabbath day in Capernaum? It all began with Jesus entering the synagogue and performing an exorcism on a man with an unclean spirit. And then our text today reports that immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon Peter just across the street and healed Peter’s mother-in-law who was sick. That same evening, at sundown, Mark tells us that the whole city brought to Simon’s doorstep many who were sick with all kinds of ailments, diseases and bad spirits and Jesus healed them, one after the other he healed them. Galilee had never seen such a thing as this! Obviously there was no texting, no emails or phones back then, but the word spread like wildfire. We are told the next morning EVERYONE was searching for Jesus. I bet you can think of something for yourself or someone you love that might have benefited from the Lord’s power to heal.
Well, marvelous day as it was, we should not be naïve about what was going on with everyone who was searching for Jesus. I think once again of the world’s worse commercial. I talked about it not long ago. As I remember it was a whole grain cereal commercial that’s high in whatever’s supposed to be good for you. In the commercial an obviously retired, nice looking couple is outside at a club next to a tennis court and swimming pool, having just eaten a bowl of the cereal and some juice for breakfast, both beautifully tanned in their tennis garb. And she is standing next to him, and with one hand on his shoulder she looks into the camera and says, “My husband and I believe that when you have your health, you have everything.”
Is that right? Well Jesus Christ didn’t think when you have your health you have everything. He saw that sinful man had a much greater need. We see in this passage a remarkable verse, verse 38. After being told everyone is searching for him for healing, Jesus said, “(No) let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” Jesus saw bodily cures subsidiary to his main work. He knew you can have your health and have nothing, if you don’t have the one thing needful. Thus all the emphasis was on preaching specifically the gospel, “the good news” as Jesus described it in Luke 4:43. The ways and means of the gospel, “the good news” that needed to be preached would not be totally understood until after his death and resurrection, but the gospel in embryo was to be proclaimed to lost sinners.
“Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” It is refreshing to hear preaching spoken of without a sneer. My father years ago, after he learned I was going into the ordained ministry, said, “Son, just don’t become preachy.” Preachy? Preachy is defined as having a style marked by obvious moralizing. Someone told me once that St. Paul never preached at people but simply declared what Christ had accomplished. Of course, this is precisely what preaching was in the New Testament, declaring what Christ had accomplished. And that is precisely why Paul said it boldly, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” Did you know those words are inlaid in the wood of this pulpit? It’s reminder to me why Jesus came into the world. It’s a reminder to me that preaching the gospel is above everything else I do.
It is a shame to see how the meaning of preaching the gospel is misunderstood even by some of the most sincere church leaders. On the way into Clemson on a South Carolina back-road there’s a little country church with what Episcopalians would consider a tacky marquee-on-wheels out front that reads, “Full-Gospel Church.” It’s been there for years. One day I finally stopped, went in, and asked for the pastor who wasn’t in. But the receptionist was able to answer my question: What exactly is meant by saying you’re a Full Gospel Church? “Well sir,” she proudly replied, “it means we don’t preach and teach just some of the Bible but all of the Bible.” There you go.
You see, all of the Bible is not gospel. Yes, everything in the Bible is God’s Word, but everything in the Bible is not gospel. The Bible also contains Law. The Law strikes no bargain with sinners, the Law condemns, as it should. For example, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind” is appropriately called the summary of the Law.” If our salvation depended on how well we could keep the Law we would all be doomed. But this is the summary of the gospel, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Jesus said in the Great Commission at the end of Luke to go preach the gospel of forgiveness of sins to all nations. We preach the gospel, the good news, because we are commanded to preach it. So Saint Paul was right to say, “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”
The gospel is the most transforming power in the world. Mr. Craig Parton, Esq. is a trial lawyer and partner with the oldest law firm in the Western United States located in Santa Barbara, California. Upon graduation from college, he spent seven years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. He wrote an interesting essay in Modern Reformation entitled, “Appearing Before God Without a Lawyer.” Intriguing title, isn’t it? He’ll be preaching here during our Lenten series this year.
But here’s what he said about his early experience with Campus Crusade, “I was told to yield more, pray more, care more about unbelievers, read the Bible more, get involved with the church more and love my wife and kids more…. But my obedience, my yielding, my Bible verse memorization, my prayers, my zeal, my witnessing… all my training had me on a treadmill of merit. My solid training was killing me.” Indeed, the Law is designed to kill, as it should, for we must be born again. But the gospel of grace does not kill, the gospel of grace “’tis music in the sinner’s ears, ‘tis life and health and peace.”
I spend time with people who carry guilt. And guilt is not always bad, like pain, it can drive us to the physician. And when I talk to a poor, struggling sinner whose burden is intolerable, it gives me great joy to speak of the gospel. If I tell a poor, burdened sinner “You must go home and pray and memorize this and that and read three psalms a day and you” I do not give him life. Not that I’m against praying and memorizing the psalms, God forbid. But “the conscience bruised and bleeding” needs no good instruction, no more Law, only Gospel.
The Law, the moral teachings, of non-Christian religions is essentially the same as found in the Bible. But the Gospel gives Christianity its utter uniqueness. The Gospel declares sins are forgiven for the sake of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The joy of honest to goodness forgiveness is not just a momentary spiritual fix, but the rock foundation of peace with God.
Brothers and sisters! Everything we do here is ultimately based on the gospel. Our outreach is administered with the gospel massage. Our pastoral care is administered with the gospel message. Joe Warren and this team hear the same call from God as I do standing in this pulpit. Entering our hospital rooms there comes the apostolic cry, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel”. Standing around dozens of deathbeds it is the same cry, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”
Yes, I would have loved to have been there that day in Capernaum of Galilee to see healing powers of the Lord- evil spirits rebuked, lepers healed, lame folks laying aside their crutches, deaf people suddenly listening and blind people suddenly looking around in amazement. But Jesus saw physical healing as secondary to the ultimate need of the human race, for if all you do is heal a sinner what you end up with is a sinner in a healthy body. We can indeed have our health, we can have all the world has to offer, and not have the one thing needful. So “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”
And if it is woe unto us if we do not preach the gospel, it is woe to us sinners if we do not hear the gospel and receive it. May the God of grace open our ears and our hearts to hear and receive the sweetest music heaven has to offer, the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
