Mark 1:29-39
February 5, 2006
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
While we were gone for the two weeks in Thailand, we soon discovered how reassuring it was to have a safe and familiar place we can call “home.” The Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai became that place for us. It had air-conditioned, the rooms were clean, the night bazaar was just down the street and the free breakfast was fantastic. Although we would travel to mission projects or visit interesting places during the day, we began calling the Downtown Inn our “home.” We didn’t mind being there—and if we could, we would have stayed there longer! We were settled down.
The Scripture for this morning in a typical Markan fashion shows that with Jesus everything happens quickly. It’s not about settling down. “At once,” Mark says, “his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee” (1:28). As soon as Jesus and his four disciples entered Simon Peter’s house, they at once told Jesus that Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. Jesus healed her and she began to serve them.
That evening, the disciples brought to Jesus all who were sick or possessed with demons. And pretty soon, it says in the Bible that the “whole city” was gathered around the door with the sick and demon possessed and Jesus cured many of them. So many wonderful things were happening in Peter’s mother-in-law’s house that the disciples wanted to stay there longer. They wanted to settle down there like the way we wanted to stay at the Downtown Inn.
Healing
When things are going well, we naturally want it to continue. We want more of what we like and we don’t want it to end anytime soon. Mark says that in the morning Jesus got up very early and went to a deserted place to pray. But Simon Peter and his companions hunted for him and said, “Everyone is searching for you.” They wanted Jesus to stay in Capernaum, at Peter’s mother-in-law’s house because things were going so well. Now everyone is waiting for Jesus to heal more sick people and cast out more demons. But Jesus was ready to move on.
In this passage, we are invited to give some serious and prayerful thought to this business of sickness, death and healing. When we have good health, we want and expect this same level of health to continue unabated. We know that when relationships are broken, they can sometimes be restored. We know that when trust is broken, it can be mended. When we lose hope, it can be restored. But our text this morning is not talking about broken relationships; it addresses physical illness and healing.
What are we to make of this? What does it mean for our own time?
There are Christians who believe in the idea that people with illnesses or afflictions can be miraculously and instantly cured. When we see this, we all want to stay in that place as long as we can. On religious TV channels, we sometimes see people who hobble up to the altar rail on their crutches and then get up and throw them away in celebration of what appears to have been an instantaneous, miraculous cure. But we also know many persons for whom this does not happen.
We have Christians on one end of the spectrum who believe with great intensity that if the right kind of prayers is prayed and the right kind of faith is practiced, all sick and broken people will get well. Then on the other end of the spectrum, there are believers who are absolutely convinced that these people are being fooled by hocus pocus, as there is a rational, scientific, explanation for many so called, “miracles.”
Most of us, I suspect, we are at neither extreme of this continuum. We know that miraculous healing from diseases are, at the very best, the rare exception and not something that we can always expect—but that God can certainly perform whatever miraculous acts God wishes. But we also know that with modern science many of the diseases that we thought were demon possessions can be cured by taking two aspirins and going to bed.
When it comes to healing, we want to pin Jesus down for a cure. Just like Peter and the disciples hunted for Jesus to stay and cure more people. They want life to last forever. But when it comes down to it, eventually I’m sorry to say, we all die, including those who were healed of their particular disease. No one has managed to avoid the grim reaper. We cannot and should not expect that every ailment will be cured just because we prayed in a particular way. There really is no such thing as permanent healing—we all die sometime or another.
But what we do know is that from time to time, things do happen that seem inexplicable. Sometimes people do better than their physicians expect and sometimes illnesses turn around for which there is no adequate explanation. There are numerous things that can happen that are not easily explained, so we continue to pray when we or someone we love is sick. Those prayers spring out of our affection for the one in crisis, as well as our belief that God also cares for that person.
One way to deal with seemingly “unanswered” prayers is to distinguish between healing and a cure. The distinction is an important one to make—both in our heads and in our hearts. While there can always be healing, frequently there’s no cure. Healing refers to something so much greater and more important than simply returning to a normal state of physical health. We have all seen cases where someone with a terminal and long-lasting disease, in the course of their dying, becomes reconciled with members of their family where relationships had broken down. There may not have been a cure, but there were certainly multiple healings.
We’ve all known cases where people were broken in body and mind, and they didn’t get well. They didn’t get better, but they experienced God’s sustaining presence carrying them through that which seemed unface-able otherwise. Who’s to say that this isn’t an answer to a prayer of healing? It may not be a cure to the illness, but healing can always happen in some fashion. Healing is always possible, even when a cure is not.
I suspect that’s the reason why Peter and the disciples wanted Jesus to stay longer in Capernaum. They wanted to see more people cured from their illnesses but Jesus didn’t want to be pinned down there. A cure is not always possible but if we know Christ, the healing of our soul and relationships can always take place with us.
Moving On
Before daybreak, without telling Simon Peter and the other disciples, Jesus went out to a deserted place to pray. After the disciples hunted him down, Jesus told them that it was time to go on to other neighboring towns to proclaim the message. He was not about to be pinned down in one place.
Just like God hears our prayers but sometimes God has another agenda for us, the disciples wanted to see more cures, but Jesus has another agenda to proclaim the message of good news in other towns. The people wanted to pin Jesus down, to capture his power and charisma and reserve it for themselves. But he had other plans.
We cannot read Jesus’ mind. We cannot bottle God’s power, as much as we would love to be able to put it in a vial so as to inject it whenever someone gets ill.
If we are going to follow Jesus, we will need to leave Simon Peter’s mother-in-law’s house and leave Capernaum and after some time in prayer perhaps in a deserted place, not get pinned down and go to neighboring towns. There, we can see Jesus at work among us. Sometimes it is in bringing healing of various sorts. Sometimes it is preaching words of promise or challenge. Sometimes, it is placing people in our pathways whom we can serve, just as Simon’s mother-in-law served Jesus. Sometimes, it might even be casting out demons in Jesus’ name.
For us to see Jesus in the world, we must not get pinned down either. It was necessary for us to make that long journey to Thailand because we have gotten too comfortable in being pinned down here at FCBC! If we stayed at the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai much longer, we would have naturally gotten pinned down there too. One of the revelations we received was learning how to get to Thailand. Before we went, it was unfamiliar and too far. Now it is familiar and more importantly, we have seen how God is working among the people there. If our Baptist ancestors wanted to just keep Jesus for themselves in the United States, the hill tribes of Thailand may never have known God. When we listen to God and become faithful to his calling, we don’t get pinned down in San Francisco, we respond by sending our group to Thailand. I can’t wait to see which way God will be calling our church into missions in the days and years to come!
God may have an agenda for us and our church that is different from what we want to do. Listen to this often cited prayer:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of people.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all the things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all people, most richly blessed. (Anonymous)
As we launch this new year in our church, there is nothing wrong with heaving prayers against the door of heaven. And God knows we have many prayers. When Jesus needed strength, he went off to pray. We should do no less.
But we can’t capture him; we cannot pin him down. He has a broader agenda than we will ever see. He will do among us that which is best for us and for the kingdom of heaven. If that isn’t the way we want to go, then maybe our desires need to be realigned with the ways that Jesus chooses to be revealed among us.
In the times when we get to listen in on Jesus’ own prayers, we find that this is what they are about. Not my will be done, but “Thy will be done.” When God’s will is done, Jesus is fully revealed.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, we pray that we are open to listening to your will for our lives and for our church. Comfort us when we discover that a cure may not be forthcoming but give us the grace to celebrate when healing of mind, soul, heart and relationships happen. Teach us to not keep Jesus pinned down for our needs and show us to follow him as he goes out to proclaim the message of hope and peace in the neighboring towns. Amen.