February 4, 2018

Epiphany 5         

Mark 1:29-39    

Today’s Gospel reading continues where last week’s Gospel left off.  

From last week’s Gospel we learned that it was Jesus’ custom to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath.  We also learned that one of the members of the synagogue tried to interrupt Jesus’ teaching because a demon had possessed him.  Jesus drove out the demon and in so doing demonstrated His power and His authority.  As a result of the exorcism and the power of His teaching, Jesus became very popular.  

The brothers, Simon and Andrew had invited Jesus to come to their home for a meal after worship in the synagogue.  They had also invited James and John.  

Jesus did not come to Simon’s house in order to heal his mother-in-law.  Instead, Simon and the others made Jesus aware of this woman’s condition after they arrived at the house.  The Gospel reading indicates that this woman was unable to get out of bed because her fever was so high.  

Once Jesus learned of the woman’s need, He took her hand and helped her up and the fever was gone and she began to serve the guests in the house.

Today’s Gospel reading gives us a new teaching.  Jesus announced the salvation He brings by reaching out his hand to grasp the fevered hand of Simon’s mother-in-law.  As He did this, her fever left her.  Jesus reversed the curse of sin for a time in this woman’s life.  As He did so, He demonstrated the overwhelming generosity of His salvation.  She went straight from the weakness of a fever to the strength of health at the Savior’s touch.   

The quality of His preaching and the exorcism in the synagogue had attracted a lot of attention.  It had indeed been a busy Sabbath day but there was more ministry to do.  When the sun went down and the Sabbath was over, the town brought its sick and demon possessed to Simon’s house in order to receive healing from Jesus.  Jesus worked late into the night to heal everyone who came.

The healing of Simon’s mother-in-law as well as the healing of the townspeople shows us the nature of God’s generosity.  He does not do anything half way.  Everything He does is complete, perfect, and abundant.  There was no recuperation period, no days of bed rest to regain strength.  The curse of sin was gone – for a time.  

Physical healing – although it was part of Christ’s ministry – was not the main reason the Son of God took on a human nature and came into this world.  That would be like treating the symptoms of a disease while ignoring the underlying cause.  Jesus came into this world to get at the root of the problem.  He came to defeat sin, death, and the devil.  He did this with the ultimate demonstration of His love and generosity.  He offered up His holy, precious blood through His innocent suffering and death.  With this sacrifice He reached out His hand to all people in all places and all times.  The hand whose touch drove out the fever touches us and drives out the eternal death of sin.  When we consider our Lord’s suffering and His death on the cross, we consider the ultimate cure for the cause of all that is wrong in this world – the ultimate cure for sin.

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the third day gives us the assurance that His cure is complete, perfect, and abundant.  There is nothing that we need to do because God has done it all.  No good works can do anything to improve our relationship with God because it is already perfect.

Sadly there are people who refuse to believe this.  They are like people who draw their hand away when Jesus offers healing.  If Simons’s mother-in-law had drawn her hand away and refused Jesus’ healing, she probably would have died from the fever.  In a similar way, people who refuse to believe Jesus’ eternal gift of salvation will pass into a area of eternal punishment.

On the other hand, those who believe receive the gift of salvation.  That salvation is very different from the physical healing Jesus gave in today’s Gospel.  All the people Jesus healed back then eventually died.  Even people Jesus raised from the dead like Lazarus and the widow’s son died again.  The salvation Jesus worked for us on the cross has no such limit.  It is for eternity.

Jesus could not stay in Capernaum with this message.  It was part of His mission to this earth to spread this message among all the people of Israel.  When He ascended into heaven so He could be with all of His people all the time, He passed this mission on to His followers.  They were not only to share this message with all of Israel, but they were to share this message with the entire world.  Through the church, the Holy Spirit has spread this message down through the generations and now it belongs to you and to me.  In our gratitude for this precious gift of salvation, we in turn are to learn as much as we can of Jesus’ teachings so that we in turn can tell those teachings to others.

Our loved ones who are now at our Savior’s side in heaven can no longer communicate with us.  If they could, they would want us to know one thing.  Our Savior has a place in heaven reserved for each one of us for you and for me.  That reservation waits for the time when our time here on this earth ends.  We who trust the person and work of Jesus the Christ will join our loved ones in paradise and together with all the other believers in Christ Jesus we will enjoy the eternal happiness of heaven.  

Thanks be to God! Amen.