This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and form our Lord Jesus Christ.
That evening at sundown they brought to him all who
were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at
the door.
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock
and our Redeemer. Amen.
In our reading today, we
follow on from where we left off last week, where we read about Jesus preaching
in a synagogue in Capernaum and then he cast out an unclean spirit from a man.
And we read at the end of our reading from last week that as soon as he had this,
at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of
Galilee. This sounds like this was something that might have happened over
days or weeks, but we read later in our reading, that news must have spread
among many people within only a few hours.
We read in our reading today
about very specific times when things happened in the day which followed this
event. We read at the beginning of our Gospel reading today: And immediately
he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and
John. After having gone to the synagogue, we read that Jesus went around to
Peter’s house, probably for a meal. Then later in the reading we read: That
evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by
demons. So let’s say Jesus went to Peter’s house in the afternoon, now we
read about what was happening in the evening, where Jesus was healing people.
Then later again in the reading it says: And rising very early in the
morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place,
and there he prayed. So here we read about what Jesus was doing in the very
early hours of the morning of the next day. And that really summarises what’s
going on in our reading today. So we’re going to look at three things in our
reading today:
I.
What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.
II.
What Jesus did on Saturday evening.
III.
What Jesus did on Sunday morning.
So let’s come to our first
part, where we read about
I.
What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.
We read: Immediately he
left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and
John. And what does Jesus find at their house when they get there? Now
Simon’s mother-in-law lay in bed with a fever, and immediately they told him
about her.
Here we find a wonderful
encouragement about how we should deal with our family and relatives as
Christians. Many Australians have all kinds of troubles with their families.
There are many families who have people who don’t speak to them. Sometimes people
are easily offended, and they blame their parents for all kinds of problems.
Sometimes people just don’t know how to solve their problems without yelling in
each other’s faces. It’s a great thing if people are able simply to sit down
and talk about difficult issues without being personal, without attacking,
without yelling.
But families are a gift, and
we have all kinds of people in our families, and people with all kinds of
different opinions about religion and politics, and all kinds of things. But
also, even though our families can be people who are quite different from us,
we find ourselves connected to them in a particularly special way, even if
there’s some kind of estrangement and people are not really talking to each
other much anymore. In our reading, Peter’s mother-in-law is in trouble: she is
particularly sick. She is laying ill with a fever. And what does he do?
He and the other disciples with him simply tell Jesus about her.
This gives us such a
wonderful example, because when our relatives, our parents, our children, our
spouse, our parent-in-law, our grandparents, our grandchildren, our aunties and
uncles and our cousins are in some kind of trouble, what should we do about it?
First, simply tell Jesus about them. We often don’t have any power to
help them, but Jesus does.
And so we read in our
reading: And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever
left her, and she began to serve them. These words are so simply, it almost
sounds like this was just so normal and natural for Jesus, the kind of thing he
could easily do every day with no fuss or bother.
Now, we pastors often go
around visiting people, and praying for people. And it’s very common if we ask
people what they’d like us to pray for that they say to pray for good health.
Now, good health is a good thing. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Give us
today our daily bread. And good health is part of what we need to do our
daily tasks for each day. But sometimes we can make a bit of an idol out of
health, and we can carry on as if it’s the most important thing in our life.
It’s not. It’s a wonderful gift, but it’s not the most important thing. Even
more important that the health of our body is the health of our soul. At the
beginning of John’s third letter, he writes: Beloved, I pray that all may go
well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your
soul.
And so what are the things
that are good for our soul? Sometimes people say a good walk or a good cup of
coffee is good for the soul. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking
about the word of God. In order for our souls to survive, we need the word of
God. The word of God is that thing that we put our trust in, that when we hear
it and believe in the gospel, that we have a saving faith created in us, and
God looks at us and sees not us and all our sins but he sees his Son Jesus and
his righteousness completely covering us over. God sees our faith in the word
of God—that word of God which never lies, and that word of God which shows us
our Saviour—God see that faith and he counts it to us as righteousness. Even if
our lives are completely full of sin, it is the word of God in the Scripture
preached in its truth and purity that has all the power in it to create a new
heart and a living faith in us, because this is the word from God’s own mouth
himself.
And so we should pray for the
Holy Spirit for ourselves that we would hear the word of God and understand it,
we should pray for our pastors that they would also preach the truth in the
power of the Holy Spirit, and we should also pray for the members of our church
to receive the Holy Spirit and believe the word so that we may also be drawn
together. We should also pray for unbelievers that their hearts would be
converted by the power of that same word and the Holy Spirit.
All these things are more
important than physical health, because even if we ever find ourselves in
hospital, or having chemotherapy, or coughing up blood and phlegm, or hooked up
to a dialysis machine, or generally be “as sick as a dog”, we can always
continue this holy Christian work of bringing the needs of our friends and our
fellow Christians and the world to Jesus.
However, even though the
things of Christ’s kingdom are more important than physical health, it’s
not as if physical health is not important. Christ healed many people,
who would go on to die. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus
died again someday. So what was the point?
But when Jesus heals people,
he shows a wonderful truth and a wonderful reality. Our bodies are his
creation. He formed us in our mother’s womb, and our bodies were shaped and
formed with his hands. But then after we die and we go to be with Jesus in
heaven, we also have the promise in the Scripture that at the end of the world
there will be a resurrection of the dead. Just as Jesus takes this woman who is
burning up with fever by the hand and cools her down, so also he will gather
all the dust and ashes of our rotted and decayed bones and bodies and he will
raise them up with the same effortlessness as he does with the woman with the
fever in the reading. And it won’t be as if he simply resuscitates us, so that
we’re still the same ugly mob that we were on earth, but we will be completely
transformed to be like Jesus. In Philippians, St Paul writes that Jesus will
transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. In 1 Corinthians it
says: Behold! I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
So when we die, we believe
that our soul will go to be with Jesus. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: Today
you will be with me in Paradise. And St Paul says: My desire is to
depart and to be with Christ. But also, our bodies are not simply the
leftover bits. Sometime later there will be a resurrection of the dead, and
those who believe in Christ will experience a complete and total healing of our
bodies and a glorification and transformation of our bodies so that we will be
like Jesus. Our bodies were created by God, and he will also redeem them. How
we will experience the timing of these things once we die, we have no idea, and
the bible doesn’t tell us these things. We leave that up to God.
So let’s come back to our
reading. It says: The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When
we or someone we know is sick, we should pray for healing. Even in James, we
are told that we should call the elders of the church, and let them pray over
us, and even have them anoint us with oil, as a special marker for committing
the sick person to God, in the name of the Lord, and pray for us. Also, in the
church, pastors also speak God’s word and bring the Lord’s Supper to people in
their times of sickness. Whatever happens, whether we are healed now or not, we
know that there will always be a miracle. At least we know that on the last day
Jesus will completely heal and transform our bodies, because he has died on the
cross and risen from the dead and forgives us all of our sins. There will
always be a miracle. But whether or not we experience a miracle of healing in
this life, on this side of the grave, is not promised to us. We should ask for
it, but if we don’t receive it, that’s OK. We will wait for a more glorious
time in the next life. What we read in our reading is that Peter’s
mother-in-law began to serve them. If we do receive a great miracle of
healing, the purpose is so that we can serve, and particularly to serve
Christ and his disciples, his church, in his kingdom. But if we remain sick,
the question is still: how has Christ called me to serve his kingdom here in my
condition? How is God’s name glorified through this, whether I am healthy or
sick? That’s the wonderful thing we learn from this event so very simply told
to us in our reading.
So let’s come to the second
part of our reading today, about
II.
What Jesus did on Saturday evening.
After Jesus had cast out an
unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue, the news spread fast all around the
place. We read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were
sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the
door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many
demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
Last week, I spoke in detail
about unclean spirits, and demons, and what exactly they are and how Jesus went
about casting one out from a man. I won’t say it all again, but I’d like to
make a couple of comments about our reading here. Two things are mentioned: diseases
and demons. Jesus heals people with diseases, and the demons he casts
out. There are two categories here—not everyone who is sick is demonised, and
not everyone who is demonised is sick. Jesus deals with both situations.
But the reading tells us
something specific about the demons. It says: He would not permit the demons
to speak, because they knew him. The demons here have personalities, and
they speak. And it’s a strange thing that at the same time as Jesus is revealed
as the Holy One of God, and at the same time as Jesus begins his
ministry, all these demons are revealed. All of a sudden there are all kinds of
people with demons.
And the thing about demonic
powers, and unclean spirits, is that because they are supernatural creatures
and belong to the devil, they have some access to certain knowledge that normal
people like us wouldn’t otherwise know. This is, for example, where psychic
power comes from. And so, sometimes, the people with demons know something that
people otherwise wouldn’t know, and sometimes these things are true. But in the
reading, it says: [Jesus] would not permit the demons to speak, because they
knew him. The demons knew him, but Jesus doesn’t allow them to share their
secret, hidden knowledge. Even though they know the truth, they are not allowed
to speak. The reason for this is that once the devil leads people along with
something true, he starts to take the truth away by mixing in errors with it.
The only thing that can silence the evil spirit is the word of God, which is
the living words of Jesus. And we need to be so careful that we don’t mix in
half-truths with God’s word. But this is what the devil does: he feeds on the
word, and adds things in, but then ultimately he takes the truth away, and
people are left with nothing but emptiness and lies. Proverbs 30 says: Do
not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
So it’s a wonderful
demonstration of Jesus’ love for us and his power that he comes into the world,
and he deals with evil and silences it in its tracks.
Let’s come now to the third
part of the reading about
III.
What Jesus was doing on Sunday morning.
We read: And rising very
early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a
desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him
searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for
you”. And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach
there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee,
preaching in their synagogue and casting out demons.
Jesus gives us a wonderful example
here. He has had a busy day the day before, and he has a busy time ahead of
him. And so in between, he spends some time alone and prays. He debriefs with
God, and he prepares himself with God. When something wonderful happens in our
life, we should remember to spend some time to tell God about it and commend it
to him. When we are about to do some difficult work, we should also ask him for
the strength to carry it out with his blessing and power.
Isn’t it funny how Jesus
prays? He created the world together with his Father and the Holy Spirit. Why
would he need to pray? Because he is a true man, a true human being like this,
and this is what humans were created for: to talk to God and to live in
fellowship with him.
But then also when Peter
finds him, Jesus tells him that he’s eager to go and do some more preaching,
and says: for that is why I came out. What does he mean by this? Where
was he coming from? Jesus is talking about the fact that he came down from his
eternal glory with his Father and entered into this world as a tiny baby born
of the Virgin Mary. Jesus had existed right from before the beginning of time,
in eternity with the Father. And he came forth into, he came out from heaven
into the world, took human flesh, for what purpose, that he could go out and
preach. And we see how the kingdom of Jesus goes from one town to the next
town, with Jesus preaching his word all the way. And this Jesus came down from
heaven just for this purpose, and he is true God. And as a true man, he prays
to his Father, drawing all his strength from him. We see here the wonderful
mystery of the fact that Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. He
is the same Saviour who has suffered and died for us, and risen from the dead
for us. And even today he comes to meet us, to preach his word to us, to come
to our home in the afternoon, to help in all our troubles and to look after us
in all our sicknesses, to spend the evening with us, and even before we have
even woken up and thought about him, he has already gotten out of bed before us
and has committed us and our day to the Father. What a faithful Saviour we
have! Amen.
Dear Jesus, we thank you for
the wonderful way in which you look after us each day and at each part of the
day. Teach us to bring our needs to you, and bless us so that we may serve you
each day for your kingdom. Amen.
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