The Savior of the Sick

 

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 1:29-39                                                               

February 7, 2021

Epiphany 5B                                                     

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          Every year during this Epiphany season, God gives us glorious glimpses of His beloved Son.  After Jesus emerges from the water of His baptism, we see the Son of Man doing spectacular things.  We see Him as one who teaches and preaches with authority.  We see Him as one who drives out demons.  We see Him as a worker of miracles and a healer of the sick.  And next Sunday, on the mount of Transfiguration, we will see the glory of His divinity shining through His humanity.

          Much of today’s holy gospel concerns Jesus as a healer of the sick. And this year, in this Epiphany 2021, that healing dimension of Jesus’ ministry seems more relevant than ever.  After all, sickness has been center-stage for the past year.  We’ve worried about getting sick.  We’ve worried about those we love getting sick.  Many people have actually gotten sick and been healed.  But many others have gotten sick and have not been healed.  What does it mean for us that Jesus is the healer—and Savior—of the sick?

          In today’s reading from St. Mark, Jesus puts on a clinic on how to heal people of various diseases, viruses, infections, and fevers.  Things start small and simple with Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.  She was in bed with a fever, and they ask Jesus to look in on her.  It doesn’t sound that serious or spectacular.  Feed a cold; starve a fever.  Get some rest and plenty of fluids.  But Jesus came and went to be with that sick old woman in her hour of need.

          Those of you who have been seriously ill know that sickness can be a very spiritual moment—a time when you draw deeply upon faith and the promises of God.  Sickness is a time of insight, vulnerability, and great dependence.  Sickness is always a reminder of our mortality. It causes us to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  But on the positive side, every instance of healing and recovery is a little reminder of the resurrection—of that grand and glorious day when our bodies will be raised and glorified, and we will be given “heavenly herd immunity” to every form of sin and sickness.

          Sin and sickness actually go together—but not in the way most people think.  We don’t get sick as a direct result of our sinning.  Yes, some sins, like drunkenness and sexual immorality can bring dire health consequences.  But God isn’t necessarily trying to tell you something when you get sick.  Job suffered terribly, not because he sinned, but because he was righteous!  In the same way, Simon’s mother-in-law wasn’t sick with a fever because of any particular sin in her life.

          But sin and sickness are alike in this:  They are alien to us.  They are foreign to us, and to the way God has designed human beings.  Viruses attack from the outside and work their way in.  Sin is like a spiritual virus—a systemic virus that we just can’t shake no matter how hard we try.  Sin is ultimately a fatal disease for which the only cure is to die and be raised in Jesus.  Sickness and sin remind us that something is not right in our bodies, in our world, and in the whole creation.

          Jesus did more at Simon Peter’s house than just give relief to a feverish old woman.  It’s a teachable moment, both for her and for us.  Jesus went to her in her illness.  And He comes to you, too, when you are weak and sick.  Never doubt that.  Jesus doesn’t just draw near when you are healthy, happy and active.  But He draws near especially when you are weak, weary, and sick.  His Words and

promises become even more meaningful and powerful.  However, Jesus doesn’t even say a word to the woman.  He simply takes her hand and raises her up, and the fever melts away.  It’s a little foretaste of the resurrection, when Jesus will raise you up from sin and death and from all that would drag you down to the grave.  They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles.

          Then Simon’s mother-in-law began to serve Jesus and all those gathered in that little house.  We shouldn’t overlook that.  She got to work.  Put on the tea kettle and scrounged up some lunch.  She returned to the work of her vocation with vigor.  She offers herself, not as payback, or because it was expected.  She offers her service as a little sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise.  For now she knew just how precious she was to Jesus.  Jesus had raised her; and she would never be the same again.  And so it is for you and me and all the sick who have been healed by Jesus.

          As evening fell, the Savior’s healing work suddenly snowballed.  As the sun set, suddenly the whole town gathered on the front porch and the front lawn with multitudes of sick and diseased people.  And Jesus did what He always does—Jesus healed them.  He had to silence the demons because they knew who He was and why He came.  Those demons wanted to make Jesus into nothing more than faith-healer—so that they could divert Jesus from death—so that they could keep the Christ from the cross.  The demons knew that if Jesus died, they were done for.  They knew Jesus had come to destroy the works of the devil by dying.  They knew that Jesus came to reconcile and raise up the whole world.  They knew that a crucified and risen Christ would mean life and immortality for you.

          This is why Jesus eventually closed up his clinic.  Once again, it’s a teachable moment for us.  Jesus could have kept going.  The sick would have kept coming.  He could have wiped out every virus and every illness in Galilee.  But Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, in the early morning darkness He went off to pray.  His disciples hunted Him down to remind Him that He had a waiting room full of patients in need of healing:  Everyone is looking for you!  But Jesus had other plans:  Let’s go to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came.  With that, Jesus just left a lawn-full of sick people behind in Capernaum to go elsewhere to preach.

          Jesus came primarily to preach—to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to the whole world.  The miracles and healings were given to call attention to His message and His power over sickness, sin, and death.  Jesus worked wonders that day; but His purpose wasn’t to be a wonder-worker.  Jesus had pleased the crowds that day; but His purpose wasn’t to be a crowd-pleaser.

          His purpose was to preach.  That is why I came, He said.  That’s still His purpose today.  That’s why Jesus has called a preacher and set him before you today.  Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!  In Romans chapter 10 we are reminded that faith comes by hearing.  Faith doesn’t come through signs and wonders and healings—as nice as those things are.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.  That’s why Jesus came; and that’s why you have come here.  Here we preach Christ crucified.

          Jesus backed up His preaching with the shedding of His blood on the cross.  In that blood is your ultimate healing and your final salvation.  In that blood is the forgiveness of your sins.  And that blood, given and shed for you, is distributed from this altar every Lord’s Day.  On this Sunday when sickness and healing are center-stage, it’s good to remember how one church father referred to the Lord’s Supper as medicine—as the “medicine of immortality.”  The body and blood of Jesus is medicine for body and soul—is good for what ails you.  So much more precious and valuable than any vaccine.  So pure and potent.  Strength-renewing and power-increasing.  Holy food for holy people.  In the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood, the Savior of the sick comes here to heal you, to raise you up, to life everlasting. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.