Year B

Mark 1:29-39

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

How Do You See Jesus?

Who among us doesn’t have some kind of ailment we would like cured. Ask any human what ails them and you will find a pain of some sort under the surface. We all want that hero who will make it all better, cure us, save us, and solve all our problems. Mark tells us of people today just like you and me who were swarming to Jesus to find a cure for what ailed them. In the gospel text for last Sunday, we heard about a man possessed by a demon whom Jesus healed. Jesus then rushes off to the home of Peter’s mother-in-law where he quickly relieved the woman’s fever. Word got out and all the sick, the possessed, the diseased and the crippled were hurried in. He healed one illness, then another. The room was crowded with those seeking a cure for what ailed them; all looking for a hero to save them.

But how clearly did they see Jesus? Here was someone special-a wonder-worker, a healer, perhaps the solution to their problems. Here was one who could say the word and make it all better. If someone comes along offering a cure for what ails us, they will be swamped with our human yearning for health. Mark wants to impress on us the way in which Jesus responded with compassion to human hurts. And, as we read through the Gospel of Mark, we cannot help but marvel at the number of stories devoted to Jesus’ healing. Nearly one half of the verses in the gospel relates to his healing ministry. The gospels as a whole are so filled with detailed stories of Jesus as healer; it is difficult to doubt that many were healed through his ministry. 

In Christ, we can see that God wants to restore us to wholeness. God is not content for us to be in our broken and hurting world and Mark wants us to see Jesus as one who restores people to health and wholeness. Yet, do we always get everything we ask for in prayer? Many worthy social causes and individual needs such as healing for which we pray do not get answered in the ways we might expect. Causing us to hesitate to pray because we are afraid that the person we pray for will not be healed or the situation we prayed for will not turn out as we had hoped. Of course, this is the human side of our feelings that forget that God’s healing and answering of prayer comes in many forms and includes the Spirit as well as the body.

Keeping a prayer journal where you write down the date, name of person, group, or organization for which you pray, and for what you prayed for is a good way to tract how many prayers are answered. It is not surprising that when we go back through our journal, we see how many of our prayers are answered but also how many of our prayers are answered in ways that are even better than what we would have ever thought to pray for. In Christ, God will use every means possible to reach the ailing with a gift of healing of body, mind, and spirit. But our understanding of healing and fullness of life may not always be God’s.  The fullness of life that God offers is not limited to just this life. The resurrection is our assurance that at a time in the future all of God’s promises will be fulfilled. 

The next morning, as Jesus is praying, Peter and the others go find him to challenge him to continue the intense healing activity of the day before. But Jesus tells them: “Let us go on to the next town that I may preach there also; for that is what I came to do.” It’s obvious from his statement that he had a message that needed to be proclaimed to everyone. His concern and compassion was not just for the few. His mission was not to try to cure what ails everyone in Capernaum but instead he must move on to other villages and proclaim the good news. He would continue to heal but the kingdom of God had drawn near and the good news was that God is present in a new way in Jesus and wants all humanity to be saved. Jesus’ healings were but one expression of the kingdom of God that had dawned.

At the beginning of his ministry, his acts revealed him as one with power, doing mighty things, reaching out and curing instantly. But miracles were only part of the story. Jesus knew that those who saw him only as a wonder-worker would miss the real meaning of his life. The world wants a Superman. We too may be looking for wonderful cures, miraculous answers and speedy solutions. Yet, Christ comes not with a cape but with a cross, reminding us that there is more to it than that. Therefore, he commanded silence until the rest of the story could be told, the story which leads to the cross. He wasn’t trying to hide his identity when he silenced the demons. Rather he wanted to reveal it fully as more than a performer of miracles and that would only be possible after his death and resurrection.

God doesn’t offer us a hero but a savior who is victorious over death. God doesn’t take away all our ailments. God wants above all to rule in our lives and in our world. What God offers us in Christ is not an instant cure-all but a presence, a love that wants everyone to hear the good news of God’s love in Christ. This is what we hear Paul proclaiming today when he writes to the church in Corinth, “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel.”

Paul has an obligation as a disciple of Christ to deliver a message of good news and this is the vocation of all who are baptized into Christ. The church is therefore, not a community of volunteers but is itself a part of the gospel, the good news. By living out this pattern of self-giving in love of God and neighbor, the church is a sign of what God is bringing about for the whole, new creation. And for Paul and how we, the community of believers, orders its life and how we relate to each other are part of the proclaiming “good news” of God’s reconciliation to the world. In a world as conflicted and violent as ours, if the church were to be a place where Christians learned to become all for the sake of the gospel, the church would realize its calling to be a sign of hope and a witness to God’s offer of life – salvation for all people.

When we look for the hero, we get a savior, not magic and tricks but victory over death. That’s who Jesus is – healer, wonder-worker, one with authority-all those things, but only because he is also the one who has passed through death in order to bring us new life. New life does not involve easy answers of instant solutions. Instead, it may come through struggle and pain but leads ultimately to victory. Though we may not expect our great or small problems to be solved by divine intervention, sometimes, in the experience of the faithful, prayers are answered in remarkable ways, and believers testify, with the prophet Isaiah, that “those who hope in the Lord / will renew their strength.” “They shall mount up with wings like eagles.” We come today, not just to a miracle worker with instant cures and easy answers, but to a savior “the Lord, who is the everlasting God, who does not grow faint or weary but is mighty in power so that not one is missing.”