5th Sunday after Epiphany, February 8, 2009 “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the gift of your Son, Jesus the Christ, who through his faithfulness to your will for his life, gave us an example of what it means to live in relationship with you, our creator. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, increase our faith, that we might prove to be worthy disciples of Jesus, following his example of trusting your will for our lives. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Here we are, still in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, and already Jesus is in the midst of his ministry. Just think of what has taken place in these first 39 verses. Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan, where a voice from heaven declared him to be God’s beloved Son. This was followed by the Spirit driving Jesus out into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days and was tempted in his relationship with his Heavenly Father. He then called his first four disciples, and, as we heard last week, he went to Capernaum and astounded those in the synagogue with his preaching, even casting an unclean spirit from a possessed man, by the authority of his Word.
Today, Mark tells us that right after leaving that synagogue, Jesus and his disciples go to the house of Simon and Andrew, where he discovers that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. Jesus simply takes her by the hand, lifts her out of bed, and she is healed of her illness and begins serve Jesus and his disciples a meal.
But there was little time for Jesus to rest, for Mark then tells us that that same evening, the whole city gathered around the door to the house in which he was staying, bringing with them all who were sick or possessed. And Mark tells us that Jesus “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.”
Of course, these reports about Jesus casting out demons may sound a bit strange to those of us living in today’s world. We don’t like to think in terms of demon possession in our modern world. With the advances in psychology and medicine, we have developed a different mindset toward describing various conditions that were at that time summed up by a person being “possessed by a demon.”
And some today are even skeptical about Jesus being able to heal people of various diseases by his touch or a spoken command. It seems beyond comprehension in the ontological mindset of modern medicine. Although I must admit that there have been some miraculous healing of persons I have known throughout my life, or read about in studies. But defending this aspect of Jesus’ work that day is beyond the point of my message this morning.
What I would like us to focus on occurs in the last four verses of our text. Mark tells us that “In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”
For years, I thought I had this passage figured out. I’m sure most of us here this morning have had some pretty busy days, even busy seasons. I know that following Christmas and Easter, most of us pastors tend to look for some time of rest and solitude to recharge our batteries, which is why Pastor Burkness and I spend the first week in January at our camp.
But I can’t say that I have ever had a day quite as busy as the one that Mark describes Jesus had that day in Capernaum. And given the pace of ministry that Jesus has experienced in this opening chapter of Mark’s Gospel, it just seemed natural to me that Jesus would want to seek a deserted place for rest and prayer.
But this past week, I read a commentary on our text by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Professor of Preaching and Worship at Princeton Theological Seminary, that gave me a different perspective on our text. Dr. Tisdale points out that in the Greek language in which Mark writes, the story of Jesus’ temptation is reiterated.
To cite Dr. Tisdale, “Jesus gets up very early in the morning and goes to a wilderness place to pray, and the disciples hunt him down and interrupt him. The purpose of their interruption? To let Jesus know that there is a great deal of excitement in Capernaum about his wonderworking powers, and that everybody is looking for him. The disciples’ desire seems to be that Jesus come out and revel in his increasing popularity by continuing to perform miraculous cures.
But Jesus resists their request, and its implicit temptation to use his God-given powers inappropriately. He tells the disciples that his call is not to stay where he is, reveling in his growing popularity. Rather, his ministry requires him to move out of Capernaum and into other neighboring towns of Galilee where people have not yet heard the good news he has come to proclaim… Rather, Jesus’ vocation requires a constant commitment to [the will of God] and to the new future God intends for all humanity. Through prayer he resists the tempters’ snare, and remains faithful once again to his own calling to preach the Gospel.” End quote.
In other words, the temptation of Jesus to use his relationship with God for his own benefit, was a temptation that didn’t just occur that one time in the wilderness following his baptism. The temptation to follow his own human desires, rather than the will of God, followed him throughout his life. Even at the close of his earthly ministry, Jesus was confronted with the same temptation, when in the Garden of Gethsemane, just prior to his arrest, Jesus again went off by himself to pray.
This time, Jesus’ struggle was so severe that “he became intense and agitated,” according to Mark’s description of the event. For he knew that he was about to be betrayed by one of his own disciples, and suffer the most agonizing death that one could ever face. Three times he prayed the same words: “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
Mark also tells us that as he went through that experience, all he asked of his most trusted disciples was that they keep awake, perhaps to stand guard for him as he communed in prayer with his heavenly Father. And as we know, they all failed in that simple request. Their human desire for sleep overtook their desire serve the very Christ, who was about to give his life for their redemption.
Of course, those same disciples, when they came to realize the extent of Jesus’ agony, and saw the events unfold that led to his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb, repented. And following the gift of God’s Spirit, according to Acts, all of those who came to faith in Christ devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
I believe that our lesson for this morning provides us with more than just an Epiphany, or manifestation of Jesus’ identity as the Christ, the Son of God, who is able to cast out demons and heal with his touch or spoken word. Yes, our text proclaims Jesus to be the incarnate Word of God. But it also proclaims his becoming one with us for our redemption. Jesus was tempted throughout his life, just as we are, to seek his own self-will and interests. But when he felt that temptation rising within his human nature, he turned to prayer – to commune with God and seek God’s will for his life. And in so doing, he gave us an example of what it means to live in relationship with God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus rising early that morning, following such an exhausting day, going off by himself to pray, may well have provided some needed rest, but more importantly, through prayer, and the power of the Holy Spirit, it provided him with direction for his life and ministry. The same remains true for us living in today’s modern world. Although we may not be able to cast out demons or heal disease by the touch of our hand, we can, through the power of God’s Spirit, seek his direction for our lives, through prayer.
Yes, Jesus was the incarnate Word of God. But he was also fully human. He knew what it was like to face temptation, to seek to fulfill our own human desires rather than to live our lives according to the will of God. But through his example, he showed us that through the power of God’s Spirit, which we have received in our baptism, and through communing with God in prayer, we can be empowered to overcome the temptation to succumb to our selfish desires.
As I tell “my kids” in confirmation class, there is nothing more important than developing a living relationship with God, through prayer. May God’s Spirit so inspire us all to engage in conversation with God, that we might come to know his will for our lives.
Amen.
