Mark 1: 29-39
Again, good morning and grace and peace. As I mentioned at Evensong on Thursday: there
is this symmetry, 40 days from Christmas to Candlemas, 40 days from Ash
Wednesday to Easter, and in the interval a space of “Pre-lenten”
transition. Taking down the last of the
holiday decorations while discussing what kind of disciplines we might want to
take on in the season of penitential reflection ahead. Giving up things like sweets or alcohol,
adding a devotional book to the reading stack on the bedside table. What would be meaningful and helpful this year? The traditional title of this Sunday in our
three-Sunday count-down transition from Epiphany to Lent, Sexagesima, reminds
us that we’re about 60 days, eight Sundays before Easter. In the grip of a cold winter, but before we
blink twice it will be Holy Week.
In our lectionary this is the last Sunday that we’ll be settled here in
the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. Over
the past few weeks we’ve been reading it section by section, with the addition
of a brief side-trip into John’s gospel to amplify the story of the calling of
the first disciples.
We begin this Sunday right where we stopped last week. Jesus with Peter and Andrew and James and
John. From that dramatic moment in the
synagogue at Capernaum—the crowd stunned with the power and authority in the
words and presence of Jesus, like nothing they’ve experienced before. And the challenge and confrontation with the
unclean spirit, as Jesus overwhelms the power of the dark one and defeats him,
casts him out with a word of command.
Now this morning as we’ve heard in the next paragraphs Jesus and his
friends leave the synagogue and go on to Peter and Andrew’s home, apparently
nearby, where Peter’s wife’s mother is ill.
Jesus enters, takes her hand, and at once the fever miraculously leaves
her. Continuing and building on what has
just happened in the synagogue. In the
coming hours crowds from the town and surrounding area who have heard about
what has been happening at the synagogue and beyond come streaming in, and the
wonders continue: healings and exorcisms.
It’s all high drama. To borrow a
word from Robert Schuller’s old Crystal Cathedral telecast, it is an “hour of
power.” An hour of power. Again and again we would say, just as they
said in the synagogue, “we’ve never seen anything like this before.” This power, this “authority.”
Anticipated and foreshadowed even now, in these Sundays before Lent,
out ahead in the far distance, the power of the Cross--making its presence
known and felt, bursting forth in victory, from before time and forever. Here in the very first chapter of Mark, the
first sentences, before we’ve even turned to page two, the message of the whole
story unfolds for us, the deep pattern of God’s presence and God’s purpose made
manifest. Exile and return, sin and
redemption, death and resurrection. The
message of the whole “heilsgeschicte.”
Love that word. The Sacred
Story. From the first chapter of Genesis
through the twenty second chapter of the Revelation. From
the synagogue in Capernaum to 5801 Hampton Street, Highland Park. The whole story—and we are both readers and
characters. For us and about us at the
same time.
So here in the final paragraph this morning, the launching of the
mission. What we would say is Mark’s
Pentecost, the Birthday of the Church. Their
commission and marching orders. Our
commission and marching orders. It
begins in prayer, in the heart of Jesus. Which is where we still find him. Word and
Sacrament. After Jesus was baptized we remember just a
few verses back that he went out into the wilderness for that great 40 day
retreat. Facing down the Adversary and
preparing himself in heart, body, mind, and spirit for the work that now was
before him. Now again, before dawn, he
goes again to the deserted place—in the quiet hour of the dark morning to
commune with the Father.
His disciples come searching for him with the exciting word that
everybody now is searching for him. The whole world rushing in. Eager.
Yearning. They have caught a
glimpse, and now they want to be a part of this story too. This story of power, authority, hope,
healing, forgiveness. Now to know just
what that name really means, and not just in theory. “Immanuel,” God with us. Everybody everywhere is searching for him. And of course he doesn’t turn away. Not then, not now, not ever. “Let us go to them.” If they want him, they will have him. Giving of himself. Giving himself. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will refresh you.”
Again, the meaning of this time of Epiphany. His manifestation. God in Christ showing up and showing himself,
revealing himself, sharing himself with us. Giving himself as a gift and
offering and sacrifice. “Let us go on,”
Jesus says. “This is what I came to do.
This is what you and I together are going to be doing from now on.”
The great modern American writer Annie Dillard grew up not very far
from here over in the Point Breeze neighborhood. An old Pittsburgh family in the steel
business. She went to Ellis School and
the Shadyside Presbyterian Church. And in
her autobiography “An American Childhood” she writes a wonderful reflection in
the context as I remember it of the Shadyside Sunday School giving Bibles to
the children of the Sunday School.
Looking back on the scene and recalling her memory of the children
coming up to the front of the church to receive their Bibles, she is astonished, she says, that anybody who
knows anything about the Bible would give the book to children, and certainly
to allow and encourage it to be read without adult supervision. She then says:
“On the whole, I do not
find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.
Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?
Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children
playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to
kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats
to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life
preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping
god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to
where we can never return. ”
And I think this is just right, exactly what Mark wants to do
for us here in the first page or so of his gospel. He’s saying, this is not a test of the
emergency broadcast system. Not a
test. Not a game. Not a hobby.
This is the real deal. If we want
the power of God to be made manifest in our lives and our world—here he
is. Seek and you shall find, knock and
the door will be opened. The promise we
are each one of us invited to hear this “pre-lent.” To which each one of us may respond, in our
minds and our hearts.
And if we do, if we will: fasten your seatbelts! To take our hands off the steering wheel and
to let him drive. Power, authority. The
threshold of Lent, 60 days until Easter, and--
put on your crash helmets. Let him into our lives, into our world, and
things are going to change. We are going
to change. That word in the Revelation
to John not just hypothetical: “Behold,
I am making all things new.” Expect some
changes. Bright light illuminating some
of the corners we perhaps would just as soon have left in the shadows. Healing, forgiving. Ejecting the Father of Lies from the cozy
home that he has made in the daily routine of our lives and our world. Shaking things up good. This is really happening, Mark says to us
this morning. This is really happening,
like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The
Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth fall silent before him.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an
offering and a sacrifice to God.
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