Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 8, 2015
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless. (Isaiah 40:28-29)
Before I started seminary, I served as a Chaplain in a hospital in Austin. I was assigned to the Pediatric Oncology Floor. I loved children and had worked with families for much of my professional life. I was a Christian who prayed regularly, attended worship, and studied scripture. I believed in God who loved me and was always with me. But when I entered the room of a young child or teenager who was facing treatment for cancer, I felt overwhelmed. The pain was staggering. I did not know what I could offer those who were grappling with the most primal events imaginable in any life—the reality of a very serious, perhaps mortal illness in their child.
One particular family I remember well. The young person had been happily enrolled as a first year student at Texas A&M University. She had been enjoying her classes, becoming involved in many student organizations, and generally rejoicing in the opportunity of being off on her own, trying her wings, making her way as a young adult, when she experienced a serious pain in her upper leg that would not go away. She first thought it was a bad muscle pull. But tests confirmed that she had Ewing’s Sarcoma. When I first entered her room, it was covered with Texas A&M paraphernalia, get well cards and posters, and a Bible. I visited with her and her mother. I also spent time with her nurses who cared for her daily. I listened and laughed with her as she shared stories about her early days of college. But the one thing that I could not find words to offer was to help her family come to grips with the question, “why?” Why this magnificent young girl was facing this illness? Why in the very prime of her life she was confined to a hospital, losing her hair and her energy? Where was God and with all the available medical science why could this young girl not be healed? Perhaps these questions of “why” are the wrong ones to ask, but they remain to bubble up when we face events that break our heart.
In our reading this morning from the Gospel of Mark, we listen to the continuation of the story from last Sunday. Jesus has invited four men to follow him, Simon, Andrew, James, and John. They enter the synagogue on the Sabbath and Jesus begins to teach. The people gathered are astounded by his authority. He is interrupted by a man who is bound by an “unclean spirit,” who calls out to Jesus and identifies him as the “Holy One of God.” Jesus quiets the spirit and calls him out of the man.
Immediately they leave the synagogue and enter Simon and Andrew’s house. Jesus is told that Simon’s mother-in-law is suffering from a fever. To our modern ears, “lying sick with fever” may sound rather insignificant. But in ancient times, fever was not seen as a symptom, but as a painful and often fatal power. The situation here is life threatening. In addition, the woman is deprived of status and dignity, removed from her ability to offer hospitality in her own home. In Mark’s succinct manner we hear that Jesus goes to her, takes her by the hand, and lifts her up. The fever leaves her and she is restored. From this story we hear that Simon’s mother-in-law who is unnamed is completely healed. She does not linger to rest from the effects of her now departed fever. She immediately rejoins her place as hostess and begins serving those who are gathered in the house.
What this scene must have been like. A suffering woman is touched, raised up and completely healed from a frightening illness. Jesus does not hesitate to go this woman and to bring the good news of his healing power to her.
In Mark’s Gospel there are many stories of healing and exorcism. They are meant to point to Jesus. Jesus who has told those who listen that the kingdom of God has come near, that they are to repent and believe in the good news. Jesus, through his authority as God’s beloved has the power to restore all to wholeness.
How we all long for this healing. Even though we may be wary of miracles, we all yearn for Jesus to act decisively for us when we ask. Even though we know the scientific intricacies of healing, we still long for the calm, swift resolution of Jesus taking us, and our loved ones, by the hand and lifting us up. As we watch the world around us consume itself, we wish for Jesus to step in like a superhero and make things right. While I prayed for the peace that God alone can give and for love that surrounds us on every side, I too prayed that somehow God would remove the bitter illness from that young girl in the hospital in Austin.
It can be hard for us to reconcile our understanding of a loving God alongside the tragedy and sickness in the world. If Jesus can heal Peter’s mother-in-law then why must others suffer? No one in the ancient world would have doubted that Jesus was able to perform miraculous healings, exorcisms, and feedings. But Mark intends us to take much more than this from these events. Werner Kelber wrote that Jesus in the gospel of Mark has a clear mission: “he came to announce the kingdom of God and to initiate its arrival in opposition to the forces which threaten to destroy human life.”[1] In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus heals and casts out unclean spirits in order to proclaim the kingdom of God—in order to make clear that Jesus acts in God, whose way of loving and transforming is very different from our expectations and many surprises are yet to come.
In these first stories of restoration in Mark’s Gospel—the one from last Sunday and the one today—we quickly see that health and wellness does not define or limit God’s grace. Jesus demonstrates his authority in the places of pain and disease. Jesus stands face to face with unclean spirits. Jesus goes to Peter’s mother-in-law’s bedside, touches her hand and raises her up. Jesus welcomes those who are sick or bound by “demons” to enter into his presence. And Jesus will ultimately suffer death on a cross hanging between two others who are seen as criminals. Jesus is not absent in the face of suffering and death. Jesus stands in the middle of it. God reaches out to us in good times and in bad times and will journey with us into the valley of death.
We do not know what the man in the synagogue did with his newfound freedom. But Simon’s mother-in-law begins to serve as Jesus has come to serve. The word used is diakoneo, Mark’s word that exemplifies his standard for Christian ministry. Jesus was served by angels in the wilderness (1:13), he himself has come to serve (10:45), and the Gospel concludes with a remembrance of the women who followed Jesus in Galilee and remain with him as he hangs on the cross (15:41).
This woman who is the mother of Simon’s wife offers us a model for our own servant ministry. Jesus reaches out and takes the hand of the woman and lifts her up (egeirō) the same word “raised” or “lifted up” that is used on Easter morning “he is not here, he is risen”—but is also used when Jesus is lifted up on the cross. The woman in our story is raised up from her illness and responds to minister, to serve. In doing so she becomes the first active witness to what a resurrected life in Jesus looks like.
She shows us how important the touch of a hand can be to heal, to restore life, and to remove demons that enslave us. We know well from research with tiny infants and persons who are sick, that the power of touch is essential to nurturing growth and healing. Touch is our primal need. From the moment of birth throughout our life—touch is essential for our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. We often say that we are called as Christians to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world. How important is the simple but transforming touch in restoring others to new life. How needed are our hands that lift up others in ways that are loving and healing.
All of us will face trials as we journey in life. None of us will escape sickness, obstacles that bar our way to wholeness, or death. Jesus’s healing goes beyond the physical. In Jesus’ touch we are able to face the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’[2], be raised and restored to a relationship with God and others in our community.
The healing that the woman received not only restored her physically, but spiritually by returning her to her community. As she began to feed others—offering hospitality to her guests–she reconnects with those around her. One of the great sins of illness and suffering is that it can lead to isolation from those we most need to help us face our struggles and stay connected with others.
I have been witness to the outpouring of love you have shared with those who face physical, emotional, or spiritual sickness. This servant ministry is so important. It is essential that we let our brothers and sisters know that they are not alone—that we stand with them as they face struggles and tragedies in life. In Jesus—the power of suffering to isolate us from others, to diminish us as God’s children, or to leave us abandoned—is destroyed.
This story of Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother in law touches us all. And because she is not named—we are free to see ourselves in her. How we all long for Jesus’ loving hand to take ours and lift us up when life knocks us down.
Thomas Dorsey, the African American Gospel musician, faced agonizing trials when his beloved wife, Nettie died in childbirth and shortly thereafter, he lost his newborn son. In this time of great grief, he wrote the words of a beloved hymn that became an anthem of the civil rights movement. Mahalia Jackson sang it at the funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The first verse is this:
Precious Lord, take my hand;
Lead me on, help me stand;
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.
Through the storm through the night,
Lead me on to the light,
Take my hand precious Lord lead me home.[3]
These words remind us that Jesus is never far from us. That no matter what the world hands us, no matter how much pain we may face, Jesus who has been there before us, will lead us home. Jesus takes us by the hand and lifts us up. But that is not all: “The fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Jesus frees us from whatever keeps us from full life—fear, anger, pain, despair. Jesus heals us so that we can proclaim the good news through our lives and then serve God and others.
I have witnessed many sorrows since those days at the Children’s Hospital in Austin Texas and while I still struggle to find words that lessen the pain of someone who is critically ill or has survived the loss of a loved one, I now hear a word in Mark’s Gospel in response to suffering. Holding the healing hand of God, we are to reach out and surround all of God’s children with love, so that they can experience God, and day by day rise to be restored to the love and the fullness of life that God intends. No matter what comes. No matter the pain we suffer, Jesus who loves us and stands in all that we are and all that we experience, takes our hand, raises us up. Jesus leads us home.
those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
[1] Werner Kelber, Mark’s Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 21.
[2] William Shakespeare, Hamlet
[3] “Take my hand, Precious Lord” Lyrics and adapted melody by Thomas A. Dorsey