You know how it is when you go to a movie. Before
the film ever begins, you first sit through five or six previews
of coming attractions. Movie previews are an art form in
themselves. They treat you to highlights from upcoming films --
stunning special effects, tender romantic scenes, car chases,
pratfalls – anything to get you to want to see the film they’re
promoting. The studio knows if it can hook you with the preview,
there’s a good chance you’ll be at the box office come opening
night, waiting in line to buy a ticket.
What is it about a good movie that appeals to us
so? I think part of the attraction is that it helps us escape the
frequently painful world we live in. For the seven-fifty price of
a ticket you can temporarily forget your troubles and lose
yourself in the story onscreen. When a movie preview grabs you it
does so by promising a brief respite from reality if you’ll buy
the ticket and come see the film.
The lessons from Scripture today accomplish
something similar. First, the readings from Job and St. Mark give
us a clear picture of the troubled reality of the fallen world in
which we live. And second, the Gospel reading in particular
gives us a preview of coming attractions – of how sin and death
and sorrow and sickness will be completely done away with when our
Lord Jesus Christ comes back to make all things new. The healings
Jesus performs in Capernaum foreshadow the ultimate healing He
will accomplish when He returns. You might say the Holy Spirit
intends for this preview to make us want to see the movie. Or
more accurately, to make us want to be included in the cast of the
redeemed who will participate in the renewal of all things when
Jesus reappears.
To want that, however, we’ve first got to recognize
the true nature of our life as sinners in a fallen world. Take
Job’s words from the Old Testament reading, for example. Job
finds himself chin-deep in sorrow and pain, and gives voice to the
complaint we all sometimes feel like making:
Does not man have hard service on earth? Are
not his days like those of a hired man? Like a slave
longing for the evening shadows, or a hired man waiting eagerly
for his wages, so I have been allotted months of
futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
When I lie down I think,`How long before I get up?' The
night drags on, and I toss till dawn. My body is
clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come
to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life
is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.
You can hear the anguish in Job’s complaint, can’t
you? The reading from St. Mark throws us even deeper into the
swamp of human misery. First we hear about Simon Peter’s
mother-in-law, bedridden with a fever. Next we have paraded
before us people who suffer from all kinds of terrible diseases,
or are demon-possessed. A whole crowd of suffering humanity 1s
gathered at Simon and Andrew’s door wanting to see Jesus.
This was at a time when antibiotics were unknown,
so a simple fever could be deadly. Even a relatively minor
disease could have major consequences, and when someone was
stricken with a major disorder like cancer, death was a foregone
conclusion.
Today we’ve experienced advances in medical care
that have made great strides in alleviating human illness and
misery. But despite these advances, the truth is that nothing can
hold off sickness and disease indefinitely. Each of us will
experience some measure of pain and sorrow. Each of us will
finally succumb to some disorder that will lay our bodies low in
death.
It’s like Eliphaz the Temanite says in the book of
Job: Man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly
upward. Even though we don’t like to think about it, we
all know Eliphaz’s words are true. We sinners are indeed born to
trouble as surely as sparks shoot up from a bonfire into the night
sky.
Simon Peter’s mother-in-law no doubt thought about
these things as she was lying in the grip of fever. The sick and
injured and demon-possessed who showed up at Simon and Andrew’s
front door knew the reality of suffering like the back of their
hand. You know that reality too, if you’ve ever been seriously
ill, or had a loved one diagnosed with some awful disease, or ever
seen a friend or family member die in agony. Sometimes those
sparks of trouble fly upward far too thickly and frequently for
our taste. And there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about
it, does there?
That’s the grim reality we don’t like to face.
It’s what we try to avoid thinking about any more than we have to.
That’s part of why we go to movies, or lose ourselves in a good
book, or have to take a vacation sometimes to get away from it
all. It’s why some people flee to drugs or alcohol, so they can
forget the troubles that barge into their lives without asking
permission. It’s why some commit suicide as an act of final
desperation, because they don’t see any other way to escape the
pain and trouble that have made them so miserable.
But the Gospel tells us there is another way to
stand up against the suffering and affliction we all experience.
It’s not by our own determination or whatever stoic resolve we
can muster up. It’s not by drugging ourselves into forgetfulness
though entertainment or alcohol or sexual permissiveness or some
other opiate.
No, the way to stand up to trouble and pain when
they come our way is through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. He
is God with us, the Scripture says. Now think about
what that means. He’s not just God with us when things are going
our way and there’s a smile on our face and a melody in our
heart. Jesus is God with us even when we’re up to our neck in
trouble and sorrow and pain. He’s God with us even when there’s a
grimace of agony on our face and each heartbeat is like a dirge
crying out to heaven. If Jesus isn’t with His people in their
suffering and sorrow, the Incarnation may as well be a fairy
tale. If Jesus turns tail and runs the moment trouble looms up on
the horizon, He’s not much of a God, is He?
But Scripture plainly says that nothing in
all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord. When God took upon Himself our human nature in
Jesus Christ, it was for keeps. It was for better or worse. It
was through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, in life and
in death. It was for the person experiencing the torment of a
guilty conscience. It was for the person whose life has fallen
apart because of the break-up of a marriage, or the grim words
spoken by a doctor that there’s not anything much that can be
done. It was for the person whose body is wracked with pain as
the disease that’s killing them makes its final advance.
When God became Man in our Savior Jesus Christ, it
was for real. God knew we couldn’t make it on our own, so He sent
His Son into our flesh to save us and be with us in every time and
stage and circumstance of our life.
We see this “with-us-ness” in the compassion our
Lord had for Simon’s mother-in-law when He took her by the hand
and raised her up from her bed of sickness. We see it in the way
He set the people of Capernaum free from the power of the devil,
and brought health and wholeness to those afflicted with various
diseases. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the kindness and love of God
in human form. He is God Incarnate for you even when things are
at their worst.
Scripture says that God subjected creation to
futility because of Adam’s sin. The things God pronounced
very good at the end of His work of creation can’t be
described that way any longer. Sin made a wreck of it all. Sin
has made a wreck of us all too. Sickness and loss and sorrow and
death are a vivid reminder of the Bible’s truth that the
wages of sin is death, for all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
But look what Jesus does. In His compassion He
goes to the Cross to take upon Himself the entire crushing load of
human sin, human sickness, human trouble, human sorrow, and human
death. He suffered, He died, and He did it for us. He took
our illnesses and bore our diseases, Scripture says.
By His wounds we are healed. We who were once
dead in trespass and sin are made alive again in Jesus.
God’s Word promises that Jesus who makes all things new will make
us completely new one day in the resurrection. Sin and sickness
and death won’t get a second shot at us when we’re raised again.
We’ll be like Jesus then. We’ll be perfect in our humanity just
as He who is God Incarnate is perfect in His human nature.
The Cross makes possible the ultimate healing of
all your sin, all your diseases, all your troubles. Our Lord’s
resurrection is the doctor’s prognosis that your complete healing
is a sure thing when Jesus comes again. When the disease of sin
has been healed all other afflictions can be done away with too.
Today’s Gospel gives us a picture of the healing and wholeness all
creation will share in when Jesus makes all things new. It gives
us a preview of the day death is swallowed up in victory,
disease becomes a thing of the past, and sorrow and trouble become
defunct forever.
What Jesus did for the sick and afflicted in
Capernaum, He will also do for you in the resurrection. That’s
the assurance of your Baptism. In Baptism your sin was washed
away. You were made a citizen of the new creation to be revealed
when Jesus returns. This same assurance is yours whenever you eat
your Savior’s Body and drink His Blood in Holy Communion. The
forgiveness, life and salvation the Sacrament gives are a preview
of the glorious existence you’ll enjoy forever when Jesus returns
to call you out of the grave.
We Christians are to hear the Gospel as a promise
and preview of the good things to come when Jesus returns. We are
to remember our Baptism daily as the means by which God united us
to the new life in Christ through the forgiveness of all our
sins. We are to partake of the Sacrament knowing that because of
what Jesus did on the Cross for all mankind, we will one day
forever lay aside the burden of sin and sorrow and disease and
death. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have a
preview of the good things God gives to those who love Him
and are called according to His saving
purpose.
This, dear friends, is a movie you want to see.
It’s a movie you want to be a part of. God promises us better
things in Christ. He promises us unending glory, blessedness,
happiness and peace. That’s why we Christians look forward to the
return of our Lord and being with Him forever. So come quickly,
Lord Jesus, and make all things new.
In Nomine Patris. . .
