Updated: Mar 3
[Mark 1:29-39] Immediately [Jesus] left the synagogue and entered the
house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s
mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about
her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the
fever left her, and she began to serve them.
32 That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or
oppressed by demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together at
the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases,
and cast out many demons…
A Terribly Good Place
There’s a noise coming from under your hood – a shaking in the
steering wheel – and a squealing in your car’s brakes.
You made a mistake, and now your taxes are a complicated mess.
You have a troubling pain in your body – and your google search is
finding a flood of bad-news diagnoses and uncertain solutions.
And your appliances are all breaking, and your kid has a fever.
What an overwhelming mess it is to you. But to your mechanic, your
doctor, a tax-preparer, and the appliance repair shop, this is all just
business as usual. It’s what they do.
There are a lot of terrible, good places in our world. The mechanic’s
shop is filled with broken vehicles. The hospital is filled with sick people –
like an apartment building for only the ill. The lawyer’s office is full of people
with legal troubles. And the repairman works only on things broken. His
place is full.
Terrible, good places. These are places full of all the world’s problems
– yet equipped with the people, and means, by which these problems are
healed and fixed. The patient leaves healthier than when admitted. The
repairman easily handles your broken blender.
Imagine, however, if your doctor only rebuked all the patients for
being sick and provided no cure. Or just told them, “Get better!” Or if your
mechanic turned away all broken vehicles and only accepted those not in
need of repair.
Or, the opposite: Your doctor approves of your diseases and says,
“It’s okay – being sick is just as good as being healthy. Be happy with who
you are.” Or, your mechanic admires broken vehicles and doesn’t believe
they should be fixed.
In either case, what good would these places be? They would just be
terrible places – Reviling wrongs but offering no forgiveness and no cure –
Or affirming wrongs as right and therefore leaving you in the same
condition in which you came.
The church is not called to be this kind of terrible place, nor to be
merely a good place, but to be a terribly good place.
The house where Jesus Christ is on this evening in our Gospel
reading is a terribly good place. It is a house where a sick woman – the
Apostle Peter’s wife’s mother – laid ill with a fever, near death, but now, by
the hand of Jesus, is healthy and serving.
But, as evening settles in, and the sky and the room grow darker, the
house becomes all the more filled with terrible physical and spiritual
disease: “That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were
sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered
together at the door…”
The whole town brought their overwhelming problems into the house
where Jesus is, so that they didn’t even fit inside but were overflowing out
the door.
Imagine what a terrible place that house was that night. Fever,
disease, and illness. The uncleanliness of the people. The noises of those
sounding out their pains. The yells and shrieks of those oppressed by
demons and unclean spirits, like the man in last week’s Gospel – now the
house is filled with them.
The house where Jesus is becomes a true doctor’s office and
mechanic’s shop. A terrible place, but a very good place. Terribly good. He
doesn’t send anyone away in the same condition in which they came.
He heals, He cures, He forgives, He delivers, He builds up, He
improves and repairs. To Jesus, this is business as usual – He has the
ability and will to do so.
Jesus does not leave us sinners the same as when we came. He is
forgiving, delivering, and shaping us unto something better according to His
will and commands.
Jesus stopped no one from coming in the door that night. He brings
them in – not as one who says our diseases of sin are okay, but as the true
Physician of our souls who both forgives us and is repairing us. It was a
truly good place for those terribly afflicted.
The church – which is the congregation – including this congregation,
gathered in this house where Jesus is – is called to be a terribly good place
similar to that house where Jesus stood in today’s Gospel.
The world knows how to revile and how to affirm. The world might
reject and judge a person it deems guilty (of real or imagined wrongs). Or
the world might affirm your diseases of sin and morally wrong decisions as
good and valid in your life.
The church is called to do better. Not to only revile. Not to affirm. The
church is a place where God’s Word diagnosis what is broken in us and
gives Jesus, the cure.
On the cross, Jesus made Himself the cure for us to gather to. He
said of Himself, “When I am lifted up from the earth – lifted up on a cross
– I will draw all people to myself” [John 12:32-33].
Jesus won the victory over your sin and flesh there on the cross. Now
He draws you to Himself here in His house. The risen, living Jesus is
present with the healing and cure of His cross.
In your baptism, you were washed and gathered to Jesus be His
forever. Around His words and teaching you are gathered. Around the
Supper of His true body and blood, you are gathered. “Where two or three
are gathered in My name, there am I among them” [Matthew 18:20].
Through His Word and His Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper) – which we call the “Means of Grace” – Jesus is present in a way
that we can gather around Him, making this house the house where Jesus
is today.
God’s forgiveness of your sins through the death of Jesus in your
place is complete, full, once and for all [Hebrews 7:27], and is applied in
full every time. That’s the cure.
Becoming better – becoming better men and women of God – is bit
by bit, piece by piece, year by year, and is completed in full in the
resurrection when Jesus returns.
We don’t depart on Sunday already perfected, but we don’t depart
this house unchanged either.
John Newton, who wrote the hymn, “Amazing Grace”, said, “I am not
what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in
another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of
God I am what I am.”
Be in the terribly good place where great sinners in need of a great
Savior gather around Jesus to become men and women better than we
once used to be – by God’s grace – and, in that life to come, finally what
we ought to be. Amen.
[Mark 1:21-28] And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. 22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. 23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28 And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
A Teaching with Authority
“Thus says the Lord” – For centuries, prophet after prophet, sent to God’s people, would speak God’s word to the people beginning or ending with this phrase, “Thus says the Lord”. Which simply means, “This is what the Lord says.”
The point being that what they spoke was not their own message – it was not something that came from them or their thinking – but the words were God’s words.
This means, for those prophets – including Moses, and, later, men such as Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Jonah, Jeremiah, Amos, Obadiah, Haggai, Malachi, and several others – what authority they had was not their authority.
They didn’t have authority as coming from them. Their only authority was in the words they spoke. Those words, being God’s Word, had all authority, over all. When the prophets spoke, they had to say, “Thus says the Lord” – they were ambassadors of another’s message.
Man after man sent by God says it – “Thus says the Lord” – This new man who has come never says it. Jesus – who is called a great prophet yet is much more – never says, “Thus says the Lord.” When Jesus speaks, the Lord is speaking. He Himself is the Lord made man.
And they – Jesus and His disciples – went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he – Jesus – entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
Moses said, in our Old Testament reading [Deuteronomy 18:15-20], “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to him you shall listen.” Jesus is one like Moses, but greater. He is the Son of God who is God with God His Father – He is the same substance as His Father.
The Son of God is God with the Father from all eternity. He is also the very Word of God the Father – more than just speaking God’s Word, He is God’s Word [John 1:1-14]. And He was raised up among us from the brothers of the people of Israel by taking on flesh and being born of the virgin Mary.
When this Jesus was revealed to be the Son of God in His baptism in the Jordan River – God the Father speaking from heaven, “This is My beloved Son”, and the Holy Spirt descending on Him – immediately after, the devil attacked Him in the wilderness. Jesus prevailed.
Now, shortly after, when Jesus enters the synagogue in His disciples’ hometown, a man with a devil – “a man with an unclean spirit”, a demon – harasses Jesus, crying out with fear inspired rage, “What have you to do with us… I know who You are… Have you come to destroy us?!”
With a word, Jesus the Lord silences the unclean spirit – “Be silent”. And, with a word, Jesus the Lord casts out this spirit – and saves the man – “Come out of him!”
The evil spirit convulses and cries but cannot successfully oppose God’s authority. It comes out of the man. The man is free. The people marvel again – “What is this?”, they say. “A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
A new teaching with authority. A new teaching that conquers the devil and frees the man.
You who were once slaves of sin, death, and the devil have been set free as servants of the living God. Now you are servants of righteousness [John 8:34-36; Romans 6:15-18]. The teaching with authority – the gospel of Jesus – has made you free.
The gospel of Jesus has forgiven your sins. The one with authority, the Lord, died a slave’s death – wrapped in your sins and slavery – in your place. The chains of your sins unto death brought Him into the agony of hell on the cross and into death and the grave.
Jesus, who has power and authority over and above all things, conquered sin, death, hell, and the devil for your sake and is risen.
The risen Jesus lives triumphantly at the Father’s right hand and is with you always – to still speak with authority to break every new attempt of the unclean spirits and to keep you free.
In other words, Jesus has saved you and continues to preserve you. Sin, death, and the devil – though they constantly try – cannot win against you if you are with Jesus. That is, if you are where His teaching with authority is still taught and heard.
That Jesus’ teaching is a teaching with authority doesn’t mean you go to a place where the preacher has an authoritative attitude. The devil can outdo that easily.
And it doesn’t mean you go to a place which has high, kingly, throne-like authority. That’s the devil’s kind of authority; he even offered it to Jesus once and Jesus declined [Matthew 4:8-10].
The authority of Jesus is the authority to forgive sin. The devil has no more grip on the forgiven person. The forgiven person has been received by God.
The power of Jesus is to create new life in this forgiven person. Whoever is in Christ “is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” [2 Corinthians 5:17]
The authority of Jesus isn’t carried out through sword and spear nor through rulers or earthly power. The authority of Jesus is carried out through the teaching of His Word.
The proclaiming, preaching, and teaching of the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus is the activity of the living, risen Jesus where His people are gathered.
Therefore, after each reading, we say, “This is the Word of the Lord”, or, “This is the Gospel of the Lord” – in other words, “Thus says the Lord.” It is not our teaching.
It is not the church’s authority. Not from us. It is the living Jesus standing among us where God’s Word is spoken, where two or three are gathered in His name.
Be where Jesus’ teaching with authority is still present for you.
And pray that those enslaved to every kind of uncleanness would enter this gathering, as that man with the unclean spirit wandered into the synagogue in today’s Gospel reading —
— and that the news of Jesus would spread, as mentioned in the end of today’s Gospel, so that many others can hear, believe, be baptized into Christ, and be set free. Amen.
[Jonah 3:1-5,10] Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. . . .
10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
A Matter of Urgency
Some things are a matter of urgency, and sometimes when the window of opportunity is missed, it matters forever. On the other hand, the benefits of addressing an urgent matter can be enjoyed forever.
Jonah the prophet was called by God to an urgent matter. Jonah is a prophet in Israel, among the Israelites – God’s people of the Old Testament. Unlike the other prophets, Jonah is called to go outside Israel and Judah to preach to gentiles.
Jonah is called to preach God’s Word in Nineveh. Nineveh was a great city of the Assyrians – great in size, wealth, and power. Great but not good. Nineveh was a city in love with violence and every kind of immoral lifestyle.
Jonah’s call to proclaim God’s Word to Nineveh was urgent because Nineveh was reaching the end of God’s patience – patience which sometimes lasts years or centuries, but when it ends, ends abruptly. And this can be a permanent end.
Judgment – destruction for the city; condemnation for individuals – is the natural consequence of their behavior – the wrongs they’ve done; the wrong they’ve been; and those right things they’ve failed to do.
“Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown!”, warns Jonah. God’s judgment is right and just; yet it’s also not what God wants for these people.
Jonah was sent so that, at least at this last minute, the Ninevites might turn and God might relent of the disaster He had for them and instead show them His steadfast love and mercy. The Ninevites did not know God, yet God already drew near to them and desired this better outcome for them.
It was a matter of urgency. Yet it was a matter that Jonah the prophet ran away from.
One of the marks of the Bible’s authenticity is that the Bible doesn’t shy away from the flaws of its heroes. In the first verses of the book of Jonah, when the Word of God comes to Jonah and calls him to go to Nineveh, Jonah straightaway devises another plan and flees – attempting even to flee from God’s presence.
The prophet Jonah boards a ship heading far from Nineveh. But God sends a storm that assaults this ship on the sea. It will soon sink – the sailors are calling out to their various false gods – Jonah, surprisingly, is found sleeping in the inner part of the ship.
However, the captain awakens him. The sailors inquire of him. Jonah admits the storm is for him – that he was on that ship to flee God’s presence, God who made the sea and the dry land.
Jonah even tells the sailors that if they pick him up, carry him to the edge, and cast him into the sea, the storm will stop its raging and their lives will be spared. Jonah thus sacrifices himself for their lives. The storm was for him after all.
They cast Jonah in. The storm turns quiet and calm. And then – this is the part you remember – God had appointed a great fish for Jonah, to swallow him up. Jonah then prays a prayer of great faith and thanksgiving to God within the belly of that fish [Jonah 2:1-10].
That fish was Jonah’s deliverance. God commands and it coughs Jonah up where Jonah belongs – on dry land en route to Nineveh. To Nineveh Jonah finally goes.
That is now where today’s reading begins – “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.’”
Jonah goes. Nineveh would take about three days for a thorough visit. Jonah travels one day in the city and shouts out what we’ve heard, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown!”
The people of Nineveh, who long sat in darkness – blind to what is good and what is evil – blind to true knowledge of God – they hear, and they believe. “The people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”
And, “The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation… call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” [Jonah 3:5-9]
That city which was ripe for judgment was finally ready for salvation. Those people who sat in darkness for so long saw Light easily. They were more ready and turned out in greater number than God’s own people ever did at the preaching of the other prophets.
“When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.” In that very day, God gave His steadfast love and mercy to Nineveh.
And that is why the prophet Jonah didn’t want to go. “It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.’” [Jonah 4:1-2]
In our Gospel reading today [Mark 1:14-20], not a mere Jonah, but the Lord Himself, Jesus, the Messiah, comes “proclaiming the gospel of God” saying, “The time is fulfilled – the urgent time has come – and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.”
Jesus then calls some of His first disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men” – a call which still extends to His whole church in every city.
The whole body of Christ – each of you individually – in the various ways you can serve and support the Gospel of God – and by speaking to and being a light of Jesus Christ to the people your life reaches – you have all received the call to be fishers of men.
You are each instruments through which Jesus desires to cast His net to others to gather them out of darkness into His light.
The urgent matter is heaven or hell; salvation or judgment; eternal joy or everlasting darkness – for you, it’s the urgent matter in your life – and for people in your reach. You are called to the urgent matter of showing them Jesus and what He has done for them – and to the urgent matter of delivering God’s gifts to those in your reach of influence or care.
Why do we run from this call? We don’t understand or believe salvation is an urgent matter. Our life is taken up by many responsibilities or focused on enjoyment and leisure. (Good things; but we do need to make this urgent matter first. Let the rest be second and third.)
Do you neglect this call because there are those to whom you don’t really want God’s steadfast love and mercy to come, just as Jonah didn’t want God’s mercy to come to Nineveh?
Do we neglect the call to be fishers of men because we are overwhelmed by the darkness we see and don’t believe the light of the gospel of Jesus can overcome it?
We have to repent of that kind of unbelief. Jesus the Savior, His work on the cross, and the Holy Spirit who works faith in the heart, are almighty in their power and can change any heart.
Jonah is the best prophet because, though he wasn’t up to the task – likely in many of the same ways we haven’t been up to the task – he was still God’s man. God still used him for the task and worked mightily through him.
Even on that boat on which Jonah was fleeing from God’s purpose, God fulfilled His purpose. After the storm was calmed by Jonah being cast in, it says those sailors then believed in the one true God and called upon Him [Jonah 1:16].
And, though the prophet Jonah did not meet the measure of a dedicated, fiery servant of God like some of the other prophets, Jesus still was not ashamed to compare Himself to Jonah – “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” [Matthew 12:40]
Just as Jonah was cast into the storm that was due for him, Jesus has already cast Himself into the storm that was due for you. The storm of God’s judgment was ready against our sins. Jesus, the only innocent one, cast Himself into that storm on the cross and quieted it for each of us – and for each person who needs to be reached, who doesn’t yet know this.
Jesus is “the propitiation – the atoning sacrifice – for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” [1 John 2:2]. Let’s not run from the call to be fishers of men, but let’s seek ways to carry it out – trusting that, since Jesus has died for each person, He desires and is able to do this work through us. Amen.
