Symbolic Water (1 Peter 3: 18-22) 2/26/12

Lent is a time for repentance. Now we know that any time is a good time for repentance, but Lent is that time of the year for Christians when we are reminded that the ultimate sacrifice is about to be made by our Savior, and that we might want to hold ourselves more accountable, not only for what we had to do with that sacrifice, but also for what it means to us.  Often during the first Sunday of Lent, the story is told of Jesus’ preparation for ministry after being baptized by spending forty days in the wilderness. It is a wonderful text with which to start the Lenten season, but we have already heard that story recently in another context. So instead, let’s look at Scripture from 1^st Peter 3. While there is material here that can confound the most scholarly of scholars, we are going to leave that for another day. Let’s look at the subject of water. Peter is going to introduce us to three kinds of water. All three have something to do with being saved. Two are real and also symbolic. One is symbolic, but also very real. All three have to do with Lent, because Lent is the time we prepare even more than usual for the Passion of Christ—the time we prepare for the cross and all it means to us as Christians. Preparing for that means learning again what it means to be saved—what salvation is all about. And that brings us back to water, because it reminds us of  all that sacrifice—and the fact that we are saved by and through the cleansing or deliverance it symbolizes.

A soldier wears a cross or a St. Christopher medallion into battle. A firefighter or policeman might do the same. Someone else carries a rock or a marble or a rabbit’s foot in his or her pants pocket, or a beat up photograph in a shirt pocket. Others fiddle with rosary beads during prayer. A team finally wins a game and then another.  The players won’t change socks during the winning streak. A hitter goes to the plate and digs a hole with his right foot while the left takes a position out of the batter’s box in exactly the same place every time.  After every pitch, the batter steps out, adjusts his hitting gloves and his helmet and then steps into the exact same place in the exact same way. In Clemson, South Carolina, no self respecting player suited up in orange will ever enter Death Valley without touching Howard’s Rock on the way down The Hill.

What is it about symbolism that attracts us so? What is it about symbolism that seems to give us encouragement, even courage? What is it about the rocks and marbles and necklaces in our lives that allow these touchstones and talismans to become so important to us; important to the extent that they become part of our ritual, part of the fabric of our understanding of life, even part of identifying who we are?                                                

Symbols are not new to us, nor is the exaggerated importance we sometimes assign to them. Symbols and images got to be such a big thing in the early church that a name was given to the problem. In the eighth century, it was called the Iconoclastic Controversy. In 726, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III took down the image of Christ from the gate of the imperial palace for fear that the image itself was becoming the subject of worship. Church leaders worried about images and symbols being worshipped in their own right rather than as avenues to understanding and remembrance. Eventually icons and images came back, but only after the Church learned to deal with them in a proper way.

Today, the cross is perhaps the most visibly recognizable symbol of the Christian church. Close on its heels are the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. The element most closely associated with Baptism is water. Water is the vehicle by which we are baptized, but water is much more than that to Christians. Water is the medium by which we identify ourselves as cleansed before the Lord. But long before water gained this significance as a symbol of salvation, it had become a symbol of another kind of salvation.

Remember the story of Noah in the book of Genesis? God is so frustrated with the corruption of his creation that he decides to start over. The story of Noah is the story of God’s destruction of all life on earth; all life except for the male and female of every creature God created, and for eight people: Noah, his wife, his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives. The story of the flood is the story of God starting over and, in the process, delivering his chosen remnant through the water to salvation, in this case from the flood.

Fast forward to the river Jordan and the ministry of John the Baptist. John baptized converts with water from the river. Baptism represented a cleansing of body and spirit; a washing away of the old and taking on the new in a clean body and spirit. Jesus himself referred to being “born again of water and the Holy Ghost” (John 2: 1-21). A believer passed through the water to salvation by repentance.

So water plays a prominent part in the symbolism in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Water is the element used to symbolize cleansing, even delivery, through to something new. We pass through it and something happens to us. Jesus instituted two ceremonies in his ministry, those of Baptism and Holy Communion. He did not initiate baptism, but he himself was baptized, thereby instituting a ceremony which, like communion, was to become sacramental in the Protestant Church.

I said earlier that Peter refers to three kinds of water, all of which have to do with salvation; that two are both real and symbolic, and one is only symbolic, but also very real.   One of those real watermarks was the flood in Noah’s time. Peter points to it as something through which God’s people were safely delivered. What was it that delivered them to their salvation? Was it the water which carried them ultimately to safety? Was it the ark which they built to withstand the flood? What saved Noah and his family?

A second watermark comes in the form of Baptism, whether in the Jordan River, or in the baptistry of a church, or in the anointing of an infant’s head.  So we should ask, as Peter does, what is it that delivers us to our salvation?  Peter says “Baptism now saves you…” It would be a mistake to stop here as though we have our answer, for Peter does not stop. He goes on to say that baptism does not act as some sort of spiritual dirt remover. Rather, he says, baptism acts as an appeal; an appeal to God for a good conscience. According to Saint Peter, that good conscience comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What is Peter saying? Does water deliver us? No. Does Baptism deliver us? No. Jesus delivers us.  Here is what I mean. Noah and his family trusted God. Noah and his family obeyed God. Jesus as the Son of Man trusted and obeyed God. He underwent not only the symbolic baptism of water, but also the real life baptism of the cross.

You see, friends, the real meaning of the word baptism is to be immersed, covered, and Jesus was baptized not only with water, but  with the fire of pain, sin and death. He underwent that baptism because he cared that much for us. He trusted and obeyed God. Our real  baptism is the same. It is our trust and our obedience in a heavenly Father who by His grace sent us His son, that we might have salvation. The water is but an outward symbol for an inward change.

Does Baptism save us? No. And thank God for that too, for we would not worship a God who would prevent the entry to heaven of an infant who did not survive this earth long enough to be baptized. But baptism by water is a profound symbol of the cleansing of the body and spirit that takes place through God’s grace in order for each of us to be afforded the opportunity to be saved.

The deep meaning behind the symbols of water and Baptism is that in the final analysis, it is not the real water of the flood, or the Jordan, or even this baptismal font, in all their powerful symbolism, that change us.  Rather, it is the Holy Spirit who is our real cleansing agent. The Holy Spirit moves us to hear and be drawn to our Savior. It bathes our very souls with the cleansing of the cross.  The Holy Spirit opens our hearts and minds to be receptive to the message of our baptism and we are changed, transformed.

The Holy Spirit is not a symbol. He and she are the living, breathing spirit of God indwelling us. It is by God’s grace, and only God’s grace, that we can be cleansed. We use the symbol of water, as we use the ceremony of Baptism, as symbols to remind us of that amazing grace.  By grace we are saved …through faith.   Amen.

Light in the Darkness (Isaiah 58: 3-11) 2/22/12 Ash Wednesday

 The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River is one of the most beautiful scenes in the New Testament, a pastoral scene  where God himself descends to Jesus in the form of a dove, where God’s voice can be heard assenting to Jesus’ ministry from the heavens. What comes immediately after this beautiful scene?  What comes next for our newly ordained Jesus? Why, an all expenses paid trip to the desert for forty days of fasting and temptation!

Each year, Christians remember that forty day period of sacrifice and preparation by observing the season of Lent, which begins roughly forty days before Easter. During that time, Christians will fast or do certain things in greater moderation and spiritual discipline to identify with Jesus’ sojourn in the desert. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of this Lenten season. As we remember the  fasting and preparation of our Savior in the desert, we also mourn for him as we prepare with him during this season for his greater sacrifice on the cross just weeks away. We impose ashes on our foreheads as an outward witness of our repentance. We remove ourselves from the privacy of our prayer closets in order to acknowledge not only the sacrifice of a risen Savior, but also our earnest desire to be forgiven for our participation in the sin that drove him to that cross. It is no matter that we were not born when his sacrifice was completed, for he came and died for all sin, and that means he died for you and me just as surely as he did for those who came before us.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us of the meaning of true worship.  It has little to do with ritual and everything to do with restoration. Look at the goals set out by Isaiah in the context of fasting: He calls for loosing the chains of injustice, setting free the oppressed, sharing food with the hungry, providing the poor wanderer with shelter, clothing the naked, not turning away from our own flesh and blood. Worship is more than ritual, fasting more than form. The formal trappings of humility impress little if offered during a timeout from a family argument or a respite from quarreling. Our church attendance is suspect if we drive by our neighbor without ever inviting him to God’s house. This did no good in the time of Isaiah and does no good today.

If our fasting is to be acceptable to our Lord, we must act our testimony and not just ritualize it. If our prayers are to be listened to by our heavenly Father, they must arrive on the wings of our witness. If our worship is separated from our daily life, it is not worship and we are not righteous. The glory of the Lord here and now is seen in the eyes and acts of his disciples. Disciples are followers and so Christians are disciples. This is our act of righteousness. This is our true worship; that we act as God’s people. When we do so, the prophet Isaiah tells us that our light will rise in the darkness, our nights will become as noondays, our frames strengthened…for our Lord will guide us always. It is for this reason that we gather as God’s people in this season of Lent. Let the oil which bonds the ashes of repentance to our foreheads be a healing balm for us. Let the sign of the cross of Christ become a beacon of our true character, so much so that no cross will need be painted upon us for that allegiance to be seen. May we present ourselves anew as living sacrifices to our Savior. May we, in this season, remember, repent, and restore.

Prayers of the Saints (Mark 2: 1-12) 2/19/12

Every Sunday at the end of the message, I leave the pulpit and wander around in the congregation as we participate in the Prayers of the People. It’s one of my favorite times in the worship service. It puts me in the congregation instead of standing in front of it. It lets me get closer to everyone. It feels more personal, more intimate. I get the chance to carry more personal messages to God in prayer. It’s much more relational than reading requests from the church bulletin, although such news is important. People talk about family members and friends and members of the community. They appeal for the strength that comes from joining in community to pray for someone.

Group prayer or community prayer is an amazing weapon. It has started Crusades and revivals; it has spawned marches and sit-ins; brought down city-states and helped put this pilgrim on a path to ministry.  Group prayer is often a general appeal, but it is also the gathering of God’s people united in a common purpose, asking our Creator for aid or comfort or deliverance in a particular situation. Some groups have millions of participants, as in the National Day of Prayer. Some groups are small. Such a group, a group of only four people, is used by Mark to open the second chapter of his gospel. The faith of this small group is going to teach us one of the great lessons on the nature of God.

Health is one of those big picture words. It means different things to different people. Ask someone how their health is and likely as not they will tell you that they have this or that nagging pain. They may talk about a recent or impending doctor visit. The point is that they are trying to communicate their state of health. So what is health, exactly? Well…the World Health Organization has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  The new buzzword for this is wellness. Wellness is something that was certainly missing in the life of a certain paralytic who is the subject of a miracle in Mark 2.  Maybe not so surprisingly, the words that Jesus uses to cure this paralytic turn out to be strikingly similar to the World Health Organization’s definition of health some two thousand years later.

Let’s talk about these two issues: faith and health, in a little more detail. First, let’s look at faith. Jesus has come back home to Capernaum, probably to the house of Peter and Andrew. As was the custom of the time, the door was open. In the daytime, doors only closed when people wanted privacy. Otherwise, the doors were open and people felt free to walk right in. With Jesus the miracle healer back in town, people are showing up in numbers. Before long, the house is full. It is into this situation that the paralytic and his four friends arrive. There is no way they are going to get inside. Jesus is teaching and there is no room. The peasant houses of first century Palestine were fairly uniform. They had flat roofs composed of compacted earth and even grass that was laid atop a layer of tiles. The tiles were an overlay placed upon thatch, which was packed between wood beams that traversed the roof. Usually there was an outside stair to the roof, which was used much like a patio today. Not to be denied, these four enterprising and determined fellows made their way up the steps with their friend. It would have been a fairly easy chore to carve a hole between the beams. which is exactly what they did. Then they lowered their friend, mat and all, to the presence of Jesus. One has to wonder if this exercise made much noise, or if the earthen clods began to fall on the heads of those below. Mark does not tell us. In Markan style, the next sentence we read gets right to the point.

When Jesus saw their faith, he called the paralytic “Son,” and forgave him his sins. The gospels of Matthew (9: 1-8) and Luke (5: 17-26) echo this account almost verbatim.  While it is remarkable that Jesus heals a paralyzed man, this is only part of the story. Jesus looks at the determination and persistence of this man’s friends and he sees it as faith. Based not upon the faith of the paralytic, whose faith Mark never mentions, but upon the faith of these four friends, Jesus forgives the man’s sins. This is very good news, friends. This is headline news! Jesus tells us that we can be the prayer agent to bring about healing in others, just because we believe. We can impact the lives of others by what we bring to God in our belief system and what we lay at his feet in believing prayer.

This is no passive operation. The friends of the paralytic have to put their faith into action. They have to find another way to get to Jesus. They have to go through some physical labor and exertion to accomplish this. They cannot just sit and wait for the opportunity. They have to find a way to create it. This is faith in action. They even risk a “breaking and entering” rap to get their friend to the feet of Jesus. This is faith by conduct.   And…it is yet another revelation from Mark as to the identity of Jesus. Yes he is the Son of God, and he can and does forgive us of sin and heal us based on nothing more than the sincere belief of others that we are worth saving.

 In healing the paralytic, Jesus says simply that his sins are forgiven. He is hearkening back to the teaching of the Old Testament that the condition of the body was a reflection of one’s spiritual condition. The Old Testament claim was essentially that physical sickness was a direct result of separation from God.  Remember Job’s friends questioning him about what he needed to repent of in order for his condition to improve? This is the historical precedent for the words of Jesus. Later, Jesus will be questioned by some teachers of the law as to his choice of words. He summarily dismisses them as he bids the paralytic to get up and walk. Of course the paralytic does just that and walks out of the house. Everyone is amazed at the power and authority of Jesus, but his lesson is even more profound. Yes, he is the Son of God and he can use what words he chooses. It is not his word choice, but his authority that makes the man healed. And yet, Jesus did choose to forgive the man’s sins and to use that as his command for wellness. His healing is accomplished by his will, not by that of the paralytic. Jesus reminds us that an unhealthy spirit will be reflected in the body that houses that spirit, and that the healing of that spirit will be a key element in the healing of the body.

Perhaps this lesson is not so far removed from the modern definition of health: “not merely the absence of disease…” but rather “a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being.”  This is precisely what the healed paralytic walked out of Peter’s house with that day, and it started with the forgiveness of his sins. This is not just an Old Testament history lesson. This is the order our Savior has established for wellness, whether it is 1^st century Palestine or among us latter day Christians.    

What does faith in action look like for us? How can we be like the four friends on the roof of Peter’s house? We could pray in public in a restaurant. How about holding hands while we do it? We could pray for the leaders of this country and our denomination and this community not necessarily because they deserve it, but because we know the power of prayer. How about praying for our children like their very lives depend on the faith and petitions of our prayer? We could put our money where our mouths are and live a little more on faith every day.  We must take up the mantle, for it is we who must be the modern day saints. We must have the faith of the four friends of the paralytic, for this is the way we pass it forward.

Let me share a story with you. I carry it with me as a reminder that I can make a difference in someone’s life without ever saying a word. I have an old and dear friend whom I have known since childhood. We went through school and even college life together. Our paths diverged long ago, but we are still aware of each other’s presence and friendship. When we were young adults, I remember asking her how she held her ground as a Christian in the face of the many temptations that we encountered. She just laughed. She reminded me that her parents held hands and prayed together on their knees every night. Even though they were very private about their prayer life, their daughter was well aware of their practice. My friend Jane smiled but said to me in all seriousness: Do you really think I could have ever faced them had I not lived up to their witness? Her parents were my friends too, and their witness brought me under its umbrella.  We are the legacy of Jane’s parents and people like them. You know people like that. They are our latter day saints. What will we do with faith like that? Will we admire it from afar, or will we climb up those steps and lower our friend to the feet of Jesus?

There is a new proverb I came across recently that says: “If God is your co-pilot, swap seats.” This is the message of Jesus in Mark 2: “…so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth…get up, take your mat and go ...” In him lies the freedom to which we all aspire. Let our faith make others walk.

Touching the Untouchable (Maek 1: 40-45) 2/12/12

               Touching the Untouchable

                                      Mark 1: 40-45, Psalm 30

I don’t like snakes. I know God created them and they are important to eco-systems, but I don’t like them. It is only with the greatest willpower that I tolerate green snakes and black snakes. I’m not by myself. I’m thinking of the Indiana Jones movies. They helped make Harrison Ford famous. Remember the first one: Raiders of the Lost Ark? Our hero gets thrown into a pit full of snakes, his worst nightmare. Mine too! For others, it is spiders or rats or roaches. One of my daughters gets crazy when she is around any sort of bug that jumps, like a camel cricket or a grasshopper.

In the first century, disease was a great fear for most people. No one was immune because the practice of medicine and scientific knowledge were nowhere near the level of advancement that we enjoy today. A common cold could turn into pneumonia. There were few cures for disease. Probably the most dreaded disease of that time was leprosy. Modern day antibiotics can treat and cure leprosy, but in Jesus’ day, there was no cure. In those days, leprosy was a death sentence and in more ways than one. It would indeed kill its victims over 9-30 years, depending on the strain of the disease. It was progressive death where one must live with a body rotting from the inside out. Disfigurement was inevitable. Fingers and toes, even hands and feet, would literally fall off from the rot.

 Perhaps of more importance is the way that leprosy cut off its victims from the rest of the world. Leprosy was a skin disease, but the word at that time was used to cover all skin diseases, whether they were run of the mill psoriasis or ringworm or leprosy proper. The judgment was the same for all. Skin disease left one unclean, and to be unclean was to be cut off from ordinary society. Lepers were quite literally dead men walking. They were required to wear black garments for all to recognize them. They had to live outside normal town life either alone or in a leper colony. They could not come to church. They were allowed to peer through the “squint” holes cut in the church walls. Lepers in first century Palestine were banished from society and totally shunned. They were cut off from their own families. They were actually taken into churches while living where the priest would read the burial service over them, says theologian William Barclay.

Mark’s story about this leper is very short…only a few verses and yet, there are some valuable and lasting lessons that may be gleaned from it. On the surface, it is one of the first miracles performed by Jesus. We all see it as a kind and compassionate act for a man in great need who appealed in faith to Jesus’ healing power. But there are some other lessons here as well. Like so many stories in the gospel narratives, there are stories and lessons within the story if we just dig a little deeper.

First, there is the leper’s behavior. There were rules for lepers in those days, and this leper was breaking them all. Leviticus 13 (45, 46) set out the rules for those with skin diseases.  They were to wear torn clothes. They were to let their hair be unkempt. They were to cover the lower part of their face and cry out “Unclean, Unclean” as long as they had the infection. Lastly they were to live outside the camp, away from the clean folks lest they be exposed. The leper of Mark 1 has lost his rulebook. He comes right to Jesus and drops to his knees. There is no cry of “Unclean” from him, although I suspect that the crowd of people following Jesus had parted like the waters of the Red Sea when he came into their midst. They probably were calling out “Unclean.” Nevertheless this rogue leper has made his way all the way to Jesus where he is on his knees asking for the healing that is impossible outside of a miracle. So he asks, or rather begs, saying: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” This is not acceptable behavior. Where are the Pharisees when you need them? This guy is over the line. There are rules for this sort of thing, and the leper has ignored them all. When he finally reaches Jesus, his faith in Jesus’ power and authority is obvious. Not so obvious is whether this man thinks that Jesus’ mercy is as available to a poor leper as it might be to someone higher up the social food chain. He will not have long to wait for his answer.

Second, there is Jesus’ behavior toward Satan.  Look at Mark 1: 41. Most translations say that Jesus was “filled with compassion,” but that thought draws heavily on what follows. We will get to that in a moment, but first, let’s look at this phrase about compassion. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary points out that the phrase is more accurately translated “being angered.” This is the reading that is found in older, more reliable manuscripts. So why would Jesus be angry? Well, here he was being confronted with yet another troubled soul with disease in his body. Perhaps Jesus recognized the disease as the devil’s doing, like so many other plagues in the world both then and now. If so, Jesus’ anger was not for the man or even the disease, but for Satan, whose work Jesus came to destroy. So Jesus is angered, perhaps filled with anger. Repeatedly in the gospels we see Jesus doing battle with Satan and cautioning the disciples that the “ruler of this world,” meaning Satan, must be reckoned with.    

Third, there is Jesus’ physical action toward the leper. He reaches out his hand and touches the leper. Then he says; “I am willing. Be clean.” The leper was cured then and there. The leper now has his answer. Jesus’ mercy extends to all who believe.  Don’t miss the significance of this act. Jesus’ act of touching the leper made Jesus himself unclean under the law. He certainly knew this. Yet he reached out his hand and touched the leper anyway.  This is one of those times when we must remember that Jesus was not only the Son of God; he also was the Son of Man. As the son of Mary, he was subject to all the diseases to which everyone else was subject. Now the leper had nothing to lose. For all practical purposes, he had nothing to live for except more pain, more suffering, more humiliation. But Jesus! Jesus was on the front end of his ministry. And here he was reaching out to a man clearly riddled with the most deadly disease in the land. He touched the untouchable! It is a further explanation, demonstration if you will, of who Jesus was. In taking on the flesh of man, Jesus became one of us. In taking on the burdens of the flesh, he walked with us and shared our pain. In reaching out to the leper, Jesus lived out his decision to take our flesh upon himself that he might cleanse our sin (Expositors Bible Commentary). And Jesus made it clear then, as he makes clear this very moment, that he will not stand on ceremony! If the ceremonial law gets in the way of compassion and love, it will not be observed by this radical Savior of ours.

Jesus takes the law and turns it inside out. He takes our regulations and turns them on their heads. Jesus is concerned with purity, but it is the purity of the heart with which he is concerned. Jesus is concerned with obedience of the law, but it is the law of love which he observes. As surely as the diseased person among us, like the leper of old, can part a sea of humanity to get to his goal, so can our Savior reach out his hand and touch that which is impure, that which is unclean, that which repulses… and make it pure as the driven snow.

Yes, the leper of Mark 1 is the recipient of Jesus’ healing hand by the leper’s own act of faith or maybe desperation, and that makes for a good lesson. But the stories within the story are of equal or greater value.  The leper will not be denied his chance at salvation and healing. He will break all the rules for the one true prize. He will break line and get on his knees and, drawn by his faith, he will seek God’s grace. That grace is found in the man called Jesus.  

Our Savior is not just the meek and mild Sermoneer of the Mountain giving out beatitudes. He is equally the radical, the revolutionary, and he has a temper.  Yes, he walks softly, but where he walks, one must tremble at his authority. We may understand clearly once again from this story that our Jesus is no Clark Kent. He is Superman. Finally, we see again our own salvation in the love and compassion that will ignore the convention to get to the person. Jesus is personal. Jesus is relational. He reaches out for you and me this day to cure our ills and make straight our paths and he says to us: “I am willing. Be clean!”  Like the leper of Mark 1, may we go out and speak freely, spreading the good news to all who would listen. And may we also, in his name, touch the untouchable! 

In the Hand of the Man (Marlk 1: 29-34) 2/5/12

          Remember how it was when you were little? When you were crossing the street or waiting in line or just standing in a crowd, your mother or your father would hold your hand. I really don’t remember that very well any more, but I remember like yesterday how many times I held my children’s hands in the same sort of situations.  There is a point on the way from childhood to teen years when that urge for contact is met with an equal urge for independence. It is a natural thing that we encourage.  Over time, we let our children go and the hand holding becomes nothing more than a fond memory. All the same, it is a different time; not as safe or secure as that parental touch that we all both gave and received and remember so tenderly. I treasure all my memories of those times when my children reached out to me…looking for my hand to hold. They trusted me then. My hand meant safety. My hand meant security. It became second nature for them to reach for my hand.  

As we look at the actions of our Savior in Capernaum with Peter’s mother in law, we see a kindred tenderness in his actions. Jesus did a lot of healing in Capernaum. By my count, there are at least eight different occasions where Jesus was either healing someone or helping someone or driving out demons and evil spirits while in or near Capernaum. It became his home away from home. We know that Peter was married and that his mother in law and probably his brother Andrew lived in the home. Archaeologists have unearthed what is very likely the home where Peter lived and it is big enough to have housed Jesus and James and John in commune style living. So Peter’s house in Galilee may well have been Jesus’ hangout. Whenever Jesus went to Bethany, the house of Lazarus enjoyed a similar notoriety. 

This is the first recorded occasion of Jesus in Capernaum. From Mark’s account, Jesus and his small group of new disciples had walked along the shoreline to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. They left the synagogue and headed over to Peter’s house. Jesus healed Peter’s mother in law from her fever. The next account finds the townspeople at their doorstep. According to custom, people were not to travel on the Sabbath. They were only allowed to go a Sabbath day’s journey, which by tradition was a thousand yards, or about half a mile. That may be why the whole town showed up at Peter’s door that evening rather than during the day. The Sabbath ended at 6 PM, or about dusk. Since the average Capernaum citizen didn’t have a handy sundial in his backyard, he used another custom to measure the end of the Sabbath. When one could see three stars in the evening sky, the Sabbath had ended. I’m thinking that on the rare occasion when it was raining, no one really cared that the Sabbath had ended because of the weather. At any rate, three stars must have come out on the occasion at hand because Mark tells us that the whole town gathered at the door of Peter’s house. This would have been quite a gathering. Capernaum was never a big town, but in Jesus’ day, it is estimated that it had a population of between ten and fifteen hundred people. Mark tells us that Jesus the healer went to work on all the diseases of the residents. Then he exorcised their demons as well.

Was all this activity caused by what Jesus did to Peter’s mother in law? I doubt it. She had a fever. Naturally, they mentioned it to Jesus. Mark tells us that Jesus went in to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began tending to her normal household chores and hospitality. Is this a miracle? Very possibly, but not necessarily. Even if it were, as I surmise, according to Mark’s story, it was accepted without comment in the household. Soon after, the whole town gathered to watch the miracle man. The congregation probably had more to do with Jesus’ healing of the man in the synagogue just hours before. Word of this would have traveled quickly throughout the town.

As I read this passage over and over, something began to catch my eye, and then my attention. Speaking of Peter’s mother in law, Mark says that Jesus took her hand. This is not the only event in the Gospels where Jesus takes someone’s hand. Some time later (Mark 5: 41), Jairus, one of the rulers of the Capernaum synagogue, finds Jesus beside the lake and pleads with him to save his little daughter. Jesus goes with him, but by the time that they get to her, the little girl has died and people are already grieving. He takes the hand of the dead 12 year old girl and tells her to get up. You know the rest of the story. In Bethsaida (Mark 8:23), Jesus takes a blind man by the hand and leads him outside the village, where he is healed.

Perhaps the most vivid story is that of the boy with the evil spirit in Mark 9 (27). In between the mountain experience of the Transfiguration and the trip back to Capernaum, a large crowd gathers around Jesus. A man edges forward and brings his son to Jesus. The boy is possessed by a spirit.  Encountering Jesus, the demon throws the boy to the ground, causing him to roll around and foam at the mouth. It is a pitiful sight and indeed the father asks Jesus to take pity on them. The disciples have tried and are helpless against it. And Jesus teaches. He teaches his own disciples the damning power of unbelief.  He teaches the crowd the power of the Son of God. The boy’s father speaks for himself and for us. He is Everyman. He pleads with Jesus first for his son, but also for his own soul. “I do believe,” he exclaims. “Help me overcome my unbelief.”  With a word from Jesus, the spirit leaves the boy for dead.  Jesus takes him by the hand and lifts him to his feet. He is healed. Variations of these same stories narrated by Mark are echoed in the other Synoptic gospels.

Again and again, the gospel of Mark makes it clear to us that Jesus takes us by the hand. The stories contain other steps, other rituals observed. There are stories which say nothing of Jesus holding our hand, but almost without exception, there is some overt act on the part of Jesus that touches us physically; that connects us in a personal way to him. In our Wednesday night Christology study, we have looked at how modern theologians debate the relative importance of Jesus as deity and Jesus as human. Here in the stories in Mark, we see repeatedly the tender, caring humanity of the Son of Man exercising the saving power of the Son of God. Yes, Jesus is our friend, but he is also our Savior. Deity and humanity or faith and redemption? Only the theologians need to debate these nuances. For us, we see Jesus as the bridge to, and the face of, God Himself. He takes us by the hand and we are lifted up.

Sometimes, we see God as great and powerful, but removed from us as the great Father in the sky who authored creation and writes our history. The Holy Spirit is both gentle and ethereal, the companion of our feelings but still mysterious and intangible. But Jesus! Jesus reaches out and touches us. Jesus is both God and brother. Jesus is the man on the cross bleeding for us. Jesus is as relational as it gets. He is one of us, but he is the one who got it right. Yes Jesus is very God, but he is also the God-man.     

There is a great old Broadway standard which talks about the hand of Jesus. In its lyrics we can feel the humanity and the divinity of Jesus coming alive.  Listen to its words and let them speak to you. It goes something like this:

          Put your hand in the hand of the man

          Who stilled the water.

Put your hand in the hand of the man

Who calmed the sea.

Take a look at yourself

And you can look at others differently.

Put your hand in the hand of the man

From Galilee. 

  

      I do believe. Help my unbelief. The unknown father of Mark 9 speaks for all of us as we grope in the darkness that is our lack of faith, reaching for the light. As we reach out to our Savior, we encounter him and realize he has already reached out for us. Like the lady of the house, like the daughter of Jairus, like the blind man in the village, like the boy possessed, Jesus takes us by the hand and raises us up… and heals us. Try it. Give in to the freedom of his touch! Put your hand…and your faith, in the hand of the man from Galilee.