One at a Time

"The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law" by James Tissot

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And immediately [Jesus] left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told Him about her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

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. And He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew Him.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him, and they found Him and said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” And He said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And He went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons (Mark 1:29-39).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Jesus comes into this world that He had created good, yet now, since the Fall is marked by decline, disease, and death. The synagogue where He teaches has been claimed by an unclean spirit (Mark 1:23-24). The home where He is invited to stay is filled with sickness (Mark 1:29). When the sun goes down and the Sabbath is over, the town where this synagogue and this home are located reveals its heartache. There are many who are sick, and many others oppressed by demons. People bring them to Jesus (Mark 1:32). And Capernaum is only one of many towns spread throughout Galilee who need His attention (Mark 1:39).

Jesus’ ministry begins in disordered and distressed social spaces. The synagogue, the home, the city … all are not what they should be. Jesus has come to His Father’s world, yet it is going to take time to settle in. The demons know who He is, but He will not allow them to speak (Mark 1:34). People will not learn about Jesus from the mouth of a demon. Instead, they will learn about Jesus from His mouth and from His hands and from His heart as He goes about His work.

Jesus is about the business of restoring creation, one person, one synagogue, one house, one city at a time.

Jesus’ first day of public ministry—the Sabbath—is a busy one. In Capernaum, Jesus’ work starts in the synagogue. There, where people gather for worship and the Word of God is read, Jesus teaches as one who has authority. He claims this space as holy. He drives out the unclean spirit with a command. The demon-possessed man is restored to health and all the crowd is amazed.

Then, Jesus’ work enters the home. Rather than capitalize on His celebrity status, Jesus and His disciples retreat to the relative privacy of Peter and Andrew’s home. When they arrive, they find Peter’s mother-in-law ill with a high fever. They immediately take this need to Jesus. Is He willing to help them, too, or were His miracles meant only to increase His prestige and renown with the multitudes? Are those close to Jesus are also to be recipients of His merciful care?

Here, something as simple as an illness is cause for Jesus to come and work. He goes to the bedside of Simon’s mother-in-law. There He will not just speak a word that brings healing. Instead, He takes her by the hand and raises her up and restores her. The healing is complete and instantaneous. The woman’s strength is fully restored. She simply goes about her business, making a meal to feed her guests. This is her way of expressing her gratitude.

Given the endless series of things to which Jesus attends, we sometimes imagine that He is too busy for us and problems. But Jesus knows and cares for each of us individually. He commands us to lay all our needs before Him and stands ever willing and able to help us, one person at a time. 

From the home, the work of Jesus then spreads into the community. The Sabbath ends at sundown. The report of Jesus’ teaching and power have gone out to the entire region (Mark 1:28). While Jesus avoids the empty praise of the crowds, He never refuses their authentic needs. People come to the doorway and bring their real needs and burdens. No matter what the disease, Jesus heals the sick and drives out the demons. Nothing is too difficult for Him.

Jesus does not allow the demons to speak. He wants those who are healed and those who witness the healings to draw their own conclusions directly from His words and actions and thus come to the realization that He is more than a healer of the body—He is the promised Savior from sin. The One who restores all creation in the Resurrection.

That Sabbath is an exceptionally busy one, yet Jesus does not sleep in late. Instead, He leaves the house before sunrise and retreats to a solitary place to pray. It may seem strange to us that Jesus, the Son of God, feels the need to spend time in prayer, but remember He is also truly human. As such, He too, is dependent upon His Father. In His prayers, He talks with His heavenly Father about the work that lays before Him and thus finds strength for His task. On this morning, He likely discusses whether He should remain longer in Capernaum or take His message into other areas of Galilee. That Jesus feels the need for spending time in prayer reminds us that our need to do so is greater.

Jesus goes to a solitary place to pray, but Peter and the other disciples have different plans for Jesus. When the crowds gather again, the disciples begin searching for Him. “Everybody’s looking for You, Jesus,” His disciples say. Or is that grumbling I hear? “If You’re going to sneak out here to pray, at least leave us a note. Your services are needed back in town. There are still fevers to cool down, bones to mend, demons to cast out of the folks here in Capernaum. We’ve got a list a mile long, and You’ve barely gotten started.”

“No, that won’t do,” says Jesus. “We have other towns to go to, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. I preached in Capernaum’s synagogue; I healed your mother-in-law, Peter; I cured all the sick people elbowing their way up to the door at sundown; I sent their demons a-packing; did what I came to do, and now it’s time to move on.”

Note the extremely human picture drawn by these words. The disciples try to argue with Jesus. This serves to emphasize the importance of Jesus’ time in prayer. Many will try to thwart His seeking and following God’s will—even His own well-meaning disciples. But Jesus doesn’t operate according to our dictates, our tastes, or even our needs—real or perceived, does He? The Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Aslan, is not a tame lion, jumping through our fiery hoops and roaring a worn-out roar at the crack of our whips. The Church is no circus.

But that’s what you want, what we all want. A god who stands aside while we throw our pity parties or our let-it-all-hang-out parties, then tucks us in for our beauty sleep while he stays up to clean up the mess we’ve made. We want a god who spoils us, pampers our emotions, who damns the people we want damned, forgives the people we want forgiven, and—above all else—is there when we need Him and absent when foolishly we imagine that we’ve got everything taken care of ourselves, thank you. That’s the kind of god we want.

But be careful, O sinner, be careful. Because, the truth is, the kind of god you want may be just the kind of god you get. Not the real God, mind you, but the figment-of-your-imagination god, created in your own warped image and likeness.

There’s only one problem, a very big problem, with such a phony lord: as he is nothing, so he makes his worshipers nothing. A puppet deity, who dances as you pull his strings, will keep performing right up until the day both you and he are to be judged false by that One who sees through every lie. And then it will be too late: too late for repentance, way too late for all but weeping and gnashing of teeth.

You can’t tie Him down, this Jesus of ours, so don’t try. Repent of even considering it. Cast aside all foolish attempts to manipulate God. He is who He is, so don’t try making Jesus into He-Is-Who-I-Want-Him-to-Be. It won’t work. He was who He was. He is who He is. He will be who He will be. He acts according to His own will, His own nature, and always according to His own timetable.

And that, dear saints, is cause for rejoicing. For it is as safe for us to craft God in our own image as it is to ask a toddler to toy around with open heart surgery. We have no idea what we’re doing besides just having fun. But that fun is spelled d-e-a-t-h. Christ is who He is, and who He is, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He who is the fruit conceived by the Spirit—He is all these things for you.

He is love, emptying Himself to fill you to the full, holding back not a drop. He doesn’t lollygag around Capernaum, for God sent Him for all, not for some. In His vocabulary the word stingy finds no place. He doesn’t just love; He is love. And that means you are not just loved but you are His beloved, bought with the most precious currency in the world: His blood.

He is joy, rejoicing to bear the cross, scoffing at its shame, that you might be crucified and resurrected with Him. If the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents, how much more does your Savior rejoice that you, His prodigal, have returned home from feeding pigs to have a son’s share in the banquet of heaven?

He is peace, giving to you a peace that passes understanding and surpasses every sham-peace this world advertises. To the sick and demonized of Capernaum, the ill and demoralized of cities today, He gives that one-of-a-kind peace. He has buried the hatchet between God and you, that it might never be exhumed again. He has absorbed into His own body that warfare that raged from Eden onward.

He is patience, long-suffering, eager to cast no soul into the abode of death. He desires all, yes, even you, to arrive at the knowledge of the truth.

Whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, His is not the hand that is upraised, eager to smite, but rather ready to caress in love. For His are the hands nailed down, still bearing the scars, hands that heal and hands that love.

He is kindness, turning His back on none, embracing all, holding out His forgiving arms to you.

He is goodness, being good for you who have been so bad, yet who have pretended to be so good.

He is faithfulness, clothing your naked infidelity with the raiment of His own trustworthy deeds.

He is gentleness, wiping away your tears, kissing away your scars, carrying you through the valley of the shadow of death up to the Mount Zion of the sunshine of life.

And He is self-control, never losing His cool with you, always doing what He says He’ll do, sticking to His Word, that you might know that He will always do what He promises.

This is the true God, Jesus the Christ. He is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—all on your behalf, that you might have all you need, in Him, in abundance.

Jesus sees and He blesses and He heals. He restores the community by healing its people. Then, He lifts His eyes in prayer to a much larger and beautiful mission: The restoration of all people, synagogues, homes, and cities. He leads His disciples on the footsteps of that mission.

This is how Mark invites us to see the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It is an act of restoration. Jesus is coming to the world and transforming it into His people. This work of Jesus will take Him to the cross, where He will find the outcast, the rejected, the shamed, the abusers, and the abused. And there, on the cross, He will take God’s punishment for all sin upon Himself that He might bring God’s restoration to the farthest corners of the earth. Sinners and sufferers will all find a place in God’s Kingdom where they are welcomed home; not merely tolerated, not merely accepted. No, they will be forgiven and never forsaken. They will be welcomed home.

Whether you have been a member of this congregation for your entire lifetime or you just walked in today to visit, we are all in the process of settling in. The Kingdom of God, begun in Jesus, has not been fully realized and will not be fully realized until Jesus returns. Until that time, we are settling in.

Although we are brought into God’s Kingdom by baptism, it takes time for us to settle in. God’s ministry is not just limited to His work on Sunday morning. Christ’s Kingdom is not just a teaching to be understood. It is the world of our ordinary lives filled with God’s extraordinary love. Jesus extends His care to the smallest aspects of our existence. He can remove a fever and bless our making of a meal. He reaches from our churches to our homes and from our homes into our communities and slowly reveals to the world what it means to have a Savior.

Although they could do it, Jesus will not let demons reveal His rule. That is left to you and me. It is taking centuries, yes. But the Kingdom is here. And today Jesus reminds us we are living in the Kingdom of God, on the edge of restoration, and we are just beginning to settle in.

Through our worship, our work in our homes, and our service in God’s world, we reveal to others the head, the heart, and the hands of Jesus. Through you and I, in His holy Word, Jesus is about the business of remaking creation, one sinner, one house, one congregation, one city at a time. Amen

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.