We have just heard that reading from Mark's gospel where we hear of Jesus, first healing Simon's mother-in-law (Do we, by the way, realise that Simon- or Peter as he was renamed, was a married man?), then healing many sick people and driving out many demons in Capernaum. Mark's Gospel is an action-packed Gospel; everywhere in it we read that after doing this or that Jesus went on to do something else.
It's not actually Jesus' ministry of healing that I wish to focus on this morning, but rather to begin by noting that Jesus' life and ministry was very full. But- in the midst of that ministry let's note what we read in verse 35:
Very early, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Jesus' activity was punctuated by those periods of prayer, and always somewhere where he could be, at least for a while, alone with his Father. We can be quite sure that these times spent i quiet communication were essential to all his activity, and that form that we can surely learn that all our activity, unless in be God-directed, is wasted activity. Maybe I should qualify that a bit, for God will be quiety directing our inner thoughts, as we desire to do his will, and can graciously redeem our error-strewn ways.
But let's now note what comes next. After Jesus' companions join him with the news that everyone was looking for him, his response is:
Let us go somewhere else- to the nearby villages- so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come. (v 38)
Jesus had come to preach; obviously the healing was a sideshoot activity. But his prime activity in his earthly ministry was to preach. Whilst in verse 39 we read that he preached in the synagogues we aren't told what he preached. However, if we turn to Luke's Gospel we find the answer to that one, on that occasion when he first preached in the synagogue in Nazareth, and where he quotes from Isaiah; from Isaiah chapter 61, where we read:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
I want to come back to this in a moment, but let's just take a sideways glance at that other passage we had this morning.There Paul says: I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! (v16). Paul had that total consumption with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that total consumption with Jesus Christ himself. Oh that we had but a portion of Paul's total commitment with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! True that we are not all called to preach, true that even 'preachers' do not preach all the time! In fact we preach a good deal less than earlier generations. At 10 on a Sunday morning we normally preach for 15 to 20 minutes. If we go back to the days of that great Baptist minister Charles Spurgeon we would be listening to a sermon for up to 90 minutes! There would be a few burnt offerings for Sunday lunch! That does beg the other question as to whether 'preaching' is just what's done from pulpits in churches. 'Preach' can just signify (according to my dictionary) to 'earnestly advocate'. But: Paul's concern in preaching was 'the gospel', and 'gospel', of course just means 'good news', so we're back full circle to Isaiah 61. And the main point I wish to address now just that: what is the preacher's message? Surely it must be, if it is God's good news just what it was for Isaiah and therefore as Jesus applied those words to himself (Today this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing-Luke 4:21)
To preach the Gospel- that was, Jesus said, why he had come. That must be at the heart of the preacher's theme! So let's just look at those words of Isaiah:
Firstly, let's note that Jesus says; The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to preach the good news
Any Christian preaching which has at its core God's good news will have at root the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This sets Christian preaching apart from any other form of 'public speaking'. The Christian preacher is driven by God's Spirit, inspired by God's Spirit, informed by God's Spirit. To simply pray at the outset, “May I speak in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” is to seek just that: that our words may come from and reflect the very nature of God himself. This can sound a very arrogant claim; it can actually also be very humbling to realise that one may be speaking words coming from the very throne-room of God! And because it is Spirit-anointed, there can be a power and authority behind the peacher's words.
Then, the first proclamation of the preacher is 'freedom for the prisoners'
Jesus was speaking, proclaiming and teaching prisoners; not primarily, of course, those locked up in human gaols because of some crime committed. In Luke 13 we read of Jesus healing on the Sabbath a woman who had been a cripple for eighteen years, and when the Pharisees object to the 'work' of healing been done on the Sabbath, Jesus replies; Should not this woman whom Satan has kept bound these eighteen long years be set free on the Sabbath day...? (v16)
Here was an acted parable, for the woman hadn't just been bound all those years by her paralysis. No! Satan had kept her bound in sin, bound in a dungeon of darkness. The good news of the Gospel is of release from bondage to, imprisonment by sin.
Well could Charles Wesley write:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I rose, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
The priosner free, and then, sight for the blind.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8)
This, one of the Beatitudes, encapsualtes the fact that we cannot see God for we are not pure in heart. Behind these words of Jesus, resonate words in Psalm 24:
Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his hold place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.
Sin not only imprisons us, it also separates us from God. The good news of the Gospel is that we can be restored to God, reconciled through the Cross, and that for those who believe there is the promise that one day our very eyes will see him. That 'quickening ray' to which Wesley referred to is a 'ray' which opens our spiritually blind eyes to the glory of the Gospel. Without the work of God's Spirit we cann ot even 'see' God's Kingdom. Our eyes must be opened; we must be born again.
Then, to release the oppressed.
I think that here we touch on a different aspect of the Gospel; an aspect which touches on human injustice. Jesus was clearly not just concerned with the souls of men and women. He was, too, concerned with their physical and everyday welfare: her lay the root of Jesus minstry of healing, and reflects God's heart for the poor. The Christian Gospel must indeed be concerned with all human injustice and inequality, with all the woes which beset us in this world.
Finally, Jesus proclamation was of the 'year of . he Lord's favour'.
Here of course, we do not have reference to a calendar year of 365 days, rather to a period of time, to the 'Messianic Era', to that time between the first coming of the Messiah (or Christ) as a child at Bethlehem and his return when he would judge the world; when he would wind up human history. There may well also be a reference to the 'Year of Jubilee'- the one year in every fifty when slaves would be set free and all debts cancelled. Ultimately it is the proclamation of liberation form sin and all its consequnces
This was the Gospel for whose proclamation Jesus had come; the Gospel for which Paul was so totally consumed. That is still the Gospel in Newarkm in the year of our Lord 2006.
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