LIFT US UP LORD
Text: Mark 1:29 - 39
Mark 1:29-39 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. (30) Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. (31) He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. (32) That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. (33) And the whole city was gathered around the door. (34) And he cured 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. (35) In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. (36) And Simon and his companions hunted for him. (37) When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." (38) He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." (39) And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
We hear a lot about sickness these days because of Covid-19. People can be asymptomatic meaning they are sick and have no symptoms. People can be mildly sick and have minor symptoms or they can be extremely and have major life threatening symptoms. Most of us take all the necessary precautions but we cannot completely prevent getting exposure to Covid -19.
Lots of people who are authorities in the field of medicine have scrambled to work on things that can bring solutions that would help to develop ways of treating Covid- 19. Only Jesus has the authority to stop a storm, heal the sick---the lame, the blind, the mute, the deaf, liberate the captive and the bruised (those are are broken in body and heart).
We are all sin-sick. We cannot prevent being sinners anymore than we can prevent catching a virus. Not one of us is without sin (Romans 3:23) because we all like sheep have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus is the only physician, the great shepherd who can forgive us, heal us and bring us back into the fold.
It should be no surprise that things can change when Jesus shows up. Look what happened the very first time He went to the synagogue to teach at Capernaum, He healed a man with an unclean spirit. Look what happens when Jesus went home with Peter to find his mother-in-law running a fever. Jesus took her by the hand and He healed her.
Jesus is the only one who can lift us up where we need His healing touch---a touch only Jesus can give! Look at Jesus’s domestic touch, His couch in the community and the necessity of prayer.
DOMESTIC TOUCH
Do we bring Jesus home with us? Theologian John Coursar makes an important point in his commentary as he expounded upon this verse: “ I hope we’ll increasingly get to the place where, when we leave Bible studies and services, we won’t be those who quickly move into the next activity, but will learn to bring the Lord home”. Courson, J. (2003). Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (p. 226). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.. Maybe that sounds like a stupid question, but is it? Would we really want to exclude others from meeting Jesus? Jesus is our Savior whether we are at church, out in public or in the home. Andrew and Peter brought Jesus home with them. That first visit made a difference. What difference will it make if we don’t take Jesus everywhere with us?
Does Jesus live in your home? There is the story of a new pastor who went by the house of one of his new parishoners. The wife told her husband that the new preacher had been by to visit and asked a questioned that she didn’t know how to answer. The husband wanted to know what the question that the preacher asked her. She said, “He asked me if Jesus lived here.”
“What did you say?” Asked the husband.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“Why couldn’t you tell him that we’re respectable people?” Asked the husband.
“He didn’t ask me that.”
“Why didn’t you tell him that we go to church when we feel like it? He asked.
“He didn’t ask me that either.”
“Did you tell him that we read the bible sometimes?”
The wife answered, “He didn’t ask me that. What he asked me was ‘Does Jesus live here?’”
“That is a good question to put before any home. But an equally important one is ‘What difference would Christ make in your home?’ “ (T.T. Crabtree. ed. 2006 Zondervan Pastor’s Annual. James Carter. “When Christ Comes To Your House.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 2005, p. 182). What a difference Jesus makes for all who welcome Him! Have you welcomed Him when He has reached out to lift you up at home?
COMMUNITY
Have you witnessed to others outside your home so that they can see the Lord’s hand reaching to lift them up through your witness? 1) Critics: Jesus had critics but He also had people who were willing to take His hand when He was reaching out to lift them up.
2) Community: Remember what happened outside the doors of Peter’s home? The whole town gathered at his door. How many were in that town who needed Jesus to lift them up from and heal them? He healed many who were sick with kinds of diseases and threw out many demons.
Has God ever used you to reach critics in your community? Here’s a true story that was reported by TIME magazine back in 1992. It’s about a man named Larry Trapp, of Lincoln, Nebraska. The effects of juvenile diabetes had left Larry blind and confined to a wheelchair. Yet this did not stop him from joining the American Nazi Party. From his wheelchair, Larry single–handedly reorganized the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, becoming its “Grand Dragon.” He lived for one thing — harassing racial and religious minorities.
One of Larry Trapp’s victims was the cantor in a local synagogue, Michael Weisser. Larry sent the cantor and his family threatening letters, inserting in each one a business card that read “The KKK is watching you.” He made anonymous phone calls to their home, spewing out messages of hatred. The Weissers knew where the chilling late–night calls and hate mail were coming from, and they were frightened.
Yet Weisser’s eventual response spoke of hope, not hate and fear. One day Weisser called his tormentor back and got his answering machine. After listening to its pre–recorded anti–Semitic diatribe, he calmly offered to take Trapp out to the grocery store. For weeks Weisser kept at it, leaving recorded messages of offered help for this Grand Dragon. When Larry Trapp was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace, Weisser and his congregation prayed for him.
Finally, Klansman Trapp called him back, complaining, “What do you want? You’re harassing me.” But Trapp soon called Weisser again. This time, he confessed, “I want to get out of this and I don’t know how.” Weisser immediately responded, “I’ll bring dinner and we’ll talk.” His wife brought along a silver ring as a peace offering. When the Klansman and the cantor can face to face, Trapp burst into tears He pulled off his swastika rings and said, “These rings are the symbols of hatred and evil, and I don't want them in my life anymore.”
Larry resigned as Grand Dragon of the Klan, and apologized for his racist comments. Three months later, he even spoke at a worship service in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. Even more incredibly, Larry Trapp converted to Judaism and joined Weisser’s congregation. As his illness became worse, he moved into the Weissers’ home, where the family cared for him.
Larry died that same year, in the home of the cantor. During his memorial service in the synagogue, Michael Weisser sat quietly off to one side, weeping. — Reported in TIME, February 2, 1992. A follow up report on National Public Radio told the rest of the story.https://www.proclaimsermons.com/illustration.asp What do you think would have happened if Michael Weisser had not allowed God to work through Him? What can happen to us if we try to limit what God wants us to do?
PRAYER
Why do you think Jesus sought some time for solitude and prayer? 1) Recharge: Jesus needed time to recharge spiritually. Just think of ho the events unfolded. Jesus healed the man with the unclean spirit in the synagogue which was earlier in the day. Jesus went home with Peter to his house where Jesus took Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand and healed her. After that she began to serve them. By that evening after sunset, the whole town of Capernaum began to gather at the door of Peter’s house. He healed many who were sick with all kinds of diseases, and threw out many demons.
2) Solitude: The 35th verse tells us that Jesus got up early in the morning and went off to a solitary place where He could recharge through prayer. Simon Peter and others went looking for Jesus and told Him that everyone was looking for Him. Jesus told him that He has other places that He needed to go to preach the Gospel. This point alludes to what others have called the Messianic secret.
3) Messianic secret: In 1901 by a German Lutheran theologian named Wilhelm Wrede gave this concept a name calling it a Messianic secret. https://www.gotquestions.org/Messianic-secret.html This concept seemed to be a double edged sword because it meant that Jesus wanted His disciples as well as those He miraculously healed to be quiet so as not to hinder Him spreading the Gospel. Jesus silenced the demon possessed which illustrates His authority. Jesus wanted both His disciples and those whom He had healed to be quiet so that it would not hinder His mission to preach the Gospel in other places.
Why is prayer so important for His disciples today? 1) Satan’s motive: Satan would love for us to be silent about spreading the Gospel. Satan has also tried to gain more and more ground through those whom he has deceived in every age. He seeks to use them to try to “silence” us. God strengthens us through prayer!
2) Please be quiet?: There were some Pharisees in the crowd of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem who want Jesus’s disciples to be quiet. Jesus told them that His disciples could not keep quiet or stones would cry out (Luke 19:39 -40). God does not will for His word to return empty but to accomplish what He desires [salvation of the lost, the least and the last] which is the purpose for what He sent it (Isaiah 55:11). That is why God sent His Word, His Word made flesh who sends us to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). God is not willing that any perish but that all come to repentance (II Peter 3:9).
3) Guidance: Even when we don’t know what we would say if we were standing before leaders who oppose our faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will speak through us (Matthew 10:17 - 20). Jesus shows us how important prayer is to our witnessing (Mark 1:35, 38).
Only Jesus has the authority to stop a storm, heal the sick---the lame, the blind, the mute, the deaf, liberate the captive and the bruised (those are are broken in body and heart) and even soften up the hardness of hearts for those who oppose the Gospel. Only Jesus can lift us up from whatever makes us sin sick to heal, forgive and reconcile us from who were were to who He calls us to be as new creatures in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17). How will they ever call on the Name of Jesus to be saved if they have never heard the Gospel proclaimed (Romans 10:14)?
