5th Sunday after the Epiphany
Mark 1:29-39
"Let Go, Let God"
29 ¶ And immediately he left the synagogue, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told him of her.
31 And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them.
32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.
33 And the whole city was gathered together about the door.
34 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.
35 And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed.
36 And Simon and those who were with him pursued him,
37 and they found him and said to him, “Every one is searching for you.”
38 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.”
39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Grace and Peace to your from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
Our gospel lesson this morning follows closely after last week’s lesson. You remember last week, Jesus went to the synagogue to teach. While He was there, a man with an uncleaned spirit came in and Jesus healed him. Remember that during that healing the uncleaned spirit was going to call out who Jesus was, but he was prevented in doing so by Jesus.
Now this week, Jesus leaves the synagogue and goes to the house of Simon and Andrew. So after the service, they went to Simon’s house to get something to eat. Notice there was nothing about Simon’s mother being sick that led them to Simon’s house. They just went as Peter was a gracious host and wanted to feed his friends.
And this is where the situation gets interesting.
Notice what the text says now: "Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told him of her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them."
They told Jesus she was sick, but it does not say they asked Jesus to do anything. They did not demand anything of Jesus, but only made Him aware of the problem. What faith!! They wanted Jesus to be in a relationship with this woman and somehow they knew, they felt, He would take it from there.
Simon and Andrew took a leap of faith. They saw Jesus heal in the synagogue, so they took a leap of faith by just telling Jesus she had a fever.
They had faith like the little boy in the following:
During the terrible days of the Blitz, a father, holding his small son by the hand, ran from a building that had been struck by a bomb. In the front yard was a shell hole. Seeking shelter as quickly as possible, the father jumped into the hole and held up his arms for his son to follow. Terrified, yet hearing his father’s voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, "I can’t see you!"
The father, looking up against the sky tinted red by the burning buildings, called to the silhouette of his son, "But I can see you. Jump!" The boy jumped, because he trusted his father.
I think this idea of trust and faith is one of the main ideas of this passage.
The disciples had not been with Jesus very long. He had taught in the synagogue, He healed a man with an unclean spirit and now the disciples were able to let Jesus decide what He was going to do. This was remarkable faith on their part. They could have demanded that Jesus do something as they had seen in the synagogue, but instead they allowed Jesus to take the action himself.
The text says: And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her;. Notice, it was Jesus who acted out of His compassion. He took the initiative. Jesus acted, period.
And then notice what happened. The woman got up out of her sick bed and went to the kitchen to serve them a meal. Jesus acted, she responded in what she knew best homemaking.
Jesus through God handles our daily problems.
The following poem says it well:
I am God.
Today I will be handling all of your problems.
Please remember that I do not need your help.
If life happens to deliver a situation to you that
you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it.
Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God
to do) box. It will be addressed in My time, not
yours. Once the matter is placed into the box,
do not hold on to it
I am God.1
The disciples in this case learned that lesson well. Let go and let God. This is a difficult lesson to learn. Peter learned it now, but later in scriptures we find Peter wanting to do things himself instead of letting Jesus. And many of us are in the same boat. We want to handle our problems ourselves, or even worse, we want to tell Jesus how to handle them. How many of us when we pray want to tell Jesus in our prayers how to answer them. We want this, we want that, but what we need to do is just say help and let Jesus act out of His grace and compassion.
This point of allowing Jesus to act in our lives can be illustrated in the following:
"In a textile factory where threads are woven into fabrics there is a sign above the machines:"If the treads become tangled, call the foreman."
A new employee found the threads on her machine badly tangled. Frantically she tried to untangle them.
The foreman came by and said, "Why didn’t you call for me?" she replied, "I was just trying to do my best."
Then, very pointedly, the foreman told her, "Doing your best includes calling the foreman."
Doing our best means letting Jesus act in our lives in His way at His time with His results. We see by the scriptures that the people in that village had faith as it says:
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.
33 And the whole city was gathered together about the door.
34 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.
They brought to Jesus all those who were sick. It happened at sundown for at sundown meant that he Jewish day of sabbath was over so they could do the work of bring the sick to Jesus. Can you imagine it? Somehow the whole village brought people to Jesus. Somehow they all had faith enough in Jesus to do the work which was demanded to bring the sick to Jesus. I imagine for some the work was very difficult. I could imagine that many were brought in beds or lying on cots being carried by 4 strong men. Some how that faith spread through the whole village so that others did what was necessary to bring the sick to Jesus.
Faith can be catching. This catching faith allows one to let go and let God.
Now we move on to the next interesting part of this text. Jesus has slept the night with Peter and Andrew, but early in the morning he goes out to a private place to pray, to be alone with his thoughts.
Most of the time when we read this passage and other passages such as Mark 7:24, Mark 6:31, where it says Jesus went to a lonely place to pray, we think of a quiet, peaceful time. A time to collect thoughts and recharge batteries.
However, I would like to suggest that this was far from the point. It was not a peaceful time, but a time a soul searching, a time of turmoil, a time of decision. It was a time for Jesus to focus in on the mission His Father called him to do.
As the Rev. Thomas Longs says in his book "Shepherds & Bathrobes" "we have a miss understanding of this time, because the word which is translated "lonely place" is erhmov which is better translated as wilderness. The erhmov is a holy place, alive with the presence of God. The erhmov is a dangerous place, the atmosphere charged with the possibility of betrayal. The temptation to follow the will of the crowd instead of the will of the Father was present in the erhmov."
I think this interpretation makes sense. Jesus was constantly going off by himself to pray. To pray for what? To pray for the strength to follow the course the Father had laid out for Him. Jesus in his humanity must have feared the cross and the pain which was involved. Jesus prayed that He would have the human strength to follow that course.
Jesus was experiencing his own dark night of the soul. The dark night of the soul comes from the time that Jacob wrestled with an angel.
It says:
24 ¶ And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
28 Then he said, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
29 Then Jacob asked him, “Tell me, I pray, your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.
30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
The dark night of the soul means to wrestle with the ideas and thoughts you have about life and faith. Jesus went to that place to wrestle with the dark night of his soul. Should he do what the Father wants, or should he become the kind of king that the people seem to think he is. A worldly king, a conquering king. Jesus could have gone on to heal many people, give out many loaves of bread and fish, He could have turned water to wine many more times.
But Jesus was in this place to struggle with these things and many more. He was here to wrestle with the dark night of the soul. And he would continue to have these times alone to wrestle with his thought and desires until He entered Jerusalem the week before his death.
Jesus let go and let God give Him the strength to carry on.
Even the night before Good Friday on Maundy Thursday we find him in the garden of Gethsemane alone praying. One of the scriptures says about this occasion said that sweat like blood poured from His head.
Jesus wrestled with what the Father wanted Him to do. And many of us have that time of the Dark Night of the Soul when we wrestle with our life situation.
A powerful poem says
THE SILENCE
I wait
in the quiet stillness
of dusk
and the silence
is deafening
I listen
to the wind and rain
outside
and the silence
is deafening
I pray
to me Creator
Great Spirit
and the silence
is deafening
I watch
the moments fly
slide by
and the silence
is deafening
My heart
cries out to you
my pain
and the silence
is deafening
My Spirit
searches for you
and finds naught
and the silence
is deafening
Knowing
you can feel me
yet chose to ignore me
and the silence
is deafening
All the days
the longest nights
surround me
and the silence is deafening
Your silence
your absence
tears at my heart
and the silence
is deafening
My life hangs
on your word your heart
and the emptiness
and the silence
will kill me
peace is more than a five letter word 2
Many of us if we are honest with ourselves can feel that same kind of pain in our lives. We want so much to know what is going to happen. We plead with God for answers and sometimes there is only silence. Many of us have been through the Dark night of the Soul wondering what is going to happen, wondering why me! We could go on and on.
But I think it is comforting to know that Jesus had these times also. He struggled with the path His life was headed.
This scripture gives us two powerful thoughts. One of faith, believing and trusting in Jesus and the other struggling with life, with the path of life. all, I think, are part of our life journey.
Let go and let God.
Amen
