Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Today is the “big game”! Surely people have good friends coming over, party food prepared, and appropriate beverages at the ready, for when the National Football Conference team and the American Football Conference team faceoff in a flag-football match as part of this year’s Pro Bowl. Surely that is why today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 9:16-27) talked about athletes’ competing and winning a prize, today’s Psalm (Psalm 147:1-11; antiphon: v.5) mentioned the legs of a man, and today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 40:21‑31) referred to youths’ fainting and being weary and young men’s falling exhausted. No, you say? Maybe if there was not an extra week between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl, then the true “big game” would have lined up with today’s Readings, as it did back in 2017. Not that there necessarily is a professional football connection to today’s Gospel Reading, unless we move Jesus from the house of Simon and Andrew into the blue tent on the sidelines in order to miraculously heal the players who might be injured.
Today’s Gospel Reading can be said to consist of Jesus’s healing Simon Peter’s mother‑in‑law on a Sabbath, Jesus’s healing more sick-people that evening, His departing from Capernaum the next morning, and what is called His first preaching‑tour in Galilee, during which He also in a sense healed (SQE §37‑40). Today’s Gospel Reading picks up “immediately” where last Sunday’s Gospel Reading left off (Mark 1:21-28), and today’s Gospel Reading is said to continue the same theme of Jesus’s preaching and enacting the Gospel. And, presumably at least some of those people who were astonished and amazed at His teaching in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, a few hours later were brining to Jesus all who were sick or oppressed by demons in today’s Gospel Reading. Today we heard both how Jesus lovingly lifted-up one suffering woman, who might have been elderly and widowed and thought to be insignificant by others, and how Jesus perhaps more expeditiously healed many others who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons.
Sometimes our hearing about Jesus’s miraculously healing those who were sick with various diseases can be difficult, for we may be sick with various diseases and long to be healed, too. Like the people of Israel in today’s Old Testament Reading, we may think wrongly that our way is hidden from the Lord and that our right is disregarded by our God. I would think that the people looking for Jesus back at Simon and Andrew’s house the next morning may also have felt a little disregarded, if Jesus, as it seems, went on to the next towns without going back there. Yet, as with the people of Israel, so for them and also for us: God’s past action, such as
His creation, should assure us that He can and will accomplish any and all future action that He promises, which future action no doubt will be far greater than we might imagine our physical healing would be. We are “Not Disregarded”! Too often we simply lack faith! Of course, all the various diseases are a reminder of sin’s being in the world with its consequence of death. First and foremost we all have what in some sense is the terminal disease of original sin. By nature we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-7), and we also would be physically dead and tormented for eternity, if God—out of His love, mercy, and grace—did not call and thereby enable us to be sorry for our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and our sinfully feeling disregarded due to our lack of faith. God forgives all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
By Jesus’s preaching and enacting the Gospel, Jesus revealed Himself to be true God in human flesh. Jesus did not need demons to identify Him, either as “the Holy one of God”, as we heard the unclean spirit say in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, or as “the Christ”, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke reports on this occasion (Luke 4:41). Jesus’s preaching the Gospel itself was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the Christ, the Anointed One, the Savior and revealed Who He was. And, Jesus’s enacting the Gospel both also showed that He was Who He said He was and anticipated His victory over sin and death on the cross. On the cross, Jesus died for all people, including for you and me. On the cross, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserve, and then He rose from the grave. Jesus’s preaching and enacting the Gospel result in faith. As we sang in today’s Psalm, the Lord’s pleasure is not in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love (or, “mercy”).
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus spoke of His having come out in order to preach in the next towns. In today’s Epistle Reading, St. Paul spoke of the necessity laid upon him to preach the Gospel, and others arguably have similar necessity. Surely all such necessity is for our sake, and so we likewise preach! We also enact the Gospel: like Jesus’s casting out demons, with water in Holy Baptism, rescuing from death and the devil; like Jesus with Simon Peter’s mother‑in-law, with gentle touch in Holy Absolution, forgiving sins as validly and certainly as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself; and, like Jesus’s table fellowship in Simon and Andrew’s house, with bread and wine in the Holy Supper, which are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. God’s Word and Sacraments are no less efficacious miracles today than Jesus’s preaching and enacting the Gospel then. Through His Means of Grace, God gives His Holy Spirit, Who creates faith in His Son when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit through these same Means of Grace transforms us.
In today’s Gospel Reading, after the fever left her, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law began to serve Jesus and presumably also Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Her returning to her vocation is an indication that she was cured, but her returning to her vocation also guides us. He Who came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45) nevertheless sometimes was still served! Other women such as Martha also served our Lord with hospitality in their homes (Luke 10:40; John 12:2), and some today may similarly host their pastor in their homes for a number of reasons, though pastors’ ministry today is primarily supported through offerings to the Church. Our sanctification shows in other ways, too. As St. Paul likened himself to an athlete in today’s Epistle Reading, we also at least try to discipline our bodies and keep them under control, lest we be disqualified. And, God Himself also disciplines us, if nothing else permitting our afflictions and supplying His grace sufficient for us to bear up under them. Even those people who experienced Jesus’s miraculous healings of various diseases still later died in this world, as will we, unless the Lord first comes in judgment, but already now we have the spiritual healing that matters most, for it leads to our glorified bodies free from sin, sickness, and suffering for all eternity.
We are “Not Disregarded”! The professional football players in this week’s Pro Bowl games and next week’s Super Bowl may faint, be weary, and fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord in faith at least ultimately will, as today’s Old Testament Reading said, renew their strength, run and not be weary, walk and not faint.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +