Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany 2/12/12

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany 2/12/12 Text: Mark 1:40-45 Title: Jesus; The Holistic Healer. Since Tuesday is Valentine’s Day I thought I would be good today to share with you some thoughts concerning the greatest love letter ever written: God’s Holy Word, written to us. While a male lover might proclaim to his beloved the following written by Chris Messick, “For you I would climb the highest mountain peak, swim the deepest ocean, your love I do seek. For you I would cross the rivers most wide, walk the hottest desert sand to have you by my side.” These are wonderful words expressing the love of a man for a woman. But, we all know, don’t we, how long that kind of love lasts. Sadly for many couples it is not very long before the beloved has to walk through life alone. That is the reality of modern love, but God’s love has stood the test of time. His dying proclamation of love “It is finished.” will never be taken back, as human love so many times is renounced. You have all heard the saying that familiarity breeds contempt, and it certainly is quite often true in life. That saying has its origin in one of Aesop’s fables which was written some 600 years before Jesus walked the earth. In the story I am thinking about, a fox encounters a lion. The lion is the king of all the beasts and to be feared while the fox is small and unimportant. The first time the fox sees the lion, he stands in such awe of him that he runs away terrified. The second time the fox sees the lion he hides in the bushes and watches the lion carefully. The third time the fox encounters the lion, he walks up to the great king, asks him how his family is doing and talks about how the weather is going to be that week and just walks off. The foxes’ first reaction to the lion is the most appropriate, he was fearful, but the more he sees the lion, the less afraid he is. In the end the fox treats the lion as an equal even though nothing could be further from the truth. The lion is to be feared, for he could eat the fox anytime he chose to do so, but the fox has no fear of the Lion because the lion has been kind to him. You see, familiarity breeds contempt. Too many people, because they have heard the same Bible story over and over through the years approach God’s love letter the same way the fox approached the lion on the third visit; with contempt. I say they are showing contempt for God’s Word because they no longer read it, or if they do they believe that there is nothing more that they can learn from it. Showing contempt for God’s Word shows contempt for God himself since it is, although written by humans, his words to us. We need to quit thinking that we know the story and there is nothing more for us to learn and instead start sitting at the Lord’s feet meekly listening to what He has to say to us through his Word. I bring this up because today’s Gospel lesson is a familiar one and you might be tempted to quit listening; thinking there is nothing new for you to learn. But before I get started I want to set the context in which our Gospel reading takes place, so that you might better understand why God has this particular event recorded for us. For the last couple of weeks we have been following Jesus as he goes from town to town. He is healing people and driving out unclean spirits, freeing people from their troubles. He was becoming very popular just as today the popular faith healers like Bennie Hinn draw thousands to his Miracle services hundreds flocked to Jesus. People then, as well as now are desperate to be healed from their diseases and other infirmities that they will believe almost anything that gives them hope, even if is found to be a hoax which is usually the case with modern day faith healers. Jesus has become so popular that he cannot do what he wanted to do, what he has come to do; preach the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom of God. He wants to help people in their spiritual struggles, but the people are only interested in being healed physically. People are flocking to him and so he has to go out in the countryside to preach. I am telling you this so you can understand why Jesus in verse 43 of our gospel lesson this morning sternly warns, the Greek says he is moved with anger. I don’t have time to go over this this morning, but it is not the only time Jesus became angry. Anyway, Jesus tells the ex-leper not to tell anyone which of course the man goes out and tells everyone he can. Who would blame Jesus? He can’t get anything done because people want to be physically healed. Who can blame the ex-leper? He who had been cut off for who know how long from his family, neighbors, his town, the nation Israel, and of course according the nations’ faith, God, is now healed and once the priest declares him officially clean is restored back into full membership to the community. We now know leprosy is not contagious and it can be treated, but back then they did not know that. The only thing that I can think of today that would produce the same results of being cut off from family, friends, and society is when a person has full blown AIDS once the skin sores and weight loss are apparent.   I know some about AIDS and the loneliness it causes because when I first came here I would go over to the house where those with AIDS lived to share the Word of God with them. I will never forget the first time I visited. There was a young man who was still able to move around some, but was very sick because he was in the advanced stages of the disease. He looked really bad. He was in charge of the house that day and so when I knocked on the door he came to see who it was. I could tell how much he was suffering not just from the disease, but from loneliness, from not being touched, so after I introduced myself I hugged him, as I gave him a blessing from God. I remember the look on his face. He could not believe that I cared enough about him to hug him. He and I spent some time together as I shared the love of God with him before he died some months later. A terrible tragedy it is to not be loved or touched. A wonderful thing it is to loved and to also know the love of God. I mention this because the compassion that I felt that day must have been something like what Jesus felt when the leper came to him. And the hug I gave the man with AIDS, although there was no healing in my touch caused him to greatly rejoice. Just as the ex-leper rejoiced when he was healed this young man dying of AIDS rejoiced. He kept telling the others there that day how wonderful it was to be touched; to know that someone cared about him. So what is the lesson for us in part of God’s love letter to us? It can’t be about us healing lepers, for with modern medicine that can be done or doing faith healing. It is not about his teaching us to care for the unclean, the nobodies in our society which there are a lot of today. Although we should care for them. No, the lesson for us today is that we who think we are clean in spirit have leprous hearts and are thus totally unclean. We on our own are not in the relationship with God that he made us to be in with him. We like the leper are in desperate need Jesus’ healing touch. Jesus touched us by way of the cross when he took those leprous hearts we have and cleansed them by his blood, thus putting us back in the relationship with him. We are changed, not by our doing, but by Jesus doing. He did the touching. He did the dying. He did the rising and ascending.   And in doing these things he restored our souls and thus our bodies since God intends body and soul to be together, as Psalm 23 tells us in verse three and following, “He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever." We, who have been restored, declared clean, have received power, not our own power, but Jesus’ power to live our lives resisting sin, helping others, and giving glory to God. We can now take our deepest hurts and turn them over to him, for though we do the walking through life, he does the restoring, the guiding, the comforting, the blessing, and the keeping. All praise to God, for his mercies are certainly new every morning. Amen.