5th Sunday after Epiphany “The Clear Picture of Christ”
February 4, 2024 Mark 1:29-39
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
I wonder: do you know anyone who has ever taken a good picture for their driver’s license? MN drivers licenses have featured a head-shot photo since 1971. And who among us has saved any of our old licenses to show off how good we looked in that photo? So, on your license, you might’ve looked like you just lost a boxing match, or your droopy eyes made you appear like you failed a field sobriety test. Maybe you’re one of those that can look good in any picture, but most of us aren’t. When I got my previous passport photo, I was wearing a white shirt & dark tie, and the backdrop behind me was …white; I looked like a disembodied head on a stick.
I also wonder if, when we look at a picture of ourselves, is it that we don’t look good, or is it that the objective camera does not show us the subjective picture we want to see?
Did you take a good pictures in your elementary school photos? Do you remember having to choose the one best picture that would go into the high school yearbook; and did you say:
‘I don’t like any of them.’ And should we even bring up our wedding photos where your eyes are shut, or there’s enough red in your eyes to make you look like you were possessed by a demon? How many photos do you have of yourself that you think are ‘good’ & show the real you?
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I think Jesus had a similar problem. He -most often- did not have a good picture taken of Him. Obviously, not with a camera! What I mean is, that while He walked the earth, how many ever got a good picture of WHO He was, and WHY He’d come? For example, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, +the wise men went to Jerusalem because they had a ‘off’ picture of Him. They came to show their respect for Him as a future earthly king to rule in Jerusalem. +King Herod had a bad picture of Jesus. Herod thought that Jesus was dangerous competition for his throne, & sent soldiers to kill him in his crib.
+The Pharisees had a bad picture of Jesus. They accused Him of deceiving the people about God’s kingdom, or that He was working for the devil. People wonder if +John the Baptist, from his prison cell, had a blurry picture of Jesus – when John sent his disciples to Jesus with a Q: ‘Are You the One, or should we look for someone else?’
+The picture the crowds had in mind only saw a healer of bodies, & a heaven-sent chef to feed them bread. +Even the Twelve had some questionable snapshots of Jesus: as a ghost walking on the water, as a punisher to send fire from heaven to destroy unbelievers, as a rising star who would never allow himself to be arrested & suffer at the hands of the Teachers of the Law. +John & Mother Mary had a picture burned into their retinas as they stood beneath that bloody cross on Good Friday. That picture did not look like God’s loving salvation for the whole world.
Who did have the clearest picture of Jesus? We might think of our Gospel reading from last Sunday, when Jesus was speaking in Capernaum’s synagogue, & He was interrupted by a man possessed by a demon. That demon had a very good picture of who Jesus is. IT said: ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are = the Holy One of God!’ That’s a very clear picture; it’s too bad it’s from His enemies.
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Jesus’ enemies still -today- have a pretty good picture of Him as the Holy One of God who stands in judgment over their sin. That’s why He is feared & opposed by those who hate Him. Out of fear, other religions say that Jesus was nothing more than a good man, not the Son of God; & they say that all His so-called miracles were just exaggerations of natural things. Some argue vehemently against the idea that His suffering & death could be some kind of saving sacrifice & substitute for the whole world. Some deny that He even existed; others think Jesus was just the Christian version of Confucius, who just has truisms for life = if you want to follow them.
So, why is it so important for Jesus’ enemies to work so hard to prove Him a fraud, & His followers as fools? Is it because they have a pretty good picture of who His is, and their rebellious hearts are scared to death? Why else would Jesus’ enemies remove His Bible & commandments & ideas & symbols from public schools, public places, & gov’t institutions?
What possible threat are Jesus’ basic morals of kindness & goodness; what threat is His natural design of marriage & family integrity; what threat are His social ethics based on repentance & forgiveness, or based on a simple truism like: ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’
How do any of those things of Jesus become a threat to our politics, or to our institutions of higher education == except that the evil in the heart of man treats God as an enemy because God is holy. Altho its -sadly- only half the picture, sometimes Jesus’ enemies have a clearer picture of WHO He is, and WHY He & His kingdom has come among us: to destroy sin, death & the devil.
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I mentioned last weeks gospel lesson because in today’s lesson, Jesus is still there in Capernaum, and the people there have a flawed picture of who He is. Our opening verse said: ‘Immediately Jesus left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon & Andrew.’ It was there in that synagogue that Jesus was teaching, & then He healed that man who was possessed by a demon. So, while the people were amazed with His miraculous power over the demon, overall, did they have a good picture of Jesus? Not so much.
Capernaum was a smaller town, so the news got around quickly that a miracle-worker had come among them. However, those miracles were just to be signs pointing to something more important & real. The real good picture of Jesus is not as a healer of the body; but that of Messiah: the Holy One of God, who calls sinners to repentance, who is merciful to all, the forgiver of all sin, and the giver of eternal life to both body & soul.
How do we know that that is the right good picture of Jesus? Because of Jesus’ response when Simon Peter finds Him, and says, ‘everyone is looking for you.’ Jesus says, ‘Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.’ It’s like Jesus turns a cold shoulder to all those who were just looking for the free medical clinic. By leaving, He quietly scolds them for not seeing the better picture. Just like when that crowd of 5,000 that he fed with 5 loaves & 2 fish, when they followed Him around the lake, and met Him the next day. Jesus scolded them saying, ‘you’re merely looking for more loaves for your stomachs; but you should be looking for Me, the living bread from heaven.’ (Matt.14)
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This example of the townspeople of Capernaum is also a lesson for you & me = so that we will hold on the a picture of Jesus that is good. We live in the same broken world, suffering the same illnesses & injuries, and sometimes narrowly focused on wanting Jesus to make us feel better, & fix our visible problems; but after that, we can easily forget about Him, and neglect the much deeper healing of our broken relationship with God. For that is really why He came among us: to redeem & to restore us as children of His eternal & un-visible kingdom.
So, in Capernaum, many came to Jesus: the lame hobbled, the blind groped, the crippled were carried. The curious came, along with the skeptics, to see the signs themselves, but not looking for what the signs pointed to. They came to see the doctor who didn’t charge them for a visit or for medicine. And Jesus did heal many. The next day, they were still coming to see just the miracle worker.
But, knowing that people were having a defective picture of Him, Jesus had gone out to a private place to pray. He was more than they imagined; He was the bringer of the Living Word that revives the soul. Jesus’ miracles had been designed to show He was the very Son of God, doing God’s work of breaking the chains of our slavery to sin which keep us from our heavenly Father. A physical miracle is impressive to the eyes, but it was only meant as a sign to prove that Jesus brings a far greater miracle: that His holy blood pays the divine price of God’s wrath over sin. His cross is the sign that Jesus has covered us with the gracious forgiveness that was offered for the whole world.
In order for that saving gospel message to get thru to them, ‘doctor’ Jesus would leave & the physical miracles would stop. The ‘savior’ Jesus would move on to other towns, and preach that gospel to the souls waiting to for the good news that the kingdom of God is open to all who would believe & be baptized in Him.
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So, what if the world around us makes fun of us because we are trusting in a God who allows us to suffer the same illnesses & troubles that unbelievers suffer? The world’s picture of God is that He should certainly heal & help -in this life- those who believe in Him, otherwise why would anyone keep trusting & hoping in a God who doesn’t help His people now, in a visible way? The Holy Spirit reminds us that the world’s picture of God is a poor picture. The real blessings are by faith & not by sight.
Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world. He came among us -primarily- to bring us into His better kingdom. That’s the picture the Bible shows of Jesus. He is the Savior of the world; your Savior. That’s why He was born, & why He lived. It’s why He suffered, died, rose, and did not stay visibly among us. He ascended to rule, to reign, and to delay a little while before He returns & this old world is done. That’s the best picture of Jesus = the One who came to preach that the kingdom of God had come. Not the kingdom of healing earthly sicknesses, calming storms, or multiplying bread & fish. But the kingdom of grace & forgiveness of sin for all – in the miraculous signs of the cross & empty tomb.
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So, Jesus said: ‘Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I come out.’ His own words give us the best picture of who he is and why he has come.
He said in Matt.5: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matt.5:17). That’s how Jesus tells us that He came to keep for us the Law that we broke, & the commandments we’ve disobeyed.
Jesus said: ‘I have come to seek and to save the lost.’(Lk.19) ‘I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full. (Jn 10:10). Jesus wants you to believe that He has found you & is giving you a gift that you can get nowhere else. Peace now, and the future with Him.
Why did Jesus come? He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ First spoken to Roman soldiers & arrogant pharisees & ignorant skeptics, those words are meant for all sinners, whose sins nailed the Son of God to the cross to be paid for. Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’(Jn.8) Those words of forgiveness, light, & hope are far more valuable to us than whether our physical sight, hearing, or sickness is healed.
Our Savior said, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my father, receive the inheritance, & the kingdom prepared for you.’(mat.25) That’s the message we need to hear when the world presses on us with its own faulty picture of an out-of-date Jewish rabbi who had a lot of nice things to say but hasn’t been seen for 2,000 yrs. The people of Capernaum in Mark 1 had an incomplete picture of Jesus; the world today will refuse to see the whole good picture.
But listen to His words and promises, and look at the life He lived, the works He did, and the suffering He endured for you. And finally look & see that His tomb is empty. That is the full picture of your Savior for all that He is. He won’t change the bad photo on your drivers license, but with forgiveness & with a future, He does make your whole life-picture to be very good.
Amen