“Run down the hill pulling the sled with your children,” they said.
“It will be fun,” they said.
“It will be lots of laughs,” they said.
What they did not say was that men in their 40s who fall flat on their backs when pulling children over ice on a sled will not be fun. There were lots of laughs all right, but I was not doing the laughing.
For weeks afterward my back felt like someone tried to ram a steel rod down the center of my spine, and forgot to give me pain medication afterward. I was in pain. If I was standing, I had to stand completely straight, or the pain would literally make my chest incapable of expanding and breathing. It was similar when I was lying down. I had to be completely straight to get any relief. And, sitting? There was no sitting. Sitting was out of the question. You cannot sit when it feels like a steel pole is jammed straight through your body.
I do not know if you realize this, but pastors sit a lot. We sit for meetings. We sit for Bible studies. We sit to read and write. We sit to have cookies and talk with people. You get the idea, pastors sit a lot.
So, when the time arrived to visit someone in their home, I panicked because I needed to figure out: first, how to drive (it looks weird for someone to be driving with chin down and chest in the air trying to keep their back straight, believe me), but, second, I needed to navigate the whole sitting a talking thing.
There are probably only a handful of people in the world who expect their pastor to lie in the middle of the floor on his back while having coffee and cookies. And, when the person being visited is confined to the bedroom and the back-pained pastor, for obvious reasons, cannot sit at the foot of the bed, I cannot imagine too many people feeling comfortable with their pastor requesting, “Can I please lie next to you while you share your deepest secrets?”
That is a lawyer’s dream right there.
“Just stand,” you say? Well, you have not visited too many grandmas with cookies and coffee have you?
What I am trying to get you to understand, in a trivial manner here, is that the freedom to be the person that God has created you to be often gets blocked by illness or disease. Ask anyone who has had to quarantine recently how much “goodness” they were able to get done in those two weeks? Or just open up your Bibles to Mark 1:30 and ask Simon’s mother-in-law.
The Bible says that Simon’s mother-in-law “was in bed with a fever, and [the disciples] told [Jesus] about her at once.”
Now, we do not get very far into the story before we need to stop and dig a little deeper, because it probably will not occur to us in the first reading that the mother-in-law’s condition is dire.
Consider this: Aspirin was not invented until 1897 by Felix Hoffman, a German chemist who worked for Bayer. Previous to this, the only way to get a bad fever to go down was to submerge a person in ice cold water. But, the home refrigerator was not invested until 1913. And, how much snow can you find in the deserts of the Middle East?
You see where I am going with this. We do not think too much about fevers today, but back then this was serious stuff. A high fever would put you at risk for dehydration, and, if your body temperature rose to 108 or beyond, brain damage and death could occur. Simon’s mother-in-law had a fever that struck fear in the hearts of those who knew her and loved her.
But the most fascinating thing about this story is what the Bible says after the woman was healed.
Oh, by the way, Jesus healed the woman in the time span of a sentence and a half. Yay, Jesus! The Bible says, “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her…”
Anyway, what I was going to tell you was that we read this fascinating thing after Simon’s mother-in-law was healed: it says she was at last able to “serve them.”
Please read this much deeper than, “Great, now Mom can finally go in the kitchen and get me my coffee. Three creams please! And, a Biscotti! And, some bacon.” Mmmmm…bacon. Who here is hungry? I got distracted, back to serving!
The word for “serve” here in the Greek is διηκόνει. In the church, the words for deacon and deaconess come from the root of this word. Now, these are holy callings in the church where regular people like you, commit to being servants of Jesus Christ in daily life. Deacons and deaconesses commit to loving who Jesus loved and serving as Jesus served; sometimes in the church, but more often in healing ministries, ministries to the poor, ministries of teaching the faith to children and adults, ministries to refugees, and ministries to prisoners.
What the Bible is trying to tell you clearly is that Jesus did not cure Simon’s mother-in-law so that she could finally fulfill her lifelong dream of serving her children coffee. Rather Jesus restored Peter’s mother-in-law so that she could follow her holy calling in life. Jesus restored her, so that she could be a disciple.
One of my friends earlier in life had a mother who devoted her life to hospitality. Her home was always kept immaculate because the greatest joy of her life was to have people over and host them with fine food, drink, and conversation. She would treat new people in the community like kings and queens and would offer the same royal treatment to rich and poor alike.
Even us teens benefitted from her royal treatment of great food. Now, who does that? So many people complain about the kids these days rather than serving them and loving them. But, she ministered to all, no matter the age.
You see, God had created her to make people feel loved and welcomed. So, it was all the more tragic when a muscle disease made it so that she could no longer stand and cook and clean. Her only desire was to serve in this hospitable way. After the disease, she could not. She wanted more than anything to be free to serve.
She understood deeply Jesus’ personal conviction and Jesus’ expectation of us in Mark 10:45, “that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." She understood that life is about love, and love is about serving others.
Sometimes, freedom in Christ means leaving something behind, even something you love, and following where Christ leads. Sometimes, freedom in Christ means being set free from our demons; set free from the insidious voices in our heads that tell us we are not good enough. And, this morning, we see that sometimes freedom in Christ means being healed to serve.
Jesus Christ has the power to set your free from the illnesses and diseases that keep you from being the person that God has created you to be. And, I have absolutely seen the freedom that comes from healing in people’s lives. My back was healed for one. Simon’s mother-in-law was given another chance to serve. I have also seen a ton of people suffering from depression stand tall and serve others once again. I have seen it happen.
But this too is true: my friend’s mother never got better. Not everyone gets a cure.
The Bible seems to acknowledge that. After Simon’s mother-in-law was healed, Jesus continued to heal people into the evening at the door of Simon’s house. The whole town gathered in the cramped streets of the ancient village to be a part of his healing ministry. The next day, the Bible tells us that Jesus went away from the commotion to pray…to get some alone time…and the disciples hunted him down because the people were apparently looking for more. Instead of going back and healing even more people Jesus says, “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.”
In other words, there are people who do not get cured. Jesus did not always stick around long enough. Rather, Jesus seems to be more interested in proclaiming the saving news, of God. Not everyone gets a cure, but Jesus hopes that everyone hears the saving news of God. Can we just stop and sit with that for a moment?
We often cry out in grief, “Jesus, why didn’t you cure my loved one!” It seems that Jesus might say in return, “I never promised that I would.”
Are we missing something here? Whenever I get to one of these points in my life of faith, where I do not understand…where I seem to be missing something, I return to God’s word and look even closer. And, when I look closer if often find that I am right, I have missed something.
And, we definitely missed something in this story. We glanced right over the top of it and did not give it a second thought. Here it is: when Simon’s mother-in-law is healed, the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible says that Jesus “lifted her up.” But, that is such a poor choice of words; it should read that Jesus “raised her up.”
She was “raised.”
Being “arisen” is what the preacher in the gospel of Mark is trying to get us to latch onto.
Does the word “raised” make you think of the cross and the grave, because it should? Does this word make you think of Jesus coming out of the grave to do more and teach more and be more through the power of the Holy Spirit, because it should?
Jesus heals the woman so that she too can be raised to do more and teach more and be more. She is raised to be the person that God has created her to be, a disciple of love and service. And, though the mother-in-law was “cured” in order to be healed and in order to serve Jesus, you do not have to be cured in order to be healed.
Let me say that again. You do not have to be cured in order to be healed.
You do not need to have a cure in order to be restored to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. If healing in the Bible means that you have a restored relationship with God and neighbor (which it does), then Jesus does not have to provide a cure for that to happen. You just need to be raised up!
Listen, I know plenty of people with disabilities who are making a bigger difference in this world than I. They have not been cured, but they most certainly have been healed. They have been raised up!
My friend’s mother was no longer able to be the hostess of her former life, but that did not keep her down. Jesus raised her from a lost, depressed state and led her into a new ministry of connection. She made calls, and listened to cries, and arranged for others to gather with her, to gather with God, and to gather with their neighbors. She was not cured, but she most certainly was healed. She was raised up!
And you, sisters and brothers in Christ, may have had a cure at one time or another. If you have, that is great. Praise be to Jesus!
But, do not be mistaken, Jesus does not promise a cure. Jesus does promise, however, that you will be raised up. You will be healed from all that is holding you back from being the person that God has created you to be. You will be raised up to a new life and a new purpose and a new calling for as long as you are granted life here on this good earth. And, that is where, sisters and brother in Christ, true healing is found.
That healing will raise you up so that you will again be a disciple who follows Jesus’ saving news, the news he so dearly desires you to hear; the news of a divine love that rescues, and saves, and, yes, even heals.
You have been raised up until that day when you will gather with the choir in heaven and sing:
“I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me!
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me!
I’m so glad, Jesus lifted me!
Singing ‘Glory, Alleluia, Jesus lifted me.”
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