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Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, be unto you. Amen.
Can you imagine if you were given the gift of being able to take away someone’s suffering, and when you took it away from them, you could see in their countenance it being released from them? What a feeling of power. If you could take away a physical ailment of theirs, and just by being there and touching them or speaking to them, it could be dissolved. An amazing amount of power you would feel and realize within yourself. And the temptation would be to go about the entire world and do such a thing. But that was not why Jesus was sent.
See, this morning we’re going to talk about the hidden glory of the gospel. Because in this morning’s text, it speaks about people who thronged to Jesus to be healed. And they received in their body that healing. Amen. And Jesus saw in their countenance the release of that pain and misery. But He knew in His heart, because He is God, that they would still have to face what we all must face, death. And Jesus did not come just to bring healing to a material, earthly body that will die and rot in the tomb. He came to bring everlasting life for the resurrection of that body and to glory.
Now the previous text… The previous verse, mind you, right before 29, is 28, obviously. And that verse says, The fame of which St. Mark writes is not about the gospel. The fame of which Mark writes is about healing. Jesus brought healing to these people. Yes, they were amazed at his preaching, but the fame was not from his preaching. Or if it was, it didn’t last long. Think about the thousands. No, the tens of thousands of people that witnessed great power and glory of Christ’s healing and miracles. Just taking the two feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. Right there is 20,000 to 40,000 people. Throw in all these others. And where were these thousands and tens of thousands of people who saw in their flesh and bone healing, whose loved ones saw in their afflicted loved ones’ bones wellness and wholeness when Jesus was crushed for them? They were nowhere to be found. Of all those tens of thousands, Scripture tells us there were only several hundred that were with the church at the beginning.
This is the great struggle that you and I have in this world. We know God is powerful. We know God is strong and mighty to save. But by golly, we get tired. And we want to see that immediate result and that immediate gratification just as they saw in the healing of their bodies. But we don’t. We do see something that’s very immediate, but it’s hidden. We have seen things—people raised from the dead here in this church—but it doesn’t look like it in that baptism. The baby still cries, still soils its diapers, and yet resurrection has taken place before our very eyes. That is the gospel, but that’s hidden. It’s different than the healing of which this text speaks.
So when Jesus removes himself to pray on a lonely mountainside and his disciples come, they’re saying, everybody’s waiting on you. The temptation for Jesus to go back to that and be acclaimed as a miracle worker? Huge. You and I would want that. Because there’s power. There is revelation and there is gratification. Proof in the pudding. And Jesus says, no, I’ve got to go around and preach the gospel. You and I know what happens when the gospel is preached. Some believe and most do not. Remember, this is why it’s carved in the front of the pulpit: the parable of the seed and sower. Some believe, most do not. And it’s hidden. It’s hidden. And that’s frustrating for you and for me. That’s the way of the gospel.
Jesus, when he goes and ascends the cross, is the glory-filled one, and yet he looks like the cursed and looks like the damned. In fact, he is the cursed, and he is the damned. But that’s the good news for you and me. I spoke with a man whose eyes filled with tears as he struggled with why his children and his grandchildren, not all, but most, do not come to church regularly. And in his mind, he thinks, and I would think the same thing, what is wrong with the church? What’s wrong with this gospel? Why isn’t it producing the result that it produced in me? Why isn’t it working the work that I’ve seen it work? Why isn’t it happening?
I would ask the same question, and that’s the hidden aspect of it. You know there had to have been people who Jesus did not heal that were coming and looking for him the next day, that he went on to preach the gospel in another town who were waiting and going, I didn’t get healed. Does God not love me? No different than there are people today who have prayed to the Lord to bring healing to their flesh and blood, and it does not come, and in fact it gets worse, and they die. Did God not hear them?
Brothers and sisters, God has been hearing these prayers for thousands of years of faithful husbands who want their wives to believe, of faithful wives who wish their husbands would believe, of faithful children who pray that their parents believe, of faithful parents and grandparents who pray for their grandchildren and children like this man that I speak of. He’s been hearing these prayers always, and he answers these prayers. Our flesh and bone says, Show me, Lord! And his gospel says, believe in the promise.
The world out there looks at all that we’re doing as being a complete farce. We tell the world, we make believers by pouring water on them and then having two sinful, broken, and frail men preach something to them that brings faith. That’s what we say to the world. And the world goes, y’all are crazy. And is that not where there is power? In that water and in the word that preached by frail, broken men. Yes, because the power is not in the frail, broken men or in that water, but in that which is being proclaimed in and through that. That’s hidden glory. Hidden glory. That’s the hidden glory of the gospel.
As soon as we do not see something that we expect, we are frustrated with God. Isaiah spoke of this frustration. Hence why he said, Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the foundations of the world? It’s he who sits above the circle of the earth. It’s he who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. It’s he who spreads out like a tent all for people to dwell in. It’s he who brings princes to nothing. It’s he who makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
But Isaiah puts into words the words of you and me and our frustration. That’s why he says, why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? Why do you say, beloved brethren, as believers, my way is hidden from the Lord. My right is disregarded by my God. He’s not seeing the fact that I’m not seeing results of this gospel of which we are supposed to be all about. And then Isaiah reminds them again. And that’s when he adds, they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. There’s hope.
Do not let despair be what Satan feeds you and you eat. Spit it out. You and I have to spit out that despair which Satan is cultivating like a great gardener within our hearts. He wishes us to see the fallacy of this thing called the gospel. He wishes us to see the complete impotency of this thing we call the gospel and say, it’s got to change. It’s got to be different. It somehow has to be able to do this, which we see in ourself.
So when Jesus says, I’ve come to preach the gospel here and here and here, that’s his main reason. Many were healed, but not all. And even of those who were healed, they all had to face, like you and I did, death. Think of the poor. In many ways, you’ve got to think of it being kind of an irony that those who Jesus raised from the dead had to die again. The widow’s son at Nain, Lazarus, the little girl, they all had to die again even though they were raised from the dead.
We are continually put upon us by this world that says everything matters in this short amount of time. And if it doesn’t happen, it’s not truth. And that’s not right. Don’t swallow that pill. The reason Jesus hides the glory of the gospel is because it’s not to be understood or made sense out of. It’s to be believed. For this man, he has to lay his head down every night and say, I don’t understand, Lord, why my children, most of them aren’t in the church, but I have to trust that you will do your work. Lord, I don’t understand why I’ve prayed for this and this has not come about. I must trust your work of the gospel. It will accomplish it.
Remember, it was Paul who said it was powerful and mighty. In fact, Paul was so concerned about it, he even said in the epistle reading this morning, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Not, woe to me if I don’t perform a miracle. Not, woe to me if I can prove to them with logic and reason that God is the only way. He did not say, woe to me if I can’t make a convincing argument of this truth known as Jesus Christ dying and rising again. He just said, woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel.
And the gospel is hidden to the world, but not to you. That’s why you’re here. You believe this. Your mind doesn’t, your flesh doesn’t, but your soul believes this, and it will see the glory of what is to come. We are so tempted in this world to think that this gift that God has given to us doesn’t work. We hearken back to when we thought it worked at one time because we could measure all these results, and we look at it and say, well, it’s not doing what it used to do, therefore we must get rid of it and try something different.
Remember, this is the Lord who had to watch tens of thousands of people whom he had touched and brought healing turn their back from him and fall away and shout out, crucify, crucify. Who saw the little handful of believers gathering in fear and greet them with, peace be unto you. My peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. The hidden glory of the gospel is what we go to sleep in in peace. God will bring about what he has promised, even if we don’t see it in our lifetime, and even if we don’t experience it in our families.
It has been believed by you. It has been experienced by you. You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. If it is what God worked in you, it is powerful and effective, because you and I are no different than the ones for whom we mourn. In the name of the one who will bring about his will in our lives and in our loved ones’ lives. Amen.
Jesus. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
